Carrots in the Kitchen: Vday Edition

I know it's after the holiday, but that's when I made these so...sorry. Try them this weekend. Chocolate covered strawberries are good for any occasion!

This is what you'll need:
- a medium sized pot for water
- a medium sized bowl
- some fresh strawberries
- a large (as in, really big, like 1-lb. If there aren't any that size available, get smaller ones. It doesn't really matter) of the kind of chocolate you want to use (dark, milk, etc)
- a cookie sheet covered with plastic wrap

Wash strawberries and dry (it's easiest to wash them a bit before you wanna do this and lay them out to air-dry. Also because they shouldn't be cold when you cover them w/ chocolate, or else they'll form condensation and get wet again anyway...)

Chop your chocolate into very small pieces (maybe 1/4 inch squares?). Fill the pan with enough water that there will be several inches, but that when the bowl is sitting on top it won't touch the water (you're basically making a double-boiler. If you have a real store-bought one, you can use that of course).

Turn the heat on under the water to about medium to medium-high. You want the water to be very softly boiling.

Arrange your work area so that the strawberries and cookie sheet with plastic wrap are both within reach.

Put chocolate shavings in the metal bowl, which you put on top of the pan with water. If the water's already hot, the chocolate will start to gently melt. Stir it here and there (if you don't stir it and/or if the water's too hot, the chocolate will singe a little and have tiny hard pieces in it; yucky).

When the chocolate is all melted, dip the strawberries in it. Hold by the green tops and swirl them in the melted chocolate til they're covered all the way up to the tops. Lie each strawberry on the plastic wrap.

You may have left over chocolate. If so, that's okay. Either dip other things too, or spread it thin somewhere to dry, and you can always chop it up the next morning and use it to cover your hot gluten-free pumpkin bread french toast (why, whatever else would you do with gluten-free pumpkin bread?). That's what I did.

Refrigerate your chocolate covered strawberries! Either that, or wait 800 hours for them to fully harden. But, once they're hard, they're delicious. Or, if you're like me and decide to begin once your guests are already there, still-wet chocolate covered strawberries are delicious too. Hardened chocolate is just a lot more awesome.

I hope everyone had wonderful V-Days! Mine was the best I've ever had. I'll post pics of that and of the party on Friday night tomorrow.

Happy Monday! And there aren't many things to discover on Friday afternoon at the office that are better than you have Monday off. Holiday? What? I love those kinds of surprises (yes, the ones that are only surprises because I'm so oblivious).