Tired

I'm closing in on the last week of classes before Christmas break, and every single day I spend studying feels more and more tedious. And yet the days are passing by so quickly: it's incredible that I haven't posted anything since October. But my hands have certainly been busy in this time making some cool crafty things! Many of them are Christmas presents so I can't show them off on here just yet, but there are several knits and a sewing project (it's been so long, and I've missed it!!) that will appear soon.

In the meantime, I have become completely obsessed with sunflower seeds over the past little while. Trader Joe's sells these 1lb packs for something like $2, and I've been eating them with my morning oatmeal, and baking with them. My absolute favourite concoction is a chocolate chip sunflower recipe that is made with oil..The recipe uses a mix of brown and white sugar, which adds some depth of flavour, but I love the texture and nuttiness of the sunflower seeds with the semisweet chocolate chips. They literally take 30 minutes from start to finish, and have been the perfect comfort food when I'm studying.

Adapted from this recipe:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

Preheat oven to 350F, mix the dry ingredients (including the chocolate chips and sunflower seeds) together, mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl, then add the dry to the wet and mix until just combined.

At this point I usually wet my hands and make little 1.25" balls of dough in my palms - usually I get about 25 cookies per batch. Bake them for 9-10 minutes, turning the pan halfway through if your oven is like mine and cooks unevenly. Enjoy :)

I also had half a cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and celery in my fridge, so I took a study break this morning to make a pot of borscht (I know, not technically borscht cause there aren't any beets), but its something my family makes every so often, especially with a turkey carcass after thanksgiving. I had no such carcass, so I brought in the flavour by sauteeing some diced chicken breast, frying a diced tomato, plenty of spices and pepper, and sauteeing the veggies before adding water. I then took another study break (as I said, running really low on motivation at this point) and made soda bread with sunflower seeds. There was a recipe I used when I was younger that was a photocopy of some old magazine that consistently made great soda bread with flax and whole wheat flour. I had neither that recipe nor the flax, so I tried a simple one from seriouseats, which I sort of screwed up, but it had a phenomenal crust and I may have eaten all the crust from half the loaf tonight.
I used plain yogurt in place of the buttermilk (score one more point for using things in my fridge up before I leave for the holidays!) but didn't score the bread deep enough or poke holes for aeration, which I suspect was what trapped the moisture and left the centre slightly undercooked. Part of my impatience stemmed from the fact that it was really sticky - my distant memories of the soda bread I made in my childhood was easy to work with and not nearly as frustrating, so after 15 minutes of trying to powder everything with more flour and not have such a sticky mess, I gave up and just plopped it into the oven. For gustatory excitement I added poppy seeds (2tbsp) and sunflower seeds (1/3 cup) - I love love love the texture they gave to the bread. Unfortunately I kind of burned the bottom from overbaking because of the undercooked centre. Blast (but not really cause it gave it a wicked crust). I can't wait to go home and find that recipe and make it for real!

One more week till Christmas... can't wait to share all the handmade gifts after that :)