Project Date Night: June

What's Project Date Night all about? Read all about it here.

Happy Anniversary to us! Hard to believe it's been 5 years already.  Time flies when you're having fun, right? Or is it, 'time flies when you're chronically sleep deprived parents'? I don't remember, as I'm falling asleep on my keyboard as I type this ZZZZzzzzzzzz .  Sorry.

We need to have some better pictures taken at some point....

Anyway, typically 5 years would call for a bit of a celebration, a big to-do and all that. Unfortunately, that just wasn't possible for us this year.  [And side note, I wanted to go on a romantic sunset cruise around a lake on an old steam powered paddle boat, but come to find out, they don't run cruises in June anymore. Apparently it's too cold and rainy. Bummer. And there wasn't a whole lot else to do in our area that was "special".]

Check out my sparkles!

Instead, we opted for something simple at home. When we were dating, I got us a gift certificate to a fondue restaurant (I found out after purchasing that it was actually for a restaurant in a different city than where we lived). You know, the kind where you cook your food on sticks at your table? We never ended up using the gift certificate and then we moved out of state. But, if I ever get to Miami, we could have dinner for free. I digress.

My point is that fondue is fun and since we've never done a "fondue restaurant" date, we decided that our fifth anniversary was a great reason to pull out the mini crock pot and get fondue-ing.

Here's the menu:

• Beef Roast, cubed
• Grilled Shrimp
• Smoky BBQ Sauce
• Horseradish Cocktail Sauce
• Steamed Broccoli and Carrots
• Chocolate Fondue
• Apple Slices
• Strawberries

Did you know that "fondue" refers to the process, not the substance you're dipping into? So instead of cheese fondue (most common for savory fondue) I went with a hot oil fondue for the beef (bonus! Dairy-free!).

Cooking chunks of beef in hot oil can take quite a while, so to speed up the process, I seared the beef ahead of time and we just warmed it through in the hot oil. Also, we grilled the shrimp and served that separately with the steamed veggies. It was yummy!

For the chocolate fondue, I opted for a room temp chocolate fondue, since I already had hot oil going in my mini crock pot and my actual fondue pot has a tendency to overheat and burn my chocolate. See the end of this post for the recipe.

Chocolate Fondue Dip

by Raye

Keywords: stove top dessert condiment egg-free dairy-free gluten-free gaps grain-free paleo refined sugar free soy-free vegetarian almond

Ingredients (about 2 cups)

• 1 c. unsweetened almond butter
• 5-6 Tbsp honey
• 3/4 c. coconut oil
• 3/4 c. cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

• In a small mixing bowl, combine almond butter, honey, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
• Melt the coconut oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the coconut oil is melted, turn off the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder a tablespoon at a time. Then, combine the coconut oil/cocoa mixture with the almond butter mixture. Stir well.
• Serve immediately (warm) or at room temperature (cool) with your favorite dippers, such as fruit, graham crackers, cookies or pretzels. Store any leftovers in a jar at room temperature for up to a week.

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