Tonight’s Menu – Chicken & Chocolate

What’s on the Hectic Kitchen table tonight?

We have had a tradition for as long as I can remember of having fondue on New Year’s Eve. Over the years, I’ve made cheese, broth, and chocolate fondue. I’ve tried complex cheese fondue recipes, and simple one. They have all gone over OK, but don’t really substitute for a substantial dinner. They’re great for snacking though. We’ve added the broth-style fondue in the past few years to pretty rave reviews, especially by Hectic Mom. Our chocolate fondues have ranged from complex affairs with exotic chocolate and other ingredients to the Hectic Chocolate Fondue that we had this year.

Due to travel plans impacted by weather, our traditional fondue night was shifted to Christmas Eve. This meant that for the first time in forever I had to make an actual meal on New Year’s Eve. Since we knew we would be up for a while, we did stick with chocolate fondue as our dessert…keeping part of the tradition alive.

To complement the fondue, I made our newly developed Stuffed Chicken Breasts – Prosciutto & Provolone recipe that came out of discussions with several family members and the availability of certain ingredients at our local grocery store on New Year’s Eve afternoon. It was really odd to see the grocery store sold out of all sorts of things on NYE. We’re used to that happening just prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as prior to an impending snowstorm, but not around New Year’s Eve when the weather was pretty reasonable (at least for South-Central Kansas).

Since we had two Christmas meals at our house (immediate family and extended family) we had leftover From Scratch Mashed Potatoes that were reheated and enhanced with a cup of shredded cheddar cheese. They were cooked alongside the chicken breasts, so they were definitely hot when they hit the table.

We like fruit dipped in our Hectic Chocolate Fondue, so we had:

• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Bananas
• Apples
• Clementines
• Grapes
• Maraschino Cherries

In addition, we dipped:

• Large marshmallows
• Oreos
• Lady Fingers
• Nutter Butter cookies
• Pretzels
• Graham Crackers
• Teddy Grahams

The Teddy Grahams are some of the most fun, since they are nearly impossible to skewer with fondue forks. This creates a competition in our family to see who can “skewer the bears”. We’re also kind of goofy when a Teddy Graham is drowning in chocolate. But don’t worry, they are always “saved” and promptly eaten!