Chocolate Chips...

...and I'm not talking about Toll house here, people!

I can't remember where I saw these, but I think a co-worker had told me that her mom makes them for Christmas. Ever since then, they have been in the back of my mind...taunting me.

Ladies and gentleman...Chocolate covered potato chips. In this case, Pringles, because that's the brand that was recommended to me to stand up the best in the dipping process!

Let me start by telling you that there was a traumatic melted chocolate experience on Christmas Eve that involved all three of us Briner girls gathered around a small, homemade double broiler full of chocolate chips (yes, the Toll house kind) trying to get the damn things to melt evenly.We ended up making a horrendous mess, and only having enough chocolate to dip about 24 orange slices, for our family Christmas Day gathering of 18. Epic fail. But they WERE delicious!

I have made melty chocolate goodies before, and used a small crocpot, or an electric fondue pot, and it works like a charm. I told Erin and Hannah that I would try and find one at an after Christmas sale for us!

The next day was Christmas and we were all at our Daddad's house. I went down into the basement to put my corn pudding into the extra oven down there, and low and behold, a tiny crocpot, still wrapped in plastic, never used! I took it back upstairs and asked Daddad if he ever used it, and he said "No, why? Do you want it?" Of course I said YES!! To which he enthusiastically told me to get it outta the house before he threw it out. I think my Ma was looking out for me :)

ANYWAY...another option to the fondue/little crocpot is a pre-packaged little cup of chocolate melts that you can buy at most grocery stores. That's what I used for the first time I made the Pringles! You just peel the lid off, pop it in the microwave, and you are good to go. This is not the brand I used, Wal Mart had a different one, but you get the idea. It is found in the baking aisle, near the chocolate chips and things like that

I had intended to do this for NYE but never got around to it. I was watching Jax and had a few friends over and between his feedings, and watching Amish Mafia, it just didn't happen ;)

One day last week, Gioia called me at work in a panic because she was with Matt's dad at UVA, his surgery had gone on longer than expected, and Matt was in Arlington at work. For those of you non-Virginians...those are both locations FAR apart from each other, and over an hour from where we live. 

The time when the bus comes to drop the boys off from school was quickly approaching and she was afraid that neither one of them was going to make it! No worries, that's what Em-Way is for ;) I finished up my day about an hour-and-a-half early and drove over to their house to meet the bus.

I had the boys finish their homework and told them we would make a special snack when they were done. Jason is a chip FANATIC! He loves ANY kind of chips! Potato, tortilla, Doritos, Cheetos, you name it...so I knew this would be a hit!

Jason was screwing around with his reading homework, so Aron and I did most of the dipping, and then threw them in the fridge to cool and harden while we waited for Jason. we dipped about half of each chip into the chocolate, and left the other half plain. 

You could just as easily dip the whole thing in, if that's what you want :) 

Also, the boys came up with the idea of adding sprinkles! How cute would red and pink sprinkled chips be for Valentines Day??

Chocoholic

All people have a weakness. It's a fact, there is no way around it. I happen to work for a cardiologist, and a good one at that. He is an example to his patients in that he stays in shape, he doesn't smoke or drink, he exercises. But what they don't know (well, some of them do) is that Dr. R is a chocoholic!!!

It's true. When I started working there, the girls told me that if we kept chocolate out on the break room table, we would never have any problems! He is a great boss, and he takes amazing care of our patients, so hey, the man deserves some chocolate every once and a while...but that doesn't come without us making fun of him a little bit!

As usual, I wanted to do a homemade birthday gift. I looked around on pinterest and found some cute chocolate gift basket ideas, but most of them were just too girly. Then I found I found this idea, and it was perfect!

 

First of all, boo for cell phone pics!

I started with an 8x8 shadowbox frame from Michael's. (you know I used my 40% coupon, so that made it about $4)

Then I put a piece of white card stock in the pack of it and hot glued the Hershey bar into the back and let it set.

Then I just bought some cheap letter stickers from Target and put the words on. I originally wanted to do nicer letters in red, with my cricut...but I just ran out of time and my cricut is buried somewhere in the garage from my move...and the only person who noticed that I didn't use die cut letters and not stickers was me, so who cares, right??

Anyway...SO cute, super easy, tons of compliments, and cheap!! You can do it! It is now hanging in our office, to bring a smile to all of out cute little cardio patients!

*How cute would this be with a mini bottle of wine or liquor? Or for a baby shower with a binkie? or anything else? The possibilities are endless. Comment and tell me what you would put in it!