Category: Free Inquiry

Chocolate covered strawberries are a delicious (and visually pleasing) treat! Last Saturday I decided to try making them, and they did not disappoint.

I created this recipe card on Canva – which tells you the necessary ingredients. Unsurprisingly – you need chocolate and strawberries. I found these giant strawberries at the store and they were perfect – and I also grabbed 2 bags of chocolate chips (one semi-sweet and one white).

When I got home, I began by washing the strawberries and then patting them dry with a towel. My roommate let me know that this step is very important – to make sure that the chocolate sticks to the strawberries. I then prepared my station by covering a pan with tinfoil. After that, microwaved the semi-sweet chocolate in 30 second increments – stirring each time. Once it was fully melted, I began dunking the strawberries! This was very easy and luckily my strawberries were dry enough that the chocolate stuck very well each time. I dipped about two thirds of the strawberries and then let them sit while I moved on to the white chocolate strawberries.

Here is what they looked like at this point:

I then repeated the same process with the white chocolate – also went very smoothly!

The most tricky part was creating the designs on the tops of the strawberries. I had planned to drizzle semi-sweet chocolate on top of the white chocolate strawberries and then vice versa.

However, when I went to drizzle the semi-sweet chocolate – it fell in globs! I tried to melt the chocolate more, and I tried adding milt – but I could not make it the proper consistency for drizzling. To remedy this – I decided to make hearts on the white chocolate strawberries. This ended up working very well and I am very happy with how they turned out!

I ended up being able to drizzle the white chocolate very well – which was interesting to see!

After this I just left them to dry and then they were all done!

Here is a closer look at the result:

(the strawberry in the bottom left corner shows my attempt to drizzle semi-sweet chocolate)

My Personal Ratings

The Process – 10/10

These were inexpensive, the ingredients were easy to find, and they were so much fun to make! This reminded me of doing a craft – except I ended up with a delicious result. I would absolutely make these again!

The Taste – 10/10

I doubt this rating comes as a surprise. These were absolutely delicious and I would eat them every day if I could! Honestly perfect in every way.

Overall – love love LOVED these. Everything about them was amazing – from the process, to the look, to the taste. I HIGHLY recommend making them.

I have loved onigiri since I was 7, when my neighbour gave one to me as an afternoon snack. As we grew older, she would bring it for our other friends and me when we would go to the beach, on hiking trips, and on camping trips. It is the perfect snack/dinner/lunch, because it is tasty, satisfying, and easy to transport. A few months ago, an onigiri shop opened up near my parents house and my close friend and I have visited many times!

A few weeks ago, my roommate suggested that we try making it ourselves – and I was immediately on board!

The ingredients were easy to find – just rice, salmon, seaweed sheets, kewpie mayo, and furikake seasoning.

We started by cooking our rice in our rice cooker and our salmon in our air fryer – and then mashed the salmon with kewpie mayo and got to sculpting!

The process took a bit of practice, however thankfully my roommate knew the important strategies (wet your hands and cover them with salt to add flavour and keep the rice from sticking to you).

My first attempts were a little bit funky:

*the burrito is interesting looking, but it made for a delicious mid-cooking snack*

While not everything went according to plan (we ended up with a copious amount of leftover salmon), we had so much fun making them! It took about 2 hours, but the time flew by. After we got a hang of things, we were able to make a whole bunch to keep in the fridge and grab on the go!

My Personal Ratings:

The Flavour – 10/10

These were absolutely perfect. I LOVE onigiri and these lived up to my expectations. I am thinking about grabbing one from the fridge as I write this. I would honestly change nothing if I were to make them again!

The Process – 9/10

Now, this did take a decent amount of time (roughly 2 hours). However, no part of it was particularly difficult. Despite the learning curve – even the funky looking ones (like the burrito) were delicious, which is the end goal. It definitely also helped that I made them with my friend – because it made the time fly by! The ingredients were not too expensive, and they were easy to find. I would absolutely make these again – and recommend them to literally everyone (especially as a fun activity to do with friends!).

Photo taken by Danial Reche (Pexels)

My Inquiry Question is: How can I try 10 new affordable recipes that I can integrate into my weekly schedules?

Cooking is not something that I particularly enjoy – primarily because I often feel like it takes time out of my day that I could spend doing other things. For this reason, I often find myself cooking the same foods, repeatedly. I rarely venture out and try new things – because I do not want to take the time to look for them. I also tend to order takeout more than I probably should. While this routine is not a big issue in my life, and I do like the foods I cook, I would like to expand my recipe repertoire. I would like to bring more variety into my weekly meals, and I think that this inquiry project will be a good push.

I would like to find 10 different recipes and give each of them a try. I will document how I find the process of grocery shopping for each meal, cooking the meals (including mistakes I make so that I will remember them in the future), and then rate my flavour opinions of each dish. I will also include a link to each recipe. Then, the recipes and my opinions will be saved and I will be able to go back and make them in the future. I am hoping that by doing this I will establish a routine of trying new meals – and maybe I will begin to enjoy cooking more by the end.