Deconstructed Fondue Grilled Cheese with Gruyere, Emmentaler and Apple Cider

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I might just be falling apart 
but this recipe is for you!
Grilled cheese is rad
And so are you!
So I'm sort of sick right now and I really can't think of any funny jokes to write about how I'm going to spend tomorrow. Maybe all the sudafed and mucinex that I've taken has gone straight to my dome and blocked all of my ridiculousness (and grammatical skillz), but just to fill you in, I'm spending another Valentine's Day single. 

Now this doesn't mean that I'll be binge eating chocolate and taking shots of vodka while blaring Fleetwood Mac all alone again, because this time I'll be at work and can enjoy all the Mast Brothers chocolate i want, with my other single co-workers, without feeling a lick of pity. I hope. I mean...who knows? All the single ladies of Depanneur are scheduled to work tomorrow night so it might just turn into some weird, ridiculous sob fest where we talk a little too much about Ryan Gosling, gossip about our neighborhood crushes, and gorge ourselves on brillat-savarin. That actually sounds pretty fun now that I think about it. Or maybe I'll be so doped up on medicine that I'll start hallucinating and hide in the cheese case to scare oncoming lovers. Or maybe...Ok, enough of the possibilities for tomorrow. I'm sure you can imagine some weird things that I might get myself into but I'll get to the food. That's why you came here in the first place, right?
And because I'm metaphorically falling apart, I thought this would be an appropriate time to do a deconstructed grilled cheese. I know, i know, it's not really a grilled cheese but it's got all the goodness that makes up GC; toasted bread, delicious fillings, and of course, melted, gooey delicious cheese. 




Here's what you'll need if you have someone special or you don't mind having a shit ton of cheese to eat by your lonesome.

Ingredients:
FOR THE FONDUE:
-½ pound of gruyere, shredded
-½ pound of emmentaler, shredded
-1 cup of hard apple cider
-2 tablespoon of cornstarch
-1 teaspoon of mustard
-1 teaspoon of worcestershire 
-sea salt to taste
FOR THE DIPPERS:
-olive oil toasted baguette rounds
-bacon wrapped dates
-braised brussels sprouts
-and if you want to get really creative, take a heart shaped cookie cutter to some cranberry and nut bread... oh yes, it's delicious toasted and then  dipped in cheese
So to begin, make sure to get all your dippers together. To make what I did, just click the little links above or pair with whatever you'd like.
Then pour your cheese in a big ole bowl. The biggest bowl you can find!
FYI, that first paragraph took me two hours to write. I felt super unfunny and exhausted but now I'm starting to feel super loopy and a bit nutty. I THINK I MIGHT BE GOING STIR CRAZY!

Then toss it with some cornstarch... 
(I wanted to put something completely inappropriate here: "Then toss ***** *****" but that's just absurd and probably not a good idea. So asterisks it is!)


...So that each piece is lightly coated. This will help keep the cheese from getting all stringy and clumpy when it's in your fondue pot later on. Because that texture ain't sexy! And because no one wants to be hand-fed some gross, gnarled string cheese. This isn't bagged lunch, ya know. 



Meanwhile, bring your hard apple cider to a baby boil. I bought this really delicious one that we sell at the shop called JK Scrumpy's Hard Cider, and no I'm not joking that's the actual name, and I'm not gonna lie but I drank the rest of it and got pretty tipsy at 10 o'clock in the morning last Friday when I did this photoshoot. 

Oh! and in case you didn't know, a baby boil is when there are just teeny tiny bubbles at the bottom of your pan. I guess the correct term would be simmer but I prefer baby boil cause it's way cooler.  

Let the apple cider baby boil for about five minutes. It won't really reduce that much but you just should, at least that's what I read in the recipe that I adapted this from. I should probably give credit to that so here ya go... Thanks bon app. 


Then handful by handful, add in your cheese and stir each time until it's completely melted. Do not, i repeat, do not eat the cheese handful by handful. You will not have a sexy Valentine's. It'll just clog you up! GROSS MACKENZIE!

Now it's time to flavor-it-up! Add the mustard and worshirreelkjlkjf or however you spell it. That is truly one word i cannot say. Along with thousandths. Can't say that one either.
Anyways! Stir in those things and season with salt... and pepper if you choose. Pepper makes me sneeze uncontrollably. 

  
Then give it one last stir, just to make sure that it's all silky and smooth. You can totally dip lots of things in it to make sure that it tastes good at this point. Just to make sure, ya know? You don't want your special someone to be grossed out by one of the things you've thought to pair it with. So it just makes sense to try them all before you serve it! And you won't look like a ravaged scavenger that hasn't been fed for days when you present your amazing vat of cheesiness. 
 
Now that's the end! All you have to do is pour it in your fondue pot and light a little candy underneath and put your dippy items around it. Do it pretty or you'll get the wire hanger!

Then shove it in your lovers face so that they can truely see that you are the most  amazing Valentine that they've ever had and they're incredibly fortunate to have you! Whisper in a sexy voice "eat this baby"  and shove a pokey stick in a  brussels sprout or mini hot dog (why didn't I think of that before?!) and force feed them until it's all gone. Meanwhile, be sure to  remove that crazy smirk and demon eyes from your face and stop huffing with excitement. You've got them, for now. 
Love you all a lot,
xoxo,
GCS