International Incident Party– Nostalgia

 I have a great memory for food.  When someone mentions a time or an event I can usually remember exactly what food was served right down to every last detail about taste and garnishes.  It’s just a gift I suppose. My trouble is I have a very bad memory for names and faces, but I guess you can’t be good at everything.

So for the topic of food nostalgia a dish which comes to mind is the Cheese Fondue.  I am a 70’s kids after all.

When I left home one of the first kitchen purchases I made was a cast iron fondue set.  The set was only ever used twice, once for a chocolate fondue and once more for a cheese fondue.  I then proceeded to cart it from flat to flat all through out the Eastern suburbs of Sydney for the next ten years.  One day I had enough and it was given an unceremonious goodbye and dumped ready for a council rubbish collection.

So imagine my surprise when I came across this delicious alternative to a cheese fondue. It has all the luscious gooeyness of the 70’s icon but with a degree sophistication and decorum that was probably lacking in the original.

I particularly enjoyed the roasted vegetables. They were baked with rosemary and thyme from my garden plus a couple of cloves of garlic for good measure.  The gorgeous aroma in the kitchen was perfect for the start of the Autumn chill.

Ingredients:

300gm wheel Camembert or Brie

200gm sweet potato

2 carrots

2 potatoes

3 zucchini

1 capsicum

1 bulb garlic

3 sprigs rosemary

5 sprigs Thyme

Olive Oil Spray

Salt & Pepper

1 garlic bread

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

Peel and cut all the vegetables into equal sized cubes. Leave the garlic in the peel.

Place all the vegetable in a baking tray and spray liberally with olive oil. Add the herbs to the tray and cook the vegetables until they are soft and golden, turning once.

Cut the bread into cubes and add to the tray until it has also toasted nicely.

Remove the baking tray from the oven and set aside.

Place the Camembert on a heat resistant serving platter. Slit the top of the cheese in a cross pattern.

Place the cheese in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove the cheese platter from the oven and add the vegetables to the serving platter. Enjoy.

This would also make a great weekend dish if you wanted to lounge around in pajamas eating and watching movies at home.