Making The Melting Pot at Home!

Tonight it's time for a special Make At Home meal. When the kids found out what it was, they asked why we were having it since it wasn't Valentines Day. That's because tonight we're having a special fondue. We're making The Melting Pot At Home!
There's two main things we like at The Melting Pot. The melted cheese.

And the melted chocolate. We've never been big fans of the Entrees there. What's that good about boiled meat? So tonight we're doing cheese fondue and chocolate fondue! Should be tasty!

There's a few things we're going to have to prepare for all this. Theresa is starting us off with the smallest batch of Rice Krispy Treats she's ever made. It's 1/4 of the regular recipe size.

And once she's done making it, it's going into a square container.

That's 1 serving size in my book. We'll cut it up later for the dessert plate.

There's not much better than bread and cheese fondue. We're used to buying a baguette from the grocery store for our fondue nights, but today I'll be making it from scratch. I'm using the recipe I've used in all my previous French Bread recipes from allrecipes.com. Flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and water.

This stand-mixer has come in very handy. We're using it multiple times a weekend now.

After letting it rise, I rolled it out into a large rectangle.

Cut it in half.

And then rolled them up into these logs. I covered them with a cloth and let them rise again.

After giving it some time, I used a knife to split it down the middle and then brushed it with an eggwash.

Into the oven both of my loaves went.

And 25 minutes later I had two beautiful loaves of fresh bread. They smelled wonderful. Full truth, I baked two extra loaves, cut them into slices and had a stick of butter nearby. It slowly disappeared throughout the day.

Right before it was time to eat, I cut the loaves into cubes and returned them to the oven for a few minutes to toast them and warm them up.

Meanwhile Theresa is getting the cheese fondue warmed up. We've tried making our own cheese fondue before. It's turned out pretty good, but honestly it's a little expensive. By the time you buy the 3 difference cheeses in quantity along with the white wine, it's getting to be $20+.
We've experimented and found that the Swiss Castle Swiss Fondue from Cost Plus World Market has the great flavor we're looking for and it only costs $9!

A time saver and it's cheaper? That's a win for us in this case.

The kids were excited. This is one of their favorite meals.

And just a couple pictures of what we're trying to replicate. The Melting Pot Classic Alpine Cheese Fondue with bread and apples. The Chocolate Fondue with a variety of dipping goodies.

Our cheese fondue along with our toasted bread and apples. Oops, forgot about the vegetables.

Smile everyone!

Everyone loves the melted cheese and fresh bread.

The kids each got their own mini bowl of cheese along with a sampling to dip into it. No protein on the normal menu, but a hot dog will be good to dip into the cheese if they like.

And the apples were tasty dipped in cheese too.

After the cheese was finished it was time to prepare for dessert. Chi was supposed to be cutting up strawberries, but I caught her sneaking a few.

For the chocolate fondue, we've had really good luck with this Eagle Brand Chocolate Fondue from allrecipes.com. Chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, vanilla, butter, and a little bit of water. All things we already have on hand.

The thing I remember about the dessert dipping trays from The Melting Pot are their coated marshmallows. They have two kinds, an Oreo one and a graham cracker one. For the Oreos, it's easy. I have those in abundance. I removed the creme and buzzed the cookies into dust.

Graham crackers don't last long in our house, so I went with the next best thing, Golden Oreos. The only ones I have right now are from the Trolls World Tour Oreos and the creme filling inside is very pink. So pink it has stained the cookie. I'm sure it'll change the color overall, but what can you do.

With two bags of cookie dust, I was ready to go. The marshmallows were dunked in a bowl of warm water and then placed in the bag one by one.

And when they were done, they come out looking like this! So pretty!

Theresa started organizing our dessert plate, making sure things are fairly symmetrical.

This chocolate fondue is going to be so good!

That dessert plate of dippers is looking great! Those cookie dusted marshmallows we just made, along with the rice krispy treats. Add to that some cubes of homemade brownies, slices strawberries, pineapple, and some bananas and it's a delicious looking feast!

The kids were excited for this part. Chocolate fondue might be their favorite.

And the adults like it pretty good too.

Theresa is showing us the proper way to put together a skewer. Banana first since it's most prone to falling off, pineapple, and then a strawberry. Dip that into chocolate and it's almost like a banana split without the ice cream.

The kids have a little bit of everything.

Ian has updated his "favorite" meal from everything we've done at home a few times now. This one is now his top favorite. The boy loves fondue.

And Alli loves all things chocolate.

A rice krispy treat with chocolate and a strawberry? Why not. Anything goes with chocolate fondue. Everyone loved doing The Melting Pot at home!