Thanksgiving definitely gets the limelight for all the food holidays in November, as it absolutely should! But there are a few lesser known, but really fun holidays and one that I absolutely will NOT celebrating. Ever again. Here are a few of the fun ones:

National Georgia Pecan Month—who doesn’t love a good pecan pie?? Actually, a lot of people don’t ha!

National Pepper Month—I’ll happily support that one! Mexican food is my favorite!!

National Fun With Fondue Month—And here it is. The one I will no longer recognize in my home. And here’s why.

A couple years ago I did think this sounded great to have “fun with fondue” and decided to make it for the first time. And I’m talking the real stuff. Not chocolate fondue. I’m talking about cheesy, gooey fondue. I did some research and tried to pick the perfect recipe that every one was raving about and was super pumped and excited to be in on the fondue love.

I was making this for our anniversary. My husband always plans the best anniversary dates, most of them being staying in at home anniversary date nights since we’ve almost always lived far away from home and couldn’t use family babysitters and were too poor in grad school to afford a different babysitter. It was my turn to plan for the big day and I had big shoes to fill.

I knew a lot of people LOVED fondue and going to restaurants like the Melting Pot with the gooey, cheesy fondues so I thought this would make a fun, new romantic meal for a night in. I got a delicious, crusty baguette all cubed up and ready, and I believe a couple other things to dip into the hot cheese (it’s been a while now—I can’t picture every detail.) I even had some fancy varieties of olives to try spread on my nice platter. The candles were lit, I put on my best dress and we dug in……and pretty much immediately spit it out and burst out into laughter. Neither one of us like it AT ALL! In fact, we both hated the flavor of the cheesy fondue. It has a really strong flavor! But it made for a great laugh and a fun memory years down the road.

Needless to say, I will not be celebrating National Fun With Fondue Month with the cheesy variety. However, I will say, my dessert fondue spread was pretty dang awesome that night.

I had a beautiful platter with three varieties of chocolate fondue. On the platter I had a beautiful layout of different fruits and cookies to dip in my fondues. I made the 3 chocolate fondues in the Crockpot in little Mason Jars.

1. White Chocolate

I got really high quality white chocolate chips and poured them into the jar about ¾ of the way up.

2. Dark Chocolate

Once again get really high quality dark chocolate chips and pour them into the jar about ¾ of the way up.

3. Creamy Nutella Dip

This is a mixture of heavy whipping cream and Nutella. Pour ½ cup heavy whipping cream in a Mason jar with 1 cup of Nutella. Stir together and put in fridge until ready to heat up in Crockpot.

How to melt chocolate chips (and other baking chips) in a slow cooker and maintain a perfect melted consistency.

1. Put the baking chips (or other melting chocolate) in a bowl or jars and set them inside the slow cooker. I used pint mason jars, because they are tall and narrow enough that I could fit several in my slow cooker at one time. You can use wider mouth jars or any heat tolerant bowl that will fit inside your slow cooker.

2. Add hot water to the slow cooker approx. half way up the sides of the jars. WARNING: be careful not to get any water inside the jars. Water will make the melted chocolate seize & thicken. 

3. Turn the slow cooker on high. Don't cover it--you don't want moisture to form inside the lid and drop down into the chocolate. After 30 minutes, stir the chips (I used long iced tea spoons). My chips were soft and completely melted after 30 minutes; however, slow cookers can vary, so yours may need to heat more or less time. Once the chips are all melted, lower the slow cooker heat to the low or warm setting. (If you want to speed up the melting, you can zap the jars in the microwave in 20 second intervals, stopping and stirring each time, just until the chips all melt in when stirred. Then transfer to the slow cooker.)

4. That's it! Now your melted chocolate will keep its thin dipping, drizzling consistency for at least 2-3 hours. As you're using the melted chocolate, if you discover that you need more, stir in more baking chips; they will keep melting into the mixture. I refilled my jars several times as I worked.

My favorite things to dip in the dessert fondue are:

Strawberries

Bananas

Pineapple

Marshmallows

Pretzels

Graham Crackers

Rice Krispy cubes

Vanilla wafer cookies

Nutter Butter cookies

Shortbread cookies

Crunchy chocolate chip cookies

Do you like cheesy fondue? Have you ever made cheesy or chocolate fondue at home? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below :)

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