Tonight I (Alex) was really craving Swiss food so I decided to make a traditional Swiss meal.  Plus we had bought a “pre-made” Rosti in Switzerland that I wanted to try. I was worried it might not be good so I decided to make my own and have my brother and parents taste test them…it was a Rosti Challenge.  Max had late soccer practice so he couldn’t helped with the rosti but he did help with the grilled sausages.  The full meal was Rosti (potato/cheese pancakes), grilled bratwurst, and a spinach salad.  For dessert we had an improvised a pumpkin cheesecake made out out of 4 ingredients mom gave me:  canned pumpkin, cream cheese, frozen cinnamon rolls and walnuts.  It was fun to make and if you like cheesecake, pretty good.

The Rosti Challenge:

My Rosti had grated gruyere cheese, grated potato, panko bread crumbs and an egg.  I also added a little vegetable oil bind it.  Not sure what my competition (in the brown package) had since the ingredients were in German.

Even cooking them I had an idea which one I would like better (mine are the three smaller pancakes; my competition is the large square one: once I put it in the pan it just fell apart!).   And after I cooked them, it was clear mine were better! Anyone could see that the other “rosti” had just become fried potatoes.  Mine was the obvious winner (at least in my mind). [I (Max) agree: Alex’s were better because they were full of cheese and potatoes.  The packaged rosti tasted minerally and didn’t look like a rosti: it just ended up a pile of sauteed potatoes.]  Mom and Dad agreed with Max as well–I won the ROSTI CHALLENGE.

  vs.    

Here’s the rest of the meal:

For the dessert: I put the cinnamon rolls in the food processor and pulsed with a little butter to make a crust. I pressed that into muffin tins.  For the filling I combined the canned pumpkin with the cream cheese and added sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.  It seemed a little dense so I whipped cream and folded that into the batter.  Then I spooned the batter into the little tins.  I pulsed the walnuts in the food processor with some left over cinnamon rolls to make a topping and added a dab of whipped cream.  It was fun. I just don’t like cheese cake but if I did, I would have like this dessert.