Fondue anyone?

When we lived in Hawaii last year, a family invited us over for their annual fondue party on Christmas Eve.  Seeing as we had no family around to spend the evening with and we weren't doing presents until we flew back to Utah, we opted to join them.  It was a blast!  Good food, good company, and fun memories.  Doug vowed that it would become a Christmas tradition for us.

We found one fondue pot at a local thrift store a few months ago for about $10 or so and started collecting.  We ended up acquiring 5 fondue pots in about 24-hours prior this week from local classifieds for $5 each (and one was even free!).  We invited some friends to our house, did some shopping, did some searching for recipes, and threw a fondue party!

Doug's family makes a yummy Pizza Fondue.

Found a cheese fondue recipe on Pinterest.

We prepared lots of yummy things to dip: mini sausages, lots of bread, sausage, veggies (cauliflower, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, bell pepper, celery, and broccoli), and cheese for the savory table.

The dessert table was equally yummy with great dipping items: graham crackers, angel food cake, marshmallows, pumpkin bread, cookies, cinnamon bears, blackberries, apples, pineapple, clementines, and pretzels)

We had two sweet fondues as well, caramel (courtesy of Pinterest) was a big hit, although it took much longer to make than I anticipated.

The vegan chocolate fondue didn't turn out right.  It was delish, but texture was odd and it was oily looking.  This could have something to do with Doug using baker's chocolate (unsweetened) instead of the chocolate chips the recipe called for...just sayin'.

Ethan and Sydney had a great time with their friends during the party.  They had Brynlee and Quentin over and were in heaven.  Ethan did shed MANY tears over my friends Chenae and Mat not bringing their kids, and we vowed to have a play date.  It was heart-breaking tears.

Next time, we might make Cheesy roasted jalapeno fondue, and I need to make my vegan nacho cheese fondue.  I didn't have ripe avocados and decided to not make it.  Here's the recipe (thanks to my fabulous friend, Shanna, who went to a restaurant with me and came up with this recipe after eating it):

Mock-cheese nacho cheese sauce
1/3 c nutritional yeast
1 c Almond milk
1/2 tsp Garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
heaping 1/4 tsp chili powder
heaping 1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp Salt
pinch cayenne pepper

Put in a saucepan and bring to a boil until it thickens a tiny bit. I throw in a few pinches probably close to 1/4 tsp anthem gum (I use 1/4 cup or so of corn starch) to thicken it a bit.

Then add:
1 avocado (diced)
1/4 cup salsa (I use medium)
1/2 can or so black beans