Alps: potato and cheese overview!

As I looked through my recipe books trying to decide what combination of potatoes and cheese I should make I become very torn. Mainly because I could not bring myself to use a substitute cheese when it was the whole taste and charter of a dish. Two of my favorite treats from the Alps are Tartiflette and Raclette.
Tartiflette is a potato dish made with ripe Reblochon cheese, onions, bacon, garlic and butter, all baked up to an amazing. It is a truly indulgent dish created to restore after cold days.

Raclette is also a cheese and potato dish but it can have a little more flare. The cheese you use in a Raclette is Raclette cheese so that is pretty simple to remember. Raclette uses a grill (specifically for this dish) that has individual little dishes in which you place a piece of cheese and it gets cooked in the grill. When it is melted you slide it out of the tray and onto your potatoes. Raclette also includes a verity of raw meat that is cooked on top of the grill along with any veggies your heart desires. But don’t for get the little cornichon pickles because it just wouldn't be Raclette with out them.

If you really want to try Raclette with out buying one of these grills you can just melt the cheese in a pan but you would not want to do that with more than a couple people it would be too much work.

So after dreaming about these dishes and knowing that very soon I would be able to eat the real thing with the real cheese I decided to make some thing that required no cheese... however it is still amazingly good!