Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Source:  Reader's Digest

1 lb strawberries
1 lb milk chocolate chips
2 T shortening

Pierce strawberries through the stem with toothpick.  Melt chocolate chips and shortening over a double boilers.  Dip strawberries and stick them upside down in a piece of styrofoam.  Let it harden up.

This is not the post I had planned for this week.  I had fettucini recipe planned -- and in fact, I made that for dinner tonight.  But then I looked back at my recent posts and noticed an abundance of pasta recipes (I make a lost of pasta these days b/c that is hands down my daughter's favorite food), so I thought I little change up would be welcome.

I made these chocolate covered strawberries for a Superbowl party.  I usually make desserts for parties, and I wanted to do something different.  Also, despite being winter, I found some delicious fragrant strawberries.

So there is not much to chocolate covered strawberries.  There is just a couple of things to make the perfect berry.  First of all, it's important to add the shortening to the chips -- makes the melted chocolate a looser consistency which makes dipping easier.  I also changed up the chocolate chips, and used 70% semi sweet to 30 % milk chocolate chips.  I don't care for sweet chocolate that much, but that's a matter of preference.  I loved the trick with the toothpick -- and the styrofoam.  It cut down on the mess significantly (although I did manage to get chocolate all over my stove), and letting the harden upside down in the styrofoam eliminated the flat part where you would lay the strawberry down, and made for (at least theoretically) a perfectly round, dipped berry.

So these were a huge hit.  Again, can't take credit for the flavors or the idea.  But I can tell you that I made two pounds of strawberries and every last one was gone before kick-off.