Light My Fire ;)

I'm a little behind on my postings, but this is from Valentine's Day. I prepared a fondue - which is just perfect for a long, romantic Valenine's Day meal. I only did the peanut oil/main course fondue - I've never done a cheese one(but I plan to), and didn't prepare a chocolate/dessert one since I already had dessert - the yummy pb cheesecake brownies in my blog. You can include whatever combination of meat/seafood/veggies you like, and pair them with dipping sauces - either prepared or homemade. I got some inspiration from Gourmet Sleuth & Go Fondue web sites.

Romantic Fondue

Meat: chicken breast & beef tenderloin, cubed
Seafood: peeled/deveined uncooked shrimp
Vegetables: cherry tomatoes, green & red pepper, and red pepper (cut into chunks) & baby bella mushrooms (halved)

I served the fondue with Creamy Parmesan Orzo, in my blog under Pasta.

I marinated the chicken & beef in some garlic flavored olive oil, salt & pepper for 30 minutes. Soy sauce would be great too!

Dipping Sauces:

These are really rough estimates, I kind of added more/less of ingredients to taste, as well as how much we needed.

BBQ Sauce - I recommend Sweet Baby Ray's or Stubby's Mesquite ;)

Ginger Teriyaki - mix 1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce, 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger(fresh if you have on hand)

Garlic Herb Butter - melt some butter, maybe 4 tablespoons, and stir in 1/4 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 tsp Italian herbs, 1 tsp minced garlic

Honey Dijon Mustard - mix 1/2 cup dijon mustard & 3 tbsp honey

Hoisin Dipping Sauce -mix 1/4 cup lime juice, 1/2 cup hoisin sauce, 2 tablespoons ketchup & season with salt & pepper

Spicy Oriental Sauce - mix 2 tbs soy sauce, 1.5 tbs lemon juice, 1/2 tsp crushed red peppers, 1 clove garlic, 2 tsp sesame oil

Lemon Basil Olive Oil - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, dash of salt & pepper, 1/4 fresh chopped herbs(I had basil & parsley), 1 tbsp lemon juice

Fill a fondue pot with peanut oil (not to the top, a little more than half), then dump into a pot and heat on the stove till oil reaches 375 degrees. Remove from stove & carefully put back in fondue pot, and place on stand above the flame. I also added a tablespoon of Fondue Seasoning from The Melting Pot restaurant, but I'm sure you could always add your own faves - like garlic salt, onion powder, Italian seasoning, etc.

Spear your meat & veggies w/the fondue forks, and cook. Unfortunately, I didn't time it but it's less than 5 minutes - the veggies & shrimp cook the fastest.

And it's a fondue rule that if your food falls off the fork, you must kiss!