Thursday, June 25, 2015

Patriotic Strawberries in time for the 4th!

My daughter-in-law Lacey makes these for us.

We love them.

We love her.

If not for the obvious (she married our son....) and then gave us three gorgeous grandkids...

Then her skills in the kitchen would have won us over! Lacey is a creator, she loves to grab ideas and run with them, both in the house and in the kitchen, but these are simple enough a beginner kitchen queen can do them...

And they impress people!

Now youse all know, I love impressing people! My ego is quite healthy. :)

And these do the trick without too much time, so here goes:

You will need:

Strawberries (we use a 2 lb. tub or basket)
White chocolate melting wafers
Blue "white" chocolate melting wafers 
Silver sprinkle stars (edible) or red/white/blue decorating crystals

The crystals, stars and melting chocolates are available in most big grocery stores or you can find them at Michael's, AC Moore, JoAnne's, etc. Melting wafers stay fine if kept in a re-sealed bag or canister! If you don't use them all, seal and store them until the next fun project!

Rinse strawberries.  Pat them dry on paper towels gently.

Melt white chocolate wafers/bar over double boiler. (If you don't have a double boiler (most of us don't!!!) I put a heavy duty glass bowl (Pyrex, Corning, etc) over a saucepan with about two inches of water in the bottom. Make sure bowl doesn't touch water. Heat water, no boiling, just hot enough to melt chocolate. Put white chocolate wafers in bowl, melt and stir...

Place foil or parchment or freezer paper on cookie sheet. Dip strawberries about half way up in the white chocolate.

Chill.

Repeat with blue melting wafer in a clean bowl. Dip the berries about halfway up the white chocolate...

Then sprinkle with edible silver stars.

And here you go:


Quick, fun and a crowd-pleaser!

We're still planting here, it's late but we were stymied by Mother Nature....

But we have this!!!!

Getting ready for Father's Day, making cards and cookies for our dads!!!


Mary made her Dad a 4-eyed alien picture with rainbow hair and two arms coming out of his head. And a nose, she told me don't forget about the nose. And we trimmed the cards with REAL PICTURES OF FRUIT, FLOWERS AND VEGGIES from seed catalogs!!! We went all out!


Cookie detail at the mixer!!!!!! And then these guys stopped out to see Grandpa because they were all going to the big ALS 5K on Father's Day. Anna, always ready, rockin' the Santa hat!


Mini version of "Bridge to Terabithia"... Logan and Kenzie (she's holding a toad) dug a "big pond"!!! and then they made a bridge over it with the ladder.... and they're sailing boats in the pond.

Who needs expensive toys???? #budget #frugal #imaginationsrock!

You can see the pile of burning wood behind them, this is the tree we're bringing down. Stupid bugs. Notice we moved all the toys into the grass while we trim. Avoiding hitting small children with trees is a good thing!

Summer....

I love the change of seasons, each one makes me smile!

12 comments:

  1. I wanna come over and play too! And eat those strawberries. What a fun idea. I could just do red and white for Canada Day. I love strawberry season!!!!!!

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  2. Kav, yes! The red and white would be perfect! And then just sprinkles instead of stars!!!! These are a people pleaser.... we do some regular chocolate covered ones, too, because not everyone likes white chocolate, but they're excellent, honestly!

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  3. How fun. Those strawberries look so festive. You could do that for any occasion. Wow. You're so creative. smile

    Love the photos of the children also.

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    1. Sandra, this was totally Lacey and maybe Pinterest! But yes, we could do them for holidays, for spring and use pastels, for baby showers! What a great idea!!!!!

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  4. These berries are beautiful. I wonder how the blue coloring in the chocolate tastes though? Sometimes like in frosting, the taste can be overbearing. I might try this with just the white chocolate and serve on a blue plate :)

    I love Mary Ruth's little face in her father's day drawing pic. Love her alien. You can tell she's not used to her picture being taken grandma, lol

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  5. Tracey, you couldn't taste the blue! Isn't that a surprise? I never recommended dark blue, red or black icing to people because the taste was terrible, but these just tasted like white chocolate.

    And Mary Ruth is a goof! Every time you get the camera out she does these crazy head shakes, kind of Taylor Swift dance moves. She's so fun! Total cheesy ham, I wonder where she gets that from??? :)

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    1. I love Mary Ruth. Maybe because she combines our names. :) I feel like an aunty watching her grow up from a distance. Such a little cutie.

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  6. Patricia Sawyer UllmannJune 25, 2015 at 11:06 AM

    I want to come live at your house. You are always baking something delicious and having so much fun. Love your posts!

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    1. Patricia, come over anytime!!!! :) Today was our pre-school graduation day and it was so fun!!! And there's amazing cake left over!!!!! I'll feed you cake and coffee/tea or chocolate milk!

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  7. I love the way you raise kids, Ruthy. No wonder they turn out so smart and creative and caring :)

    The strawberries are beautiful. We've been invited to a 4th of July picnic, and these are just the thing to take!

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    1. Aw, thank you! I love working with kids, that's for sure. And I love writing sweet books. How blessed, right??? To be able to do two things I love.... God is good!

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  8. These are just the coolest looking strawberries!

    And I loved all the graduation videos. It's always fun to try to corral the kiddies into doing something in unison. You can really see the various personalities just in the short clips.

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