I saw the add-ons this week and my immediate thought was chocolate covered strawberries!
I am not a fan of dessert; in fact, cheesecake and I have only met once and we didn’t get along very well. It’s a shocker I’m sure; I’ve been told that statement is swearing, that I’m un-American and that I’m down right strange! <—that last one probably is true but that’s a whole new blog 😉 I make pies. LOTS of pies. But I rarely eat them. I can have ice cream in my fridge for months, weeks or ever years without even noticing it….I just don’t eat dessert. I’m a “one bite wonder” I will eat one bite of it and be done. With the exception of chocolate covered strawberries!
A funny thing happened today, I got flowers! Yippee for me! I got flowers BEFORE Valentine’s Day(proactive…smart man ;)) But that’s not the funny part. The funny part is that this is only the second time I have gotten flowers in the 5 years we have been together; the first time was the day he proposed to me. So I got flowers…I’m going to make chocolate covered strawberries and suddenly I get all nostalgic and know exactly what I want to write about. One of the cool perk of doing recipes on here. I get to talk about things, many things! You could just skip to the recipe, but I have been told, on occasion, I do make sense (sometimes). So woman this ones for you!
We tend to put men in a box. More specifically the idea of what they should do and how they should do it is set for them long before we ever meet them. I remember when I was dating my husband and I would go on Facebook and see these woman posting pictures of the beautiful flowers they got again…and again…and again. And I had the idea that “this is what love is supposed to look like” “I will get flowers.” Never being one to be shy, during our next fight. I told my then boyfriend (give me a little slack on this, it was A LONG TIME AGO!) “you don’t love me cause you don’t give me flowers” and I truly felt that way. I thought other people had better relationships because they got flowers! HA!
Luckily, I have a pretty cool guy. And he can tell me things that puts it into perspective for me. He didn’t do it that day, but the next time we had a few minutes he said this. “I show you I love you by kissing you every morning before I leave for work. I’m usually running late, it’s early and I’m crabby. But no matter what, I come back to the bedroom and kiss you before I leave. I have never cared about someone to kiss them before I left, his story went on but I can’t give you all the details, geez! 😉
The point of all of this is simple. We tend to have clear definitions of what love is, what it should look like, feel like and act like. We tend to put men in a one size fits all category and that category doesn’t really work! So this Valentine’s Day, I urge you to step outside of your box and try to see how your loved one is showing you love. Try to it through their eyes cause when you do, you can have flowers every morning with a single kiss…. But when we ignore it, discredit it or make it invalid. We are taking away the biggest gift anyone can give us. Their heart!
Happy Valentine’s Day
Ingredients
- 2 Pounds Fresh Strawberries (washed and patted as dry as possible)
- 1 Brick of Chocolate Covered Almond Bark
- Toothpicks
- Red Icing
- marshmallow Topping optional
- Will need a wire rack and parchment paper
Instructions
- Heat up chocolate in fondue, double boiler or microwave.
- I pull off the green leaves and make the smallest cut hard thing off the top of the strawberry. If you cut too much, you will have a strange looking top half of the strawberry!
- Cut the strawberries in half and place them cut side down next to each other to make the shape of a heart (wider end on top).
- Put a tooth pick in from side to side.
- Dip the strawberries in the chocolate so that it's coated and place on rack to dry. This is why the strawberries should be dry, the chocolate won't stick if they are holding moisture.
- Once dried, pull out toothpick and decorate with icing and sprinkles if desired.
- Use what's left of your chocolate (either reheat or continuously heat).
- Gently pull up green leafs of strawberries and dip desired amount of strawberry into chocolate.
- Set chocolate on plate or wire rack for cooling.
- When done, gently pull back green leaves.
Notes
Optional, add marshmallow topping to the backs of the strawberries by spreading it on them. If you do this, don't dip strawberries (it changes the consistency of chocolate; rather spoon chocolate onto the strawberry on wire rack. Add your favorite sprinkles, coconut topping.
Unfortunately, strawberries were removed from the add on’s this week. They were there early Monday afternoon and by the evening, they had disappeared. I was very disappointed as I was looking forward to enjoying those strawberries in a variety of ways!
If you coat the bottom in chocolate, they can hold for a few days or more. If you don’t, only a day (they become a bit juicy). enjoy! 🙂
I wanted to make these strawberries for Valentine cookie/baked good eschange in the daughter’s school.Will they hold up given its cold weather?
Awww love this blog, and the strawberries look great!