Jalapeno Cheese Sauce

My friends and I love fondue.

Yes, we might be throwbacks, but you know, Justin Bieber sings about it now, so maybe we were just ahead of the curve.

And I know cheese dips aren't necessarily fondue, but melty cheese is melty cheese, and therefore delicious.

I needed a side to go with my grilled cheeses, other than the usual salad. While I know grilled cheese usually goes with tomato soup, I had made two soups in the last week. I was done with soup. And since I had some pretzel bites in my freezer (thanks to another coupon), this jalapeno cheese dip is what I settled on.

It looks quite delish.

I also figured it could serve as an appetizer while I made the grilled cheese sandwiches, because you really can't make those ahead of time.

I grated the monterrey jack (because that's what I had) cheese the night before. And diced the jalapeno, too, since I knew I was going to be pressed for time before we actually ate. I get home around 5:30 and try to have everything ready to eat around 6:30. I don't give myself a lot of time to cook.

I followed the directions exactly, although I did mismeasure the milk the first time. Luckily I put in too little as opposed to too much, so that was easily remedied.

I just kept stirring and stirring once I put the cheese in, waiting for it to actually get cheesy.

And then I waited some more.

And waited some more.

It failed to actually get cheesy. It mostly tasted like milk with jalapenos.

Don't get me wrong. The mixture did get thick like it should have. It just didn't have the right flavor.

So I added some more cheese.

And then some more cheese.

Maybe I needed more jalapeno?

And then I gave up and put it on the table because slices of cheese weren't melting as nicely as grated cheese and the pretzel bites were ready anyway.

It was rather bland, so I added some garlic salt. It wasn't until later that I realized I had forgotten to add the cayenne pepper. Oh well.

The lack of cheesy flavor could have been the type of cheese I used. But even if I had used the right cheese, I still think the texture would have been off. It was a little grainy. And the consistency was much closer to an alfredo sauce than a cheese dip. I threw half the bowl away because it wasn't worth keeping to be a leftover.

Conclusion: Probably not good enough for another go around.