Want a Chocolate Fix? Try This!

I admit I am a chocoholic.  At Halloween I always make sure I have extra Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups so some will be left for me.  In the summer I turn to fresh strawberries and melted chocolate.  It’s hard to think of a better dessert or a mid-afternoon snack than chocolate-covered strawberries.

Mom Cooking Tip 157

Normally I serve fresh strawberries whole,with stems attached.  If I cover them with chocolate, I take the stems off first.  Never have I thought to serve them cut until I saw a caterer turn a bowl of strawberries into a work of art by simply slicing them in half.  They're faster to prepare because you can leave the stems in place.

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The Perfect Fruit Salad

It’s long been a family tradition to serve a tossed salad with dinner.  It’s easy to make, and you can get away with lettuce and tomatoes if need be.  I can’t count how many iceberg lettuces I cut up over the years before bagged greens came along. 

In my mind fruit salad is entirely different.  It requires planning.  If you don’t have at least five kinds of fruit, it looks anemic.  And it can’t really be just some cut-up apples, bananas and oranges.  Well, it can but no one eating at my table thrills to that selection.

Mom Cooking Tip 109

Chocolate makes just about everything taste better, especially chocolate cookies that aren’t quite as chocolaty as you’d hoped.  Start melting a cup of chocolate chips in a small, thick-bottomed pan over low heat and stir until the chips start to lose their shape.  Remove from the heat, stir until all the chocolate has melted and then dip fruit, cookies or marshmallows halfway into the chocolate.  Place on a wax paper-covered plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes until the chocolate has hardened.  Transfer to a serving dish.

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Mom Cooking Tip 99

Kiwi Slices

Use an egg slicer to slice hard-boiled eggs and other foods into slender slices.  The foods, which need to be semi-soft, could include bananas, kiwis, strawberries, avocados, pieces of ripe peach, apple or pear (skin side away from the blades), as well as nearly-cooked carrots, potatoes, beets and other root vegetables.

Hard-Boiled Egg Slices 

Banana Slices

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Question for Mom

Chocolate-Dipped Tangerines

I ate too much over the holidays.  What’s a cheap, easy, healthy dessert?” –Sara A.

Fruit dipped in chocolate.  Tangerines are easy to peel.  Chocolate chips aren’t too costly.  Combine them and you have a knock-out dessert with lots of vitamin C.  You can find a detailed recipe here. 

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Crazy Combinations That Work

I discovered my first crazy food combo in middle school when I ate a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.  For some unknown reason my parents did not eat peanut butter, so the peanut butter itself was quite eye-opening.  Mixing it with chocolate seemed heavenly.

My second crazy food combo also involved peanut butter--a plate of sliced bananas with a layer of peanut butter in between the slices.  They looked like sticky hors d’oeuvres.  I never got to taste them because the little kid who invented this combo in my kitchen was 4 years old and very possessive of his food.  He left me nothing to taste.

Mom Cooking Tip 50

     When cleaning strawberries, use the tip of a potato peeler to dig out the stem.

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