Chocolate Covered, Cheesecake Filled Strawberries

I saw these the other day over at The Weekend Homemaker.  You can see her post here.  I was waiting for an excuse to make them and now I have one.  Tonight is Fight Night.  No, I'm not part of some weird fight club.  My sister and brother-in-law are having people over to their house to watch the Manny Pacquiao fight on TV.  Everyone is supposed to bring something to eat.  The Dad is making his famous cabbage rolls that people fight over and I'm bringing these.

I will now blatantly steal her idea (It's okay if I told her I was going to steal it, right?).  Her pictures are prettier than mine, so you should head over and check them out.

First off, you need strawberries.  I used 3 pounds.  Unlike me, you should wash them the day before so they have a chance to completely dry.

Second, you need a box of Jello Instant Cheesecake.  Unless of course you feel like whipping up a batch of the real deal.

Third, you need butter and milk.  The amounts are on the box.

Follow the directions on the box for making the filling and the crust.  I realized AFTER the fact that she just used the crumbs without mixing in the melted butter.  I couldn't figure out WHY in the world mine were so much wetter than hers.  Duh.  So, it's up to you.  Use them straight or mix in the butter and sugar like I did.  I crumbled the prepared crust on a plate for dunking.  Stick the filling in the fridge to firm up while you core your berries and melt your chocolate.

Crystal had a super cool strawberry coring tool.  I do not own one of those.  I was forced to use a knife.  Which, actually, went pretty fast once I had a rhythm going.

For the chocolate, I just melted some chocolate chips on the stove in a double boiler.  I added about a tablespoon of shortening to get the consistency I wanted.

Once your berries are all hollowed out, you can start stuffing.  I found a regular spoon to work well enough.

Once you've got it full, dunk it in the crumb mixture.  

At this point, if your strawberries are dry, you can go straight into the chocolate.  Mine were still a little wet, so I just layed them all out on baking sheets and waited.

Once they were all dry, I went back and dunked the ends in the melted chocolate.  Then I put them back on the wax paper lined pans and stuck them in the fridge to firm up.

Here they are on a platter:

Seriously.  How good do those look?

I had a little bit of melted chocolate left over, so I sliced up some fresh pineapple and dunked that in it too.  I can't wait for the food Fight Night tonight!