A Romantic Alpine Meal

 Unfortunately a ski week in the Alps is off the table for some of us. However  you can still have romantic food of the Alpine villages.The recipes can easily be made in your kitchen.

One of the most romantic dinners for two is fondue. It's nice to have the set, complete with the forks but you really don't need to. This classic Swiss dish  can be cooked on the stove top. Just use a heavy bottomed pan.  Set up a trivet or tile with tea lights underneath when you bring it to the table. (or just place a heavy pot holder on the table and then set the pot on top of it). Fondue is a cooked mix of Emmenthaler and  Gruyere cheeses flavored with white wine and a splash of  kirsch, the cherry liqueur.  You could add a clove of garlic for more flavor.  Once melted the fun starts with dipping  in chunks of French bread. You can also put in boiled and cut fingerling potatoes. A fun Valentine's Day meal comes from the Bavarian Alps. Think air fried wursts with mustard and pretzel bites with a good yeasty beer. A great dessert is kratizika or Kaiserschmarnn or scrambled pancake. It's making the pancake without baking powder. Whisked egg whites lift the batter into an airiness. The pancakes are cooked , then shredded. They can be be served with apple sauce but since it's Valentine's Day, sprinkle some apple jack on top.

The Italian Alps give us an array of romantic dishes perfect for the day. One of the lushest is bagna cauda. This can be made in a fondue pot on on  the stove. It literally means hot bath and is a tasty bubbling sauce of anchovies, melted with olive oil, butter and garlic. Savoy cabbage is usually one of the veggies cooked in it but you can also cook rare London broil cut into bite size pieces. Squares of Italian bread are a must here , especially after you've cooked the meat in it. The bread can sop up the flavorful mix of juices and bagna cauda - which is just a heavenly taste. How can you top this off? With chocolate cups filled with the Alpine city of Torino's signature candy  gianduja. It may have a fancy name but gianduja is easy to whip up. It';s a forerunner of Nutella and probably influenced the inventors.It's been around since the mid 1800's and the recipe hasn't changed. It's combining skinned hazelnuts, dark chocolate, sugar, butter and heavy cream. The hazelnuts are roasted and then pulsed with sugar. The chocolate is melted in the microwave and then blended with the butter, cream and hazelnut mixture. iIll chocolate cups with this or even use as a filling for cakes or cupcakes.

You don;t; have to go to the Alps for a romantic, snowy dinner. You can easily make the food of any of the Alps, Italian, German Swiss or French for a sweet Valentine's Day meal. It's a fun getaway in your kitchen or dining room.

Hearty Alpine Cuisine The Perfect Chill Chaser

 Mountain folk know how to eat. Alpine cuisine is hearty, flavorful and filling - perfect for these cold days ahead. It's embracing delicious dishes that can chase away the chill.

Everyone thinks that alpine cuisine just means Swiss food but it encompasses much more. There's also the food of the Northern Italian, French and Southern German alpine area as well. All the foods are rich with cheese and butter as well as with protein.It has to be this way because the inhabitants of these beautiful mountain regions need heavy foods to combat the brutal winters and freezing temps. Swiss cuisine is indicative of this. One recipe that's sure to win over an American crowd is hacktatschli smashed meatballs served with a creamy mushroom sauce. This is a favorite all over the country with Swiss school kids even though it has a glug of white wine added. There's a potato version kartoffel hatscchli which can be served with the sauce as well. From the canton Uri comes rispor or leek risotto rich with the winter veggie and topped with clouds of  the Swiss-Italian cheese sbrinz. This is the perfect dish for those frosty nights in with the family. Bakers will love spinatwahe or spinach quiche a mix of the green along with garlic, herbs and cream tucked into a buttery pie shell.

The Italian alpine regions of Piedmonte and Lombardy bring us rich rice or risotto dishes. Both are made with the chewy long grain arborio rice; the only difference being is that the Piedmontese use tomato sauce  for flavor while the Lombards use saffron. This a great and easy chill chaser to make  for a cold snowy night. Usually reserved for parties , the Piedmontese bagna calda is a tasty fun dinner for a family weekend in. The name means hot bath and is a blend of anchovies, butter, olive oil and garlic melted and heated in a fondue pot. savoy cabbage leaves are the traditional add in but you can also add semi cooked London broil for a truly filling meal (along with crusty Italian bread for mopping up the sauce in the pot afterwards). Swiss chard and potatoes can also be dipped in along with onions, celery and spinach. Across the Alps in the Swabia home chefs make the warmly satisfying Gaisburger Marsch, a nourishing beef stew rich with potatoes and spaetzle, the little dumpling noodles. Spaetzles are also made and served with large heaping spoonfuls of sauerkraut and a platter of different wursts. This is a great weekend meal because it requires  steaming or boiling everything.

Alpine cuisine means hearty foods served in even heartier quantities. These are perfect for the cold months ahead. Make them and feel cozy on the inside and out.