week 8: how to be a ladies man

Hey Freshman 15!  Welcome back to "class" with our 2nd semester of recipes.  Seeing as the guys (and girls) of Calvin College have been so great to me I thought this week I'd give you a Valentine's Day gift of my own.

I told you a while back that the key to a woman's heart was pancakes.  While that may be true, the key to getting in her good books is Valentine's Day.  Yup... the dreaded V-Day.  When chocolates & flowers double in price, men search the stores frantically for a card and women start having thoughts of re-enacting scenes from The Notebook.  Pretty much it's every man's worst nightmare.

Having grown up with Grandparents who were married over 60 years, and my own parents who've been together for 32, I've learned a bit about romance.  It's not about the grand gestures that you see in the movies.  It's not giant teddy bears and fancy cards.  True romance comes in the little things, and in doing something personal for the person you love.  So this year try something homemade.  It'll cost you less and mean so much more.  Not only that, your lady will brag to all her friends about how thoughtful and wonderful you are.

This is a recipe for chocolate covered strawberries.  They look and sound extremely fancy, but they are a cinch to make.  Seriously, I made these, photographed them and wrote this in under an hour.  Guys, you can definitely do this.  (sidenote: while I'm writing this recipe geared towards men for women, it's really good for anyone you love, or if you're single a very indulgent treat)

you will need:

• 2 small metal bowls
• 1 small pot
• 1 wooden spoon
• 1 cookie sheet
• wax paper
• paper towel

ingredients:

• 1 lb fresh strawberries
• 2 x 100g (7oz) dark chocolate (70% cocoa or more)
• 1 x 100g (3.5oz) milk chocolate (I used Green & Black's organics for both)

First up you need to make a double boiler, so take your small pot and put a few inches of water in it.  Then put the metal bowl on top.  The 2 should fit together snugly, and you don't want the water to touch the bowl.  Put this on low heat on your stove.  Take your dark chocolate and break it up into the bowl.  This allows the chocolate to melt nicely and not burn.  Stir it occasionally with a wooden spoon until you get a shiny nice bowl of melted chocolate.  Be careful because your metal bowl will be hot so use an oven mitt to handle it.

While the chocolate is melting wash your strawberries.  The green tops are going to act as handles, so wash those too.  Lay them out to dry on paper towels.  You'll want to blot them completely dry before you move on to the next step.

This is also time to prep your cookie sheet.  Cover it with a layer of waxed paper and set it on your counter.  When it comes time for the dipping you'll want to make an assembly line of strawberries, melted chocolate and your cookie sheet (left to right if you're right handed, and vice versa for the lefties).  That way you're not dripping things all over the place and making a bigger mess than you need to.

Once your chocolate is totally melted remove the bowl to your counter, sitting it on top of a dish towel as the bottom will have lots of condensation on it.  Quickly put the other bowl in it's place and break up the milk chocolate into it.  That way while you're doing the first part you're taking care of melting the other chocolate.

Next up blot your strawberries dry, pick it up by the green top, and dunk it into the dark chocolate.  I find it's easiest to dip one side, and then the other, sort of like you're using a joystick.  Then pick the strawberry straight up out of the chocolate and spin it in a few mini circles to get the excess off.  Place it on your wax paper lined cookie sheet.  Repeat with all the rest of your strawberries.

Once that's done the milk chocolate will most likely be done melting.  Remove it from the heat and using a teaspoon give it a good stir.  You're going for a drizzly Jackson Pollack-esque effect, so scoop up your milk chocolate with the teaspoon, and from about 6 inches away flick it over top of the strawberries.  You'll probably mess up the first few before you get the hang of it, but that's okay.  And don't worry about it spilling over on the cookie sheet, that's what the waxed paper is for!

Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.  These can melt quickly so I wouldn't recommend transporting them anywhere unless you're using a cooler.

When your sweetheart arrives lay them out on a plate all fancy-like.  She'll think you slaved for hours, be impressed that a college boy pulled off something so delicious and be very grateful.

xoxo

~kat