First off, I hope you had a fabulous, relaxing, and safe Christmas! I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks…I was OBE (overcome by events) as Christmas approached. So despite my intentions to post a cheery Christmas message, that didn’t happen. But I DO have some fun ideas for New Year’s Eve, since it may look a little different for many of us this year. Our days of going out on NYE ended once we had kids, anyway, so it’ll be a usual evening at home for us, and we’ve come up with some fun traditions over the years.
We love having fondue nights, and, to be honest, I often buy a couple of packages of the fondue at the grocery store and just heat those, adding dippers such as veggies and charcuterie. I haven’t had great luck making fondue at home, probably because I get impatient with shredding cheese. But for dessert fondue, it takes just a few minutes to assemble our favorite Tuxedo Fondue (and there’s no cheese shredding involved).
Tuxedo Fondue
(dark chocolate and white chocolate fondues for dipping)
Dark Chocolate Fondue Ingredients:
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon almond or vanilla extract
- Combine chocolate chips, butter, sweetened condensed milk, and water in medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stirring constantly, cook over medium-low heat until smooth and thickened, about 5 minutes. DO NOT BOIL. Remove from heat and add almond or vanilla.
- Serve in fondue pot or ceramic bowl. If serving in glass bowl, let cool to barely warm before pouring into bowl to prevent breaking the glass.
White Chocolate Fondue Ingredients:
- 12-ounce package white chocolate chips
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons butter
- Combine heavy cream and butter in medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan over low-medium heat. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in white chocolate chips. Continue stirring until smooth.
- Serve in fondue pot or ceramic bowl. If serving in glass bowl, let cool to barely warm before pouring into bowl to prevent breaking the glass.
Serve with fruit (apples, bananas, strawberries, pears, pineapple),potato chips, pretzels, gingersnaps, poundcake…anything else that would be good in fondue!
Pro tip: If you are super talented, or have a helper, pour the two fondues into a bowl at the same time, then swirl at the top and bottom edge to make a yin-yang pattern.
Even though our kids are teens now, they love playing Minute to Win It games, and we always play some board games and watch movies…usually disaster movies, since they’re my secret vice. Yhttps://app.box.com/s/nbj7rb2b40w68tiqkdiwun0n30oaab10ou can find lots of Minute to Win It type games that use basic household supplies (such as red Solo cups…there are a lot of those in these games!) online. One of our favorite lists is here, at SignUpGenius.
Whatever you’re doing NYE, I hope you have a fun-filled evening, doing exactly as you please as we send this year out the door and welcome in 2021!
