Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ingredients
• 16 ounces milk chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1 pound fresh strawberries with leaves

Directions

1. Insert toothpicks into the tops of the strawberries.

2. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and shortening, stirring occasionally until smooth. Holding them by the toothpicks, dip the strawberries into the chocolate mixture.

3. Turn the strawberries upside down and insert the toothpick into styrofoam for the chocolate to cool.

Chocolate can be a mystery, so Here is a tip to keep your chocolate from becoming too thick. When you are melting over a double boiler, don't let the water touch the bottom of your upper pan. Heat until only 1/2 of the chocolate is melted, then remove from heat and stir gently until it is all melted. The chocolate should actually be cool or tepid to the touch. If it's hot, chances are it will sieze up and thicken. If it does that, no amount of heating or stiring will fix it.

Just FYI: Chocolate chips come in 11.5 ounce bags now. I used half milk chocolate and half semi-sweet chocolate and I did not use shortening, but butter (a little less than 2 T due to smaller bag of chips). Since chocolate burns easily and then gets hard and globby (even in the microwave), it is good to get the water in the double-boiler actually boiling, melt the butter (or shortening) first, and then add the chocolate so everything is nice and toasty warm for it to gently melt. If you don't have a double-boiler, try using a regular pot, get the water boiling in it, then use a smaller pot to rest in the big one to melt the butter & choc chips. These are really tasty.