Gearing up for "V" day!

That's right, Valentine's Day!

 Shown above are some chocolate covered strawberries I made for a party last night. I used Ghirardelli - 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Bar mixed with Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Baking Chips. I have this small chocolate fondue pot that melts chocolate perfectly.  I prefer dark chocolate myself, but most folks like a mix of dark and milk. But I think I went overboard on the milk chocolate this time. Ah well, still tasted yummy! The pink drizzle is Wilton's Pink Candy Melts. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I like Wilton's products, but the candy melts are NOT chocolate. And they do not melt or pour like chocolate. So I had to rig a small piping bag out of a sandwich baggie. I cut a tiny snip away from one corner and it worked perfectly to make the cute drizzles. I got creative with them as you can see, hehe.

The strawberries have a slight glean to them because I stored them in the fridge overnight, and the moisture condensed on the outside. Its a quick way to get the chocolate to set up quickly, but it can make the strawberries a tad runny. I would recommend a short time in the fridge to urge the chocolate to set up, then store them in a container at room temperature. On to other V day goodies!

Today I made a batch of Rice Krispy treats. Since I'm taking them to a pot-luck, and its near Valentine's day, I dyed the marshmallows pink! I used one drop of red paste food coloring, and wow! I bought the food coloring from Williams Sonoma. Here is the mixture in the pot getting stirred up. I haven't made these treats in ages and I don't know why not. They are so quick and easy!!

Here's the mixture pressed into the baking dish to cool.

Here is close up shot of the color, super cute for V day.

And of course, my favorite part! *grin*

Things I learned:

•  Use more dark chocolate for the strawberries in my next round of fondue dip .
• I have a few other colors of paste food coloring. I would love to do green rice krispy treats around St. Pattie's day. Then my creative brain said, what about orange or black or red for other holidays. The possibilities are endless. I love those damn colorings!
• Some day I will make the plunge and get a digital SLR camera. So, for now I am using a Kodak 10X Zoom camera. And while it was top of the line when I bought it several years back, its technology is now crappy compared to the SLR cameras of today. Keeping my fingers crossed for next Solstice.