Thank goodness because their food was so GOOD.
Deciding what to make was difficult. There were so many options! Because Swiss food was a mix French, German, and Italian cuisine thanks to their shared borders, there was no shortage of options we could potentially choose.
But of course, fondue was definitely in.
When I heard Jenny was making Aelplermagronen, which is a potato-apple-mac n' cheese, I decided that I should do a veggie dish and a dessert. Dessert was an easy choice (nut cake!) and I was thinking I would just do a simple side salad when I saw a really interesting photo in an ad. Hook me with the photo and reel me in with the name. Vegducken???
Vegducken is the vegetarian version of Turducken, if you didn't figure out that from the name. Instead of the duck in a chicken in a turkey combo, this is the zucchini in a eggplant in a squash version. A comment was made on their website that the name was a little misleading as there is no duck or chicken and that it should be call Squeggini (SQUash, EGGplant, zucchINI). We agreed. Squeggini it is! Now, this recipe isn't Swiss in any way, really, it's more of a science experiment. But come on! A zucchini in an eggplant in a squash? Who could resist that?
After 4 solid hours of cooking I was off to my friends place... to do more cooking.
With past recipes I feel like though we were excited, there was still a bit of trepidation with the recipes. In this case, it was pure excitement. (And in Jenny's case, it was probably the excessive amount of caffeine she showed up with in her system.)
Thank goodness we agreed to do fondue as an appetizer. And thank goodness we did it way early because that was a meal by itself.
In the midst of the cooking frenzy we decided we just HAD to take a photo with this super duper Swiss flag on her chalk board that Amber made.
And here begins the the mystery of the red socks. Later I noticed my socks weren't a white as I remembered them. It looked like I walked through something red and they were a little pink all over. After checking with the others that they have the same symptoms, and a bit of searching around, we realized that the red chalk had fallen off the chalk board and we had cleaned it up with our feet. For a minute I was worried I had accidentally dyed my most recent load of laundry red!
My Squeggini came out of the oven 15min before everything else. It... looked... AWESOME!!! Of course I just HAD to have a bite. Then someone reminded me that I was supposed to add the maple butter topping, and it tasted even better. And then they reminded me that I needed to add the toasted pecans and it tasted EVEN BETTER. This recipe is a keeper.
After totally starting to eat before the table is even set, the food is READY!!!!!
With the table set, the variety of dishes, and the smell of the holidays in the air it was like we were celebrating Thanksgiving prematurely. Friendsgiving!!!
As we serve ourselves I remind everyone that there still is a nut cake so don't fill up too much. Too late! I look up to see the piles of food that everyone had served themselves and the looks on there faces that clearly indicated that they forgot that there was a "second course". As we ate one of my friends says, "you remember when you were serving me and I said I wanted more? I shouldn't have said that."
Plenty of leftovers meant plenty of challenges to "eat all of that in one sitting" which included stipulations like "no throwing up" and time limits, as well as a cash reward. It didn't happen. We were so full.
It only took 2 hours of playing canasta for us to work up the desire to partake of the nut cake. (It took a lot less time for us to start the innuendos.) One small slice of delicious cake later we were all back to, "ooohhhhh jeeze I'm so full."
Yep, I said canasta.
(Celebrated November 14th, 2015)
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