Raclette, anyone?

It was my turn to host the monthly ladies dinner and after having a fabulous dinner at Allison's a few months back, I knew exactly what I was going to try.

Raclette!

Many thanks to Allison for letting me borrow hers! It's a little table grill on which each guest cooks her own meat, potatoes and vegetables. Underneath the grill you put little trays to melt cheese for the grilled bits you cooked on top. It is delicious. You cook as much as you want. All the flavours of what everyone else is cooking mingles with yours. Yummy! Guests cook at their own pace. Super easy for the hostess because all you do is cut up the meat and vegetables and boil the potatoes a head of time. 

Julia was a huge help to me -- I guess this comes from being almost 7 years old. The dinner party was the Monday after the March break so we had some time on the weekend to get ready. She helped with the table setting and with the new dessert we were going to try for the ladies.  

These dinners are always an opportunity to try something new, and if the recipe doesn't work out there's no pressure. We've been meeting monthly for we think (! - no one is quite sure when we started! - I guess that comes with us being in our 40s and 50s and 60s!) 15 years, so if a recipe doesn't work out quite the way one planned, not to worry!

Julia shows off our layered strawberry cheesecake trifle that we tried from this season's Kraft Cooking magazine. It was a perfect springtime treat. We made lots of chocolate dipped strawberry garnishes.

And here are the ladies, big and small (Alyse and Julia were special guests at this event), trying out the grilling. Everyone was excited; the ladies weren't even bothered that they had to cook their own dinner :) And, guess what? Now they all want to get a raclette grill too.

Moe shows off her grilling technique and you can see Shelley and Karen preparing their little trays to go under the grill. My mouth is watering remembering it.