Patriotic Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries

I haven't been feeling 100% for the past few days which has kept me from doing much cooking (hence an entire week without a recipe and nary a post, for which I apologize).  We did make the copycat recipe of Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches for dinner Friday night, and I will be sharing the recipe and results hopefully tomorrow.  I had plans for a few different Fourth of July-inspired foods to make over the weekend, and due to whatever bug I picked up, I just couldn't talk myself into it.  I did want to do something, however.  I ran across this idea for Red, White & Blue Strawberries over at Oopsey Daisy.  They're really easy and very cute!

I poured some "4th of July Blue" colored sugar (picked up in the Dollar Spot at Target) in a small bowl, and then inserted toothpicks into the cap-end of about 1 pint of fresh, clean strawberries.  Then I melted half a bag of Ghirardelli white chocolate chips and 1/2 T. of shortening in the microwave, stirring at 30 second intervals.  I dipped the strawberries 2/3-3/4 of the way in the melted chocolate, and then set them on waxed paper to set.  Once set, I used the back of a small spoon to smooth a very thin coat of chocolate on the bottom 1/4-1/3 of the strawberries, and then dipped that in the colored sugar.  Originally, I dipped straight from the chocolate to the sugar, but it was causing a little "bubble" or roll around the middle where the sugar stopped.  This worked out a lot better asthetically.  Taste-wise - run wild however you want!

And they're off! Derby party snacks.

I recently attended my first Kentucky Derby party, and it was a great experience.  Every detail had been thought of to make this party great: TVs to watch the races, race sheets to read up on the horses, Derby hat contests, race tickets, door prizes, Derby decorations and lots of food and drink!  Everyone also was asked to bring an appetizer or dessert to share and we were asked to bring an appetizer.  It took me awhile to decide on something, but I finally settled on these Tomato Bacon Cups.

Here's the recipe:

8 slices bacon

1 tomato, diced

1 sm. bunch scallions, finely chopped

3 oz. shredded Swiss cheese

1/2 C mayo

1 tsp. dried basil

1 (16 oz.) can refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough

1) Preheat oven to 375.  Lightly grease a mini muffin pan (two if you have them, it'll go faster).  I hit each cup with a very quick shot of cooking spray.

2) Cook bacon until crispy over medium heat in a skillet; you'll need to crumble it, and it will be easier than if it's chewy.  Add the bacon to a bowl; mix in the tomato, onion, cheese, mayo and basil.

3) Separate each biscuit into it's natural halves; cut each half into quarters.  Roll each quarter into a ball and then use a rolling pin to flatten into a little disc.  Place the disc into one of the muffin tin cups; press into the bottom and up the sides of the cups, making a little mold.  Fill each of the biscuit cups with some of the mixture (for me, it was a couple of teaspoons each).  You could conceivably roll out all the discs, then go back and fill at the end; when I tried that, though, I found the biscuit was loosing it's shape and I had to re-form/re-roll again, anyway.  So I found it easiest to go one by one.  Whatever works for you!

4) Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven, until cups are golden brown.

The first few I made, I feel like I used too much biscuit dough (you can sort of tell in the picture above).  Originally I had been cutting each biscuit half into thirds; that's when I switched to quarters, and it worked much better.  Unfortunately, I guess my battery was low, because the pictures of those batches didn't end up on my camera.

These went over really well; so well, there weren't any left over to bring home from the party!  But I did snag one to test before taking (what if they were horrible?!) and I thought they were really good.  Just for something different, I might try cheddar cheese in a future attempt, or even some of those flavored mayos to give it a little something different.  Either way, I'd definitely take them to another get together, for sure.

Let me know if you try this, and how it turns out for you!

(If you need a mini muffin tin, check this one out - the one I used for this was a Wilton one)