Hooray for Fondue!

For graduation I got a fondue pot and recipe book. Tonight was our first try with it. We made Parmesan Fondue with Pesto Swirl, and Hazelnut Chocolate Midnight. IT WAS AMAZING!

Here is the recipe for the first:

1lb cream cheese

2 cups half and half

1 1/2 cups freshly shredded Parmesan

Dash of Salt

1/2 cup pesto

Melt the cream cheese in a double boiler or in heavy cast iron pot (thats what I've got). I used super low heat too.

Gently stir in the half and half until smooth and heated through. (this takes a long time)

Add the Parmesan and stir until it melts and thickens the fondue (this takes forever too lol)

Add just a tiny dash of salt

Transfer mixture to your fondue pot or just take your fondue pot from the stove to its heating devise.

Drop tablespoons of pesto over the top and swirl til beautiful!

Keep the pot on low heat so the Fondue stays warm but not hot.

I served ours with:

(I wish I remember the actual name) a hard sourdough garlic bread chopped into cubes and tossed in olive oil, a little garlic from my garlic grinder, and fresh chopped parsley, toasted under the broiler till just barely crispy.

We barely steamed up some yellow squash, zucchini, and broccoli

We also had granny smith apples but they didn't really work with this particular fondue.

We cut the recipe in half since there are just the 2 of us. Even cut in half we probably still could have fed an additional 2 people. Absolutely delicious! We had to go sit for a bit and then go walk it off after eating so much I thought my stomach would explode! I was really happy with this recipe. It was flavorful without being over powering. Plus, as far as cheese fondues go, it was relatively inexpensive to make. Also, there was no wine or other spirits in it! It seems like 98% of the fondue recipes I have call for some form of liquor. I don't mind adding it since the alcohol cooks out but what I do mind is that unless its white wine (that I keep around for some of my chicken and fish recipes) I don't have any in our house. This means I have to spend 9 or more bucks on a whole huge bottle when I only need 1/4 cup or even less. Then the likelihood of me actually using it again is slim to none. That doesn't even start on the where do I store it in this tiny little apartment. So like I was saying, its really nice that this recipe is made of simple, affordable ingredients, and still tastes high quality. The texture was very nice as well. Here is what it looked like:

It would hardly be a fondue night without a dessert fondue. We went with a classic bittersweet chocolate fondue accented with hazelnut.

Here is the recipe for that:

1 cup heavy cream

Dash of salt

1 lb bitter sweet chocolate chopped (you can get this in the bins at WinCo in the little melties)

2 Tbs of Frangelico or hazelnut Torani syrup ( I have a SF hazelnut Torani so we used that)

3 Tbs Nutella

In sauce pan (or your fondue pot) heat the cream and salt over low heat until hot but not boiling

Gradually stir in the chocolate letting each addition melt before adding more. (I did about 1/4 cup at a time)

Stir in the syrup and Nutella.

Transfer to fondue pot on lowest setting. Turn off the heat if it starts to boil!

We ate ours with:

Granny Smith apples

Bananas

Strawberries

Pound cake cut into cubes and broiled til lightly crisped

Mini Macaroons

Doughnut holes

and

Coconut covered marshmallows

SOO yummy! It was just a hint of hazelnut though, so if I make it again, I may add more nutella and syrup. Also the bitter sweet melties are more expensive than the milk and dark chocolate melties for some weird reason. I would recommend buying milk and dark and just mixing them yourself to make your own custom bittersweet melties. (As far as I can tell this is what the bitter sweet melties were) I would make mine just a little less bitter. I think little frozen cheese cake bites would have been awesome to dip in it as well, and I if i could find some I would want to have a little bowl of chopped hazelnuts to roll the dipped items in. We cut this one in half and we had left overs too!

Here it is:

Both of these recipes were my variations on Peggy Fallon recipes. She has some great ideas!