{Cheese Fondue}

One of my girlfriends and my favorite things to do for a Girls Night is homemade fondue. Our love for obsession for fondue began when we went to a very nice restaurant a couple of years ago for a Birthday. It was delicious, but pretty pricey. I had made fondue once years before and we knew we could easily master it.

Our go-to is always cheese fondue. Who doesn't love a big vat of cheese, right? IF we leave enough room, we have chocolate fondue for dessert. This particular night, we stuffed ourselves on the cheese and faded into a food coma before we could make the chocolate so I will have to post that another time.

It may seem intimidating, but fondue is actually very easy to make at home. Once you have a good core recipe, you can change it to make any kind that you like.

This recipe is a basic cheddar recipe and uses milk for the liquid. To change the recipe, you can add other flavoring items, alter the type of liquid used (for example, beer or white wine) or mix up the cheese used.

Here is the base recipe that can be altered to your liking.

1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon worchestershire sauce
1 1/2 cup milk
2 cups cheddar cheese

Start with all of the ingredients in the pan except the cheese. Mix them together well and heat over medium heat.

Heat until the butter melts and it just begins to simmer.

At this point you can start adding your shredded cheese.

Add the cheese a handful at a time and stir until the cheese is completely melted.

When the cheese has melted completely, pour into your preheated fondue pot. That's it! Can you believe how easy that is?

We like to serve our cheese fondue with carrots, apples, celery, tortilla chips, French bread and most importantly, homemade pizza dough (I will post the super easy recipe that I make in my KitchenAid mixer).

We were so busy digging in that we forgot to look up when I set the camera timer the first time!

Finally, some examples of variations...

My favorite variation is using beer (good old red, white, and blue Budweiser works just fine) and adding fresh garlic and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

We also made a Mexican version recently that was quite tasty. Use beer as the liquid and substitute salsa for the butter.

My friends and I love our fondue nights! It is such a fun, social meal that is great for a get together or a date night at home. {Enjoy!}