We love you "Berry" Much

Yesterday was my Father in laws birthday so I just had the inlaws over for dinner.  We had chicken pot pie and it was SO good! I would give you the recipe but I got it at.....Costco.  Seriously, I love that place! Anyway, I wanted to do a little birthday / valentine gift for my in laws so I decided to do chocolate covered strawberries and say "We love you BERRY much". It was SO cute and so easy!! 

I saw the easiest way to make chocolate covered strawberries on facebook one day.  I tried it and after making a few changes I love it.  It is so quick and easy I make it all the time.  (I will say, they arent the prettiest strawberries.  I actually tried a couple different ways to apply the chocolate to make them prettier, but I wasnt successful.  I was in a hurry though because I was making these and trying to get them done before my inlaws got here.  If you try them yourself and find a way to make them "pretty" let us know!!)  I had my little helper today and Im lucky I had any chocolate left!

All you need is chocolate and strawberries.  I use four chocolate bars for one ice cube tray of strawberries.  (Florida strawberries are in season right now and they are so sweet and delicious!) First you need to cut up your strawberries and put the pieces in an ice cube tray. I find it easiest to just cut the top off and cut them in half.  Lay them flat side down in the ice cube tray.  

Next, you need to melt your chocolate. I know there are different ways to melt chocolate so do whatever works best for you.  I melt mine in the microwave.

To melt chocolate in the microwave cut your chocolate into small, equal size pieces.  Make sure they are equal size so they melt evenly.  Put your chocolate pieces in a microwave safe bowl.

I use my pyrex glass bowl.  You need a bowl that will stay cool enough that you can pick it up with your hands during the heating process.  If the bowl gets too hot for you to touch, it is too hot and will burn your chocolate (if you burn your chocolate just add a few pieces of unheated chocolate bar and it should be ok).  You are going to heat your chocolate for anywhere between 1 - 2 minutes (depending on your microwave and the chocolate), a few seconds at a time stirring in between. I do 45 seconds to start and then take it out and stir.

Use a rubber spatula and stir the chocolate.  This is what mine looked like the first time I took it out.  After stirring, put it back in for 15 more seconds, take it out and stir again.  Do this as many times as you need to before the chocolate is completely melted but not burnt.  I only had to do it twice.

This is how mine looked the last time I took it out.  Now its time to cover the strawberries. This is where I tried to get creative.  I tried dipping a whole strawberry in the chocolate and also dipping it and covering it with a spoon.  Neither worked very well for me.

So, my suggestion is just covering the strawberry halves you put in the ice cube trays with chocolate using a spoon.  As I said, they aren't the prettiest strawberries (also, I had taken so long trying to find other ways to do the chocolate that my chocolate had started to set by the time I just covered the berries.  I had to hurry and just glop the chocolate on, so they are even more sloppy looking then usual...sorry!)

Once you have covered all of the berries put the tray in the refrigerator (the original recipe I saw said to put them in the freezer.  This works faster but, not only does it freeze the chocolate but it also freezes the strawberries.  Once the strawberries thaw they seemed to be runny and didnt taste so good.  When you put them in the fridge it still solidifies the chocolate but the strawberries maintain their natural taste and texture). It takes about an hour for the chocolate to solidify enough to work with.  The longer you leave it in there the harder the chocolate will get.  Once you take them out, the easiest way to get the berries out of the tray is with a knife:

Now, in my hurry to finish I didnt get a picture of just the berries out of the tray. But I did get some pictures of them in the bags.  I bought clear cellophane bags from the dollar store that came with silver ties.  I made tags out of my scrapbook paper that said "We love you Berry much" and I had my little girl "decorate" them. I thought about making them all cute with valentine stuff, but my family would rather see my little girl's drawing than my hearts.  So, it may not look all professional, but to me it is perfect!

Happy Valentines Day!