Mexican Chocolate Chipotle Bites

Chocolate and Chipotle? Umm..?!!
I could not quite figure out how my taste buds will react to that combination when I read the recipe first. I made them anyway - and turns out the blend of the two is excellent and very unique!! A sweet and spicy treat that catches your attention at first bite and wants you craving for more even after gobbling a few cookies.
I made these for a Superbowl Party and folks at home loved it. The food theme was Mexican, I wanted to make Flan first, but then chose to make something unique and here it was!

Following is the recipe - it is an adaptation from Better Homes and Garden's Amazing Mexican Desserts article.

Ingredients:
For cookies:
- 2 eggs
- Two cups brown sugar
- 3/4 cups butter (one and half sticks)
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons chipotle powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

For the filling:
- 9 ounces of semi sweet chocolate
- 2 tbsp butter


Procedure:
For the Cookies:
- Get butter and eggs from the refrigerator a few hours before you start preparing, so that you have them at room temperature.
- Beat butter, brown sugar, chipotle powder, salt, cinnamon using a hand or stand mixer.
- Beat eggs and vanilla until they mix - dont mix too much(for too long).
- Mix in all purpose flour. At the end of it the batter, dough rather, will be highly fragrant thick lump.
- Let the dough sit for a few hours so that the ingredients blend in.
- Knead the dough lightly, make 1 inch balls and  flatten them to about 1/4 inch thick rounds (this will be the size your bites will be).
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees; line the cookie sheet with parchment paper; place the rounds in rows i inch apart and bake each batch for about 8-10 minutes. Do not over bake the biscuits. Once you get them out of the oven and cool off, they get tighter and crispier. So make sure you adjust the baking time according to your texture of preference.
- Once baked, remove the treats from the oven, let them cool off a little and transfer them to a wire rack.

For the filling:
- Melt in chocolate and butter in a small saucepan on a low heat. Stir frequently.
- Once the chocolate is all melted, remove from stove and let it cool.
- Based on your preference, you can use this melt at room temperature or refrigerate for a few hours and let it get thick.
- Spread filling on bottoms of half of the cookies. Top with the remaining cookies bottom side down. Makes about 25 cookies. Enjoy!

Store cookies in an airtight container; good upto 3-5 days at room temperature or freeze upto 3 months.
Happy baking!

Independence Day: Varying thoughts.

Today is the 65th Indian Independence Day. The day that reminds the spirit and feel of 'freedom'. As I try to learn what this means for each and every person and country - I realize one ugly truth - most of the countries today have been colonies! The unending hunger of power, quest and conquer! Wow.
Even though colonization was a concept for a long time, the recent most in familiarity or in relevance to the Indian Independence is the Colonial Era, which the Spanish, French and the British dominated. I started to  wonder if there were any countries today that did not share a saga of fight or struggle for independence and who did not celebrate their 'liberation'.
Japan, China, England, Germany, Russia, France, Sweden - probably(within my research limit) they are the only ones that do not have an independence day. Some of them have a National Day, which is not exactly Independence Day.

I wonder how it feels to live in those countries or be from those lands, where people have not struggled or fought to be recognized and liberated; where people just lived their lives without a strive; where people never knew how much it costed to held their head up and stroll down their own streets of motherland, without worrying about a foreigner knocking them down; where people did not know the value of silencing speech or thoughts and that uttering what one thought or writing what one felt would be punishment;  and much much more - all simple attributes of a free life.

And I think of Rabindranath Tagore's poem:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where the knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where the words come from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever widening thought and action -
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake!

This short poem from Gitanjali reflects such a powerful force, with each word and sentence defining independence. How many of us today really appreciate or use it like our forefathers dreamt of or fought for?!

Taxes 2011 - is it better to delay them?

Last year we filed for an extension and did not really file taxes till end of Sept.
We wanted to be proactive this time and talked to our CPA last week. We did not finish the task and were going to schedule something this week. Then I read this on Yahoo News -

Taxes--April 18 (Yes, that's Right) Is Coming Up

Why does Congress wait until the last minute to come up with these changes?I am confused whether or not to delay now..I'll probably go for it anyway.

Easiest way to peel coconut for storage

If happen to have a lot of cracked coconuts, and if you are soft handed like me, then you know peeling the coconut from its shell is the toughest job to do - especially when you do not want to use the fresh coconut right away.

Tip: Store the broken/cracked coconut half in the freezer(doesnt have to be in a cover). After about a week, remove from the freezer and you will find that the shell separates without any effort. Now keep the coconut half as-is or grate it is upto you. Store in a ziploc bag and throw in the freezer, enjoy the goodness of coconut for months! Thanks to my mother-in-law for the tip.

Wreath, Tree - why these Christmas traditions?!

One the traditions I follow for thanksgiving is hang the wreath ring on the front door.
Once I draw out the ring from its box, dust off and hang it, I am filled with excitement - as it marks the start of holiday season and all the warmth(despite cold weather) the holidays bring.
However, I, for the first time this year, wondered, 'why wreaths, wreath rings for holidays' ? Ever since I am in the US, I started seeing that people do a lot of things to mark holidays, most evident outside the house as you walk past or drive by watching decorations are wreath rings on the door and/or lights. Wreath was easy, less work and suitable even when we lived in an apt...and so I simply picked up that tradition to mark holidays.

Other question was on Christmas Tree. It is so common to see a Christmas Tree during this time..but why do people put up the tree? I just couldn't seem to find or remember the reason from recalling all the fables I read or heard as a child.

To satisfy my curiostiy - I googled. Thanks for Wiki, there is an extensive explanation on Christmas Tree it give elaborated information on even star or angel decor on top of the tree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

Wreath was a tough one...took some time to find. I found a link which give a decent history(though am not completely satisfied):
http://www.e-wreath.com/wreathhistory.html

What I gather essentially is, in the Western half of the world, since Europe was the only effluent, flourished establishment of population many many years ago they followed and documented their traditions. As the Europeans invaded and acquired other parts of the world, they carried their traditions with them wherever they went..and few common ones became popular over time.

The joy of holidays is defined, but not limited to traditions.Origins apart, it is simply fun to follow them.