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    I have a fondness for fondue dinners.  It all started back when my husband was stationed in Germany and we went to a church party at a Major's home, who was a member or our congregation.  They had a really nice quarters, and they hosted this fondue party.  It was so much fun.  There were several kinds of fondue, a large assortment of things to dip, plus other appetizers.  We all walked around the table multiple times just talking and eating as we stood for a while, and then filling our plates and talking and enjoying ourselves even more.  That party was the perfect mix of food and people.  I have tried to replicate it, but haven't really come close.  But, my love of fondue, partly because of my memory of that party, has not waned.  
    Now that school is back in for many, a special fun dinner is just the ticket for a family to de-stress and just enjoy some time together. Maybe you can create a long lasting memory of your own.  Fondue is fun with a lot of people enjoying it, and also just for 2 or 3!  Maddy is vegan, so she won't be eating the cheese and chocolate fondues with my husband and I tonight, but she can join in with many of the dippers and use some vegan dressings as a dip.  There are always options. 
     For a family get together, a great idea is to have a larger variety of fondues and assign lots of things to dip.  I like to give everyone a little cup to hold their fondue in on their plate, instead of them doing multiple dippings back into the pot.  That protects everyone from double dippers! If you don't have enough fondue forks, you can use skewers or just regular forks.  

    I know that the word "fondue" might sound intimidating, but it means "melted" and virtually everything goes! You can use many different kinds of cheese, hot oil for cooking thin cuts of meat right in the pot, savory sauces, like a marinara.  For dessert, chocolate is always a favorite, but you can do caramel or marshmallow and for dippers you are only limited by your imagination. 

    I am sharing 2 recipes with you today.  One is a main course or even an appetizer. The other is a dessert.  
     First, a goat cheese fondue that you will love! 

Goat Cheese Fondue

    For dipping I simply used things I already had on hand, pan grilled chicken chunks, zucchini, carrots, french bread.  You could also use crackers, peppers and any veggies you would like. 

    For dessert, Chocolate Fondue! This recipe whips up in no time. 

​Simple And Delicious Chocolate Fondue

    If you don't already have a fondue pot, I am sharing some links to some here.  Do you have any fondue memories?  How about recipes or favorite things to dip?  Share with us in the comments! 

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    Well, I've been having so much fun on this Fun Friday that the blog is going up a little late, but hey, you can still have fun all weekend long! 
    Yesterday I posted about the fresh pesto that I made without pine nuts out of the basil in my garden and I promised you a recipe to use it in.  So, today I am showing you a variety of recipes that you can make for a family pizza night, one of which is a Pesto-Goat Cheese Chicken Pizza! That is the great thing about DIY pizza, you can put whatever toppings on them that you want and personalize them to fit your taste.  
​     We like to use our favorite pizza dough recipe that I shared on this post long ago.  Or, if you are worried about gluten or anything like that, you can make or purchase a cauliflower crust.  Lindsey shared a recipe on this post. 

Pizza Pans and Stones:

    We have a few choices at our house.  

• We have a round metal pizza pan like this one, which works just fine. I usually spray it with cooking spray and sprinkle a little corn meal on the bottom. 
• I have the Pampered Chef rectangular stone.  I love it.  Pampered Chef also carries a round stone, in various sizes. 
• I have a couple of that I don't remember where I got them, but here are some similar ones. 
• We have had birthday parties where everyone was able to make their own personal pizza.  We used pie pans or cookie sheets as well.

Lots of Topping Choices:

    I know that some people just hate the idea of pineapple on pizza, but I love a good Canadian Bacon pizza with pineapple on it.  Here are some other topping ideas, apart from the normal pepperoni and cheese! 

• I got the Chicken-Pesto-Goat Cheese PIzza idea from Everyday Reading.  I just used my own crust and way of doing the toppings. 

   First, I prepared my dough and let it rest and rise while I cooked the chicken and prepared my toppings. 

​   I used my grill pan to prepare the chicken. I used olive oil, salt, pepper, dried oregano, dried basil and garlic to season it.  I used chicken tenders that cooked quickly.  When they were all cooked, I chopped the chicken into bite-sized pieces. 

   As toppings, I prepared cheese, shredded carrots, broccoli, chopped tomatoes...You get the idea, you can use as many toppings as you would like.  For the Chicken-Pesto-Goat Cheese PIzza, I did the following:

• Pull, push or roll your dough out on your prepared pizza pan.  
• Mix together 5 ozs. of goat cheese with 2 T. of pesto.  (or according to your taste.)
• Spread the Pesto-Goat Cheese mixture on the crust. 
• Sprinkle good Parmesan Cheese over the Pesto mixture.
• Sprinkle on Mozzerella Cheese.
• Top with chopped tomatoes, a few shredded carrots and the chicken. 
• Bake at 450 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes. 

    I also made Maddy a vegan personal pizza.  

• My crust is vegan, so I used it. 
• I spread some vegan ranch dressing over the crust. 
• I topped it with carrots, broccoli, tomatoes and onions. 
• I sprinkled on nutritional yeast to take the place of cheese. 
• Bake it in a 450 degree oven for 15-20 min. 

    If you want to use a traditional red tomato pizza sauce, you can use themarinara recipe I posted here.  You can use an immersion blender to make it smooth if you like. 
     Cooking is more fun for me when I am making things that I grew or created myself.  We made the dough from scratch, I made the pesto, I grew the basil and the tomatoes!  It all tastes so good!  Next, I am going to try making my own mozzarella! What are your favorite pizza toppings? Do you like pineapple on your pizza?  I'd love to hear! 

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     One weekly date that I try to keep as often as possible is going over to my son's house every Tuesday and eating lunch with his two children.  One is almost 3 and the other is 6 months old.  I started when there was only the oldest and we called it "Lunch with Spencer."  Now that I babysit my daughter's baby, Emily, I take her along and it is a nice time for these cousins to connect.  
       I usually stop at a different take-out restaurant and pick up food for everyone.  Since my son works from home, I get lunch for him, my DIL, myself, and the kids.  (Well, Emily mostly shares with me and Amelia is too young for that kind of food yet, but you get the idea.) I have started to learn what everyone likes.  For example, if I stop at Subway, I know my DIL likes the meatball sub.  
        Recently, I was looking at Jan D'Atri's website. She published a version of a Meatball Sub Casserole that I thought looked delicious and I figured that my DIL would really enjoy it.  I tried it out and it was very tasty. DIL did really like it!  My only problem was that I like to do my garlic bread slightly differently and I decided to make my own meatballs.  I wanted the bread to come out a little crispier the second time I made it.  So, I took her awesome recipe and adapted it to my taste and this time, it really hit the spot with ME!  I am going to make this version and take it to "Lunch with Spencer" and see how everyone likes it. 

          Click on the pictures to get a quick overview of what I did: 

Meatball Sub Casserole

     One warning!  There is a lot of stretchy, melty cheese in this casserole that can be kind of deliciously messy!  I sure didn't mind that though!  

P.S.  It is even better if you use good cheese! 

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This is the third installment of my (Alicia) culinary adventure through Germany. There will be one more German food post after this and then we will be moving on to Ecuador!

This has been such a fun little adventure and has made my husband and I excited to go to Europe one day and eat the 100% authentic versions of the meals we've had. I'm a little sad the month is ending but excited for our next "trip" to South America!

But I still have 2 more German dishes to share with you and this week's dish is Käsespätzle and I got the recipe from Kimberly at The Daring Gourmet again.

Described as German mac and cheese, don't be fooled into thinking it's the same just with spätzle instead of macaroni. The German egg noodles, spätzle, are layered with Jarlsberg cheese (or another good Swiss cheese), and caramelized onions and then baked. It is so much more delicious than mac & cheese.

The Jarlsburg Swiss pairs so well with the caramelized onion to give you this great depth of flavor. And the noodles themselves are quite delicious, though I'm having a harder time explaining the flavor of them.

My tips for making käsespätzle:

• Don't skimp on the onion! Next time I might use even more onion.
• The recipe didn't specify what type of onion to use, but I used white onions and it was really good. I think sweet yellow onions would go really well with it also.
• Make sure you have enough time to properly caramelize the onions to a nice brown. I didn't and it was still delicious but I'm looking forward to next time when I do it better.
• You can make your own noodles, there are recipes all over, but you'll need a spätzle maker. I bought a rather large bag of them from Cost Plus World Market, but they're on Amazon too.
  
• Don't skimp on the cheese. It's important.

I didn't make a side dish with our käsespätzle because I felt it didn't need one, I did feel like we did need a large helping of green salad on the side though. You know, for digestion.

Please make this! It's the dish you've been missing your whole life. It's so good and actually very easy to make. There's really no excuse ;)

Have you tried any of the other dishes I've highlighted? What are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!