Chocolate Covered Strawberries - FAST!

Lauren and I were at the mall this weekend, doing a little shopping, when we came up on this adorable little shop that dips all kinds of fruits and other treats in chocolate.  Naturally in a fashion only suitable for an 8 year old girl, Lauren insisted on stopping in for a look.  Of course she tried to convince me to buy her chocolate covered strawberries.  I seriously considered it for about two seconds and then told her that we could make those at home for a quarter of the price they were asking.  She made me promise we would make them and so I did.  I told her the very next trip to the store, we would buy all the ingredients to do it.

That trip to the store was last night for milk.  We walked out with $150 worth of groceries that included strawberries and chocolate chips.  Now I know this is not the correct way to make chocolate covered strawberries but in a tight time crunch with a promise to my daughter, it worked wonderfully and satisfied her perfectly.  We were in the middle of watching "American Idol" and had to fit this in with the commercials.

So I took a small glass bowl, filled it with miniature semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I popped it in the microwave long enough to get the chips soft.  I then stirred them and popped them back in for a few more seconds.  I stirred them up really good and gave my daughter the bowl.  She then proceeded to dip strawberries in the chocolate, getting more on her fingers than the strawberries.  She was having a blast and putting her claim on the best ones.  After she was done dipping, I put the plate of strawberries in the fridge so the chocolate could harden again.  A little while later, we were in chocolate and strawberry heaven.

If my sister was making these, she would have put in some shortening to make the chocolate softer.  She also would have melted the chocolate using a double boiler method.  I didn't have time for all that so this worked deliciously and solved two issues:  my daughter got to make chocolate covered strawberries and we both got to eat them. YUM.