*SAD (Single Awareness Day) Dinner*

First, sorry about my lack of posts. It has been a busy couple of weeks...actually, month. Going to San Fransisco, work, school, cooking, and other things coming up I couldn't dedicate my time that this blogs deserve. I actually started this post (and another post about San Fransisco, but more on that soon) several times, but either got interrupted or lack of dedication. But have no fear, yours truly is back, and this time, with a vengeance.

So as all you lucky couples know, this past weekend was Valentine's Day. What my friend and I decided to do was to cook dinner for ourselves to celebrate our "choice" to not have a date. If I keep saying that then I might actually believe it :P

So anywho, our dinner date soon turned into a threesome, which quickly turned into a quintet when her parents

also decided to join us. I didn't mind and thought more the merrier. This way I get to cook for even more people and show off my bad@$ culinary skillz.

The menu that we decided with was Chicken Linguini w/ Alfredo sauce, Polenta w/ Marinara and Mozzarella, garlic and Parmesan bread, some steamed veggies and some wine. For dessert we had a chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, and angel food cake as dippables. All-in-all a pretty "romantic" dinner for five.

I was responsible for the pasta and dessert, one of which I have made many times and one that I did some research to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I'll let you decide which dish is which.

This is what the finished result looked like. I was very happy with the dinner. Hopefully, everyone else thought the same. What really caught me was the fondue. That turned out nomnomnommy!

It was basically like making a chocolate ganache. We used Hershey's chocolate bar, 2 milk and 1 dark. *Note-for any fondue do not use a chocolate with more than 68% cocoa* We set up a double boiler system. That's basically two pots, one on top of the other. In the bottom pan you want to have some water boiling and in the top pot (preferably a glass bowl) you want to cut up your chocolate and let the steam from the water melt it. In another pot you want to scald some heavy cream. Scalding is cooking liquid *almost* to the boiling point. Pour the heavy cream into the chocolate and mix away. Drop in 1-2 tablespoons of cold butter to give it a shine. You can also add in other flavors such as vanilla, some liqueur, or even hazelnut. The possibilities really are endless. As for dips, we used these three...

You could use whatever your heart desired to dunk into this chocolate goodness: marshmallows, pretzels, apples, graham crackers, oreos, brownies, cake, etc...

Melting Pot, eat your heart out!