Cheese Fondue

I love cheese. What better way to eat it than to melt it and dip food in it?! This cheese fondue recipe came from my mother-in-law who used to make this when her family lived in Switzerland. It is made with white grape juice instead of white wine. Fondue is our New Year's Eve tradition, but we also make it when apples are in season or when friends are visiting and they want me to make it. It's a fun way to eat dinner with your family.

Click here for printable recipe. 

The Ingredients:
1-1/2 cups white grape juice (I like the sparkling kind, but you can use the regular kind as well)
3 cups cheese, shredded mixture of Swiss, Emmenthal, Guyere ( Your cheese section at the grocery store should have these. You may also be able to find a cheese blend already shredded for you. I know I saw it at Wegmans)
2 Tbs. flour
dash nutmeg
1 clove garlic, cut in half
1-2 loaves french bread/baguettes
5-6 apples or pears or combination (use firm fruit)

The Directions:
The morning of or the day before, cut up your french bread into bite size pieces. They need to be dried out.
Cut fruit into bite size pieces and toss with lemon juice to prevent browning. (not the day before)
Shred the cheese and toss the flour with it. The flour will help it to not clump up while melting.

Add the grape juice to a non stick pan and heat to a low simmer or slightly bubbling.Keep heat at a medium temperature and add the cheese a couple handfuls at a time and stirring all the time.
In the beginning it will seem like the cheese is just floating around in the liquid and will never melt. Keep stirring occasionally. It will melt. If after 10 minutes it still hasn't started melting, turn the heat up a little. After all the cheese is melted then add the nutmeg.Turn down heat but keep stirring occasionally so it doesn't stick to pan. Prepare your fondue pot. Cut the garlic clove in half and rub it all over the inside of the pot. The bottom and the sides.(If you don't have a fondue pot, don't worry. I actually used my crockpot the last time I made this. Just make sure you heat up your crock pot so it's warm before you add the cheese or it will be a lot harder to keep it melted)

Pour the cheese into prepared fondue pot. You may need to adjust the flame underneath it occasionally and make sure that you occasionally stir the cheese in the pot. Otherwise, the cheese will stick and burn on the bottom of the pot. Use fondue forks to dip your bread and fruit into the pot. Hopefully people in your family take turns and won't fight over getting their food stuck at the bottom. Three energetic boys with fondue forks is never a good combination. Get creative with other foods to dip. I've used miniature sausages in the past and that's pretty good as well.
Tradition is that whomever looses their bread/apple at the bottom of the pan is the one who gets stuck with dishes. Or maybe that's just my in-laws' tradition. But it's a pretty good one. Bon appetit!