chocolate dipped shortbreads

what could be better than shortbread ? chocolate dipped shortbread. of course.

being, as they are, two of the best tasting things in the history of food, it only makes sense to bring them together...

i love the taste of shortbread, and i love the fact that it is one of the easiest things to make, and takes only a few simple ingredients (3, + salt, to be precise) ...  and chocolate dipping them proved to be no big feat either - so here goes, the result of yet another of my experiments...

shortbread itself is very easy to make - take 1 part all purpose flour (or maida in india), 1/2 part of butter, and 1/4 part of sugar. soften butter to room temperature (not melt), cream or beat together butter and sugar (light brown sugar is best, but you could just make do with normal sugar if you dont have it), add flour, a small pinch of salt, and make a soft dough... a dash of vanilla extract is optional if you want. (if you dont have real extract, just skip it, and dont bother with the imitation essences...) chill the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 30 mins, take out and cut into shapes and bake at 180C/350F for 15-20 mins, till the bottom starts becoming brown. take them out and allow to cool. (you can cut the dough into shapes and then chill them to retain their shapes better, or even make the dough a day ahead and refrigerate it, and bake it when you find time.)

now for the chocolate dipping part, melt chocolate pieces or chocolate chips in a double boiler. a double boiler could be any vessel or pan that sits on top another, with water boiling in the bottom one, the water level not actually touching the upper one. see how i managed to come up with what is likely to be the world's smallest double boiler ?  -

well, it was just perfect for the amount of chocolate i needed - about half a pack or 6 oz (abt 170 gms) of chocolate chips.
the heat from the boiling water will melt the chocolate in a few minutes. keep stirring and the chocolate chips above will transform into something glossy and beautiful like this -

take the cooled down shortbreads and dip them one by one in the melted chocolate, and allow them to set. they are an absolutely pretty sight while still glossy -

see ? all pretty right after their chocolate bath...













once the chocolate cools down and sets, its ready to eat, best as a teatime snack, but irresistible any time of course...

and that, my friends, will bring you one bagpipe's length away from scotland :) sink your teeth in, and enjoy the buttery, crumbly, goodness... !

i hate to say i told you so...

... but i did, didnt i ?

as i had hoped, and said so in this post, Meryl Streep takes this year's oscar for best actress, for her performance in the Iron Lady...

looooove you  Meryl.... i sat through till the end just for you, and i knew you wouldnt let me down !

right now i am so wanting to spend a whole week watching  her movies !

rain rain dont go away...

day before yesterday was one of those rare days when it rained uninterrupted for hours together... just the kind of day i like. i love rain...(well, as long as it doesnt end up flooding and i need to wade through knee deep water  - then me no likey.)

and when its raining in the beginning of spring, making everything look so fresh and green, so much the better...

when i looked out the window that day, it was so beautiful that i couldnt resist taking some pics ... (and i hope that the people who were walking by my window werent startled too much thinking some crazy lady was taking pics of them as they proceeded to work - having to go to work on a rainy monday morning being a bummer in itself, who wants random people pointing cameras in their paths... )

online SLR camera simulator

this is a fun way to waste time, if  like me, you have a lot of time, you don't have an SLR, but still could use some practice meddling with the settings and see how the results turn out...

http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/

choose the manual option and have fun ! - i only wish they add more pictures in different settings - like landscapes, indoor pics, low light pics etc... that would add a lot more value... 

the controversy about controversial content...

the recent ruling by the delhi high court to initiate criminal action against about 20 websites, and call for banning some sites from india must have surely left most of us seething in indignance.

apart from the opinion that it deals a blow to freedom of speech and/or expression, the issue raises much more questions.

the first major issue here is that the goverment seeks to initiate criminal action against the websites - and the people heading those sites. while laws for libel or defamatory content have been around for ages, it is obvious that suing a website for third party content or opinion posted on it is not the same as suing the editor of a newspaper or the author of a book for its content. holding a website's ceo sitting in his office in california responsible for the millions of words that may be posted from all over the globe every day is just, well, illogical, if not ridiculous.

by extending the same logic of the government and judiciary, it would not be far fetched in saying that the chief justice or ministers or politicians are responsible for whatever is written on their compound walls, right ? so, if tomorrow, i decide to write profane,obscene, or anti-nationalist graffiti of the compound walls of the chief justice's house, he should go to his court and issue himself a summon. dont sue me, my lord, because obviously, you own the wall, you are responsible. and not to mention that all graffiti on the walls of every government office in the country, thus, can result in legal action against the respective government department, and by extension, the minister who is responsible for it.

and when it comes to 'objectionable' content, just what can be considered 'objectionable' ? and more importantly, to whom ? is all content that is objectionable to the honourable ministers and politicos liable to be removed from websites ? or can anybody make a complaint on what they consider objectionable and ask for it to be blocked ? where will this lead, and where will this end ?

personally, i think having to see someone emptying their bowels on the street during your morning walk is highly objectionable. when government after government, decade after decade, has been able to do nothing to change such situations in a country, i think it is a colossal waste of time to be issuing summons to tech companies, asking them to remove third party content.

and if any government is really concerned about 'objectionable' content, why is the state of movie censorship so  pathetic in the country ? why is there no strict age based rating for movies in india, which are rife with violence and obscenity. why is there practically no rating for television shows ? why isnt the government so concerned about what kids get to watch ?

india is a country where ironies abound. we have a government which doesn't think there is anything wrong about a tv show based on child marriage aired on prime time. the last time i heard, child marriage was illegal in india, right ? but it can, and will, enjoy viewership and TRPs and no ministry or minister will call for such shows to be banned.

well, if you dont watch it already, its high time now to get used to sitting in your living rooms and watching such wholesome entertainment with your kids ,while access to google, facebook, and such other stuff the rest of the normal world uses may soon be blocked.

steeped in streep...

sitting on my nightstand right now is a copy of 'Julie & Julia', only a few days old... when i saw it while grocery shopping some days back, i really couldnt resist the urge to buy it as it was on sale, priced at only 3 bucks or something... i had seen the movie in the fall of 2009, but hadn't read the book till now... 

it was one of those movies on my to-see list that kept getting postponed, and when i saw it listed on a flight i was taking, i simply couldn't pass up the opportunity - even if it meant giving up some badly needed shut-eye. ( i was on a flight relocating from coast to coast, after some crazy days of cleaning, packing, shipping and internet apartment hunting, all just within the 10 days or so which had elapsed between the decision to relocate and the actual relocation.) when i think about it now, it feels ironic how julie practically begins her project and her blog around the time of her moving too.

sleep is one thing that i dont give up easily - if i did, despite being on a six hour flight weary, hungry and overwhelmed by a hasty move, it was because of my craziness for Meryl Streep. i love her to bits. i adore her movies, and think she's one of the most versatile and talented artists around... 

i loved the dancing queen dance and jive on the mediterranean coast... i fell in love with francesca romancing kincaid in the rustic beauty of madison county... i sighed in relief that i wasnt working for the devil that wore prada ... 

and now, as 2012 begins, i look forward to the iron lady... already having got rave reviews from critics, i hope it will bring streep a well deserved oscar... ( when i saw the blindside, however, i had no regrets about streep losing to sandra bullock that year - sandra bullock deserved it 200% for her brilliant performance as the no-nonsense southern mom)

getting back to the book itself, it is unpretentious and has an easy flow... easy to relate to, and not one of those literary tomes that has the potential to scare away not very serious readers...  

another one of my irrationalities is that even though i cook and eat pretty much unimaginative stuff most of the time, and rarely indulge in culinary adventures,  i like cookery shows and cookbooks for some reason... (and oh, not to mention pretty much anything french !)  - so all the more reason why i liked the book within reading the first few lines... 

maybe the day when streep wins her oscar, i'll make 'potage parmentier' to celebrate ;) (just saying - knowing me, in reality i'll probably grab the nearest box of ice cream to celebrate !)

everyone has their own pick-me-up when going through a dull phase... i seem to get mine my from photos :)  - taking photos, to be precise...

i like it especially when something seemingly ordinary or mundane turns out beautiful when captured on lens...


when i saw these oranges a few days back sitting on the dining table, i couldnt resist fiddling with the camera and taking pictures of them... these are california clementines, which are at the peak of season now, and seen stacked up in boxloads in all the stores here... they have a lovely orange glow on their skin, making them glossy and photogenic :)

(clicking on the pictures opens them up bigger, and i love blogger for the black background - makes them look all the more, umm... ,may i say, classier ... :) )