An April Fools Idea - Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies #recipe

I had a thought one day...to make Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies. 

Why haven't I heard of anyone making spicy chocolate chip cookies before? We have Mexican candy that's both sweet and spicy. Their hot chocolate is the same. 

Travis helped me figure out what to add. He's quite a bit Mexican, so I trust his judgement. I didn't want to make them too spicy.

I added a little cayenne pepper, cloves, cinnamon, changed the crushed walnuts to Brazil nuts, and changed the semi sweet chocolates to dark chocolate chips. 

Travis, Isaak, and I all love them. Mica said, "Do you have to keep putting cayenne pepper in everything?" I have to admit I've been putting it in a lot of dishes to help clear up my sinuses.

April Fools:

I made the Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies for reals! To me they are amazing. What if say someone at worked picked one up to eat, not knowing they were spicy?

I'll be making a second batch very soon, to send off to the places where we work. They LOVE my cookies! Some may or may not like the Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies.

This is when I want to say, "Man up, and eat the flipping cookie! Go outside your box you smuck!" In all reality I know not everyone likes spicy things.

If you like spicy things, or just want to play a trick on someone here's the recipe to Mexican Chocolate Chips: 

Ingredients:

8 ounces of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup whole wheat flour    

1 cup all purpose flour 

2 1/2 cups dry quick oats

12 ounces dark chocolate chips 

1 1/2 cups Brazil nuts

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons cayenne peppermint 

1/4 teaspoon cloves

Directions:

1. Cream the sugars with the butter and eggs.  

2. Combine the rest of the ingredients one at a time.

3. Crush the nuts before adding them. 

4. Spray a few cookie sheets.  

5. Use a scoop to put them on the pans. They will spread out, so leave room in between them.

Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies by AlissaSpiehs-Apel on Scribd

Do you like sweet with spicy? 

WW: Paper Mache

The boys are on Spring Break. Travis had them do some research on Ancient Mesoamerican History. They are making Alebrije, which are brightly colored Mexican Folk Art Sculptures of fantastical creatures. They started out with writing about their character, then drawing it, and now they are building it out of paper mache.

Yep our living room is a mess for awhile...

Avocado Pudding Recipe

When I see something a little different I want to try it.

Recently I saw a recipe for Avocado Pudding on facebook. Travis was making a Mexican dish, so I thought I'd try this for desert.

Avocado Pudding Recipe

I looked up recipes for, "Avocado Pudding" there are a lot of recipes. Apparently this isn't a new idea.

It's super easy to make. Everything goes in a food processor in any order really. I left the amount of sweetener up to you. At first I just added a drop of plain liquid Stevia. That was fine for Travis that doesn't have a sweet tooth. The boys and I wanted a drop more added to each of our own servings.

Avocado Pudding by AlissaSpiehs-Apel on Scribd

Options: 

I thought just like chocolate bars come with different flavors, you could add flavors into this recipe easily for a different variations.

• NuNaturals Nustevia has different flavors for their liquid Stevia. You could try using a flavored Stevia instead of one without any flavor.
• We just got chocolate bars that had a sprinkle of Cayenne Pepper in them. I could see that in the Avocado Pudding as odd as that sounds, it could work. Just don't add too much. Just a sprinkle!
• Another thought was to add peanut butter powder if you're a peanut butter lover like I am. 
• If you don't like Stevia you could use any sweetener really: White Sugar, Brown Sugar, Syrup, Agave Syrup are just some ideas.

Cool:

You will want to make sure it's chilled before eating. I thought the cold milk would chill it enough. I tasted it when I was done making it, and it needs to be chilled more for sure.

I won't say it tastes just like the pudding from the box. It has more of a Mexican Chocolate kind of a taste. It's healthier for sure!

It makes enough for 4 servings. Perfect for my family. If you are making this for just 1 person consider cutting the recipe in 1/2. You can serve it in ramekins like I did, or the Avocado skins like I saw on facebook. 

Do you like to try different things like I do, or do you stick with eating what you already know? 

WW: Mexican Easter {Linky}

I won The Book of Life from Jumpin Beans. The boys got that for Easter.

Source

The thought didn't even occur to me that it was Easter, and this is a Day of the Dead theme. It was fine though. I love that style of art, and we loved the movie.

After watching The Book of Life I went through the boy's closets to give Isaak Mica's stuff that he couldn't wear, and to give cousins stuff that Isaak couldn't wear.

Mica saw an Aztec patterned shirt, and wanted to wear it. Then Isaak saw a Mexican shirt handed down to him, and wanted to look like Mica. So we had a Mexican style Easter.

I suppose I could have made them change. They are however just clothes.

Please Check Out My Giveaways on the Sidebar. 

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday

Sing, Sing a Song Saturday is all about me discovering something that is different. I don't want to post things that you and I have more than likely heard before. I want to find something different. It could be from another country, someone singing from the streets of NY, and more.

This week I almost ran out of time to put up this post. I watched so many videos that were just blah. I could not get into them. This one is pretty interesting visually. It's by Zoé and the song is called Arrullo De Estrellas.

Zoé is a Latin Grammy Award-winning Mexican alternative/psychedelic band.

Source

They released their 5th album this year called Programaton.

I love the visuals in this video! 

This track has such a nice sound. I'm all for bands that can sing great live.

Check out their website.
Like their facebook page.
Follow their twitter page.

Mexican Chicken and Pumpkin Soup

A few weeks ago I processed a few pumpkins. I didn't want to make only unhealthy things. I looked up pumpkin soups.

There's two problems I have with pumpkin soup:

1) The boys do not like it.

2) There isn't protein in it to fill the boys up.

I found a Pumpkin Soup Recipe with Chicken in it. This recipe is derived from here.

If you like Mexican things, you'll like this soup.

Mexican Chicken and Pumpkin Soup

Everyone in my house loved this soup!

What's your favorite kind of soup?

I Had to Share

Back in August Daddy had his birthday.  We went to this Mexican restaurant. They sang him Happy Birthday. We couldn't find his photo on their site until now:

Happy Birthday to Daddy!

Yesterday Daddy had a birthday! We went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant.

We saw someone sing to another guy in the restaurant. I told Mica, "Tell the waitress it's Daddy's birthday!" He did and she totally blocked him out like she couldn't hear him. He told her again. She asked Daddy, "Is it your birthday?" He timidly said, "Yes."

They came out put a sombrero and sang to him. They said "Travis" more like "Travees." LOL

We went home and he unwrapped his gifts. I got him a Kansas City Art Institute t-shirt when I went down there in the spring for a tour of the Nelson-Atkins Museum with the school I teach at. Kansas City Art Institute is where we went to school. I also got him a magnetic cube and an artist made drum.

Then it was brownies and mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Feliz Navidad

• There's a site called JibJab JibJab where you can upload your photo's to create a video. 
• It's pretty fun! The only bummer is that of course you have to pay to send it to someone, put it on a blog or on facebook. 
• I took some stills to put on here.
• My favorite part is when Isaak downs some jumping beans and starts jumping around.