Happy Fourth of July

Today, I made chocolate covered strawberries for a Fourth of July party we are going to and added some festive red, white and blue sprinkles such as these that I got on Amazon. I've made these chocolate covered strawberries so many times now that they are fast and easy for me to do. I'm also taking a family favorite Couscous and Black Bean Salad to the party that I haven't made in a long time. I'd forgotten how good this salad recipe is! This was a great occasion to make it again. There will be 40 people at the party we are going to so it might get lost in the shuffle but if we end up bringing home a lot of leftover, I don't mind since we all love this recipe in my family and will eat it up immediately.

The strawberries I bought to make the chocolate covered strawberries were not super sweet and they actually we not even that big. I just felt like making them for fun. Therefore, today I learned that if you want to make chocolate covered strawberries and can't find the super big, ripe, sweet, juicy strawberries that are only available at certain times of the year, make them anyway and buy regular strawberries. The key is to make sure you put lots of white chocolate drizzle over them. The white chocolate is the sweetest chocolate, moreso than the dark chocolate. I made them the exact same way I did on my original post here. I was also going to make them more red, white and blue by coloring the white chocolate, which I did, but I didn't use it because I think they look better with less. Sometimes less is more, if you know what I mean. I think the red, white, and blue sprinkles are very effective without added chocolate colored drizzle. So, I still dipped them all in the dark chocolate and used A LOT of white chocolate drizzle. I think that is the key to successful chocolate covered strawberries with mediocre flavored strawberries. I'll see how people react to them tonight at the party. But I've taste-tested them and they passed my judgment with no hesitation! And even though the strawberries are not that outstanding, hey...they look great and festive, for sure. It's the Fourth of July and I need to bring something to show for it. I can now add Chocolate Covered Strawberries to my list.

Hope you all have a wonderful Fourth.

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