Homemade Strawberry Roses and Chocolates For Mom

I'm going to have a quiet Mother's Day this year because my own angel mother passed away a few years ago, and the wonderful mother of my children is clear across the country being a great mom and grandma while I'm here at home (I sing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and we have recording sessions all week for a new album).  However, I will be celebrating on the inside (and via Skype where possible) the remarkable women around me who have and are sacrificing their lives, some in life and some in death, to bring the next generation into the world and to nurture them (see the post on how we found Health, Happiness, and Prosperity).  

I've been feeling particularly tender about motherhood because earlier this week our oldest daughter gave birth to her third child (our 9th grandchild BTW), and on the same day my cousin's daughter Katrina died giving birth to her sixth child.  Her baby is well, but there is a bereft husband and 6 little ones left without their mama as well as a huge hole in the hearts of a lot of the rest of us.

The modern holiday of Mother's Day was first celebrated in 1908, when Anna Jarvis held a memorial for her mother in Grafton, West Virginia after which she began campaigning to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday in the United States.  Mother's Day (Jarvis insisted that it use the singular possessive so that each family honored its mother rather than all mothers collectively) was adopted by other countries and it is now celebrated all over the world.  In the USA Mother's Day is celebrated the second Sunday in May which is in just a few days.   

Although Jarvis was successful in getting Mother's Day recognized nationally by 1914, by the 1920s she was already disappointed with its commercialization.  She intended it to be an opportunity for honoring our mothers in personal settings with homemade gifts and family celebrations.

In the spirit of Anna Jarvis' original intent I offer a couple of ideas you can use to recognize your mother in a beautiful (and delicious) way with homemade gifts of Strawberry "Roses" and hand-dipped chocolates.

Here's how to make a bouquet of strawberry roses:

• 1 cup Semisweet Chocolate Chips
• 1 Tbsp Coconut Oil
• 12 perfect Strawberries
• 12 Barbecue Skewers

Dye the skewers green in a mixture of 1/2 cup of water, 2 Tbsp of vinegar, and 10 drops of green food coloring.  Melt together the chocolate chips and coconut oil by alternately microwaving 30 seconds at a time and stirring until smooth.  Gently press skewers into the stem ends of the strawberries and swirl the top half of the berries in the melted chocolate.  Arrange the chocolate covered strawberry roses in a vase (I filled my vase with fresh greenery some limes and then poked the sharp end of the skewers into the top lime at different angles).

Here's how to make chocolates:

Drop different kinds of nuts into the molten chocolate left from dipping the strawberries.  Stir them to cover them well and with a fork lift out clusters of chocolate covered nuts and place them on cookie sheet covered with parchment or a silicone baking pad.  Once you have used up all the chocolate (keep adding nuts until you use it all) place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator until the chocolate solidifies.  remove the chocolates from the sheet and serve on a dish or wrapped in a box.

Forget the impersonal cards and the run-of-the-mill store-bought chocolates and flowers.  Give these hand-crafted beauties to your mother or wife along with a hand-written letter of appreciation and this will be a Mother's Day she'll remember!