Creativity isn’t my strong suit

When I first started my first blog, I was in my third year (of six total) of graduate school.  I had my master’s degree and I was surrounded by other graduate students, each of whom were equally enmeshed in, what a current colleague recently called, the “odd world of the hard sciences.”

We scientists are not known for our creativity.

That was the reason I started my blog.  I wanted to hone my creativity, if such a thing can even be done.  (Leave it to the scientist to try a systematic approach to building creativity, right?)

In the ensuing four years (five?  I can’t even remember anymore….) I think I have, if nothing else, become a better writer.  And writing is creative, right?   

So, I win….right?

No.  

It turns out that I’m really not all that creative, I’ve just gotten better at making myself look creative.  

And I’ve gotten really good at googling.  (And I’ve gotten hyper anal about grammar.  But not anal at all about typos and editing.  So, if you see an error, rest assured that I know it is there, I just don’t care to go back and fix it.  *Embrace the irony*)

This was made pretty clear a couple weeks ago, when I made sunflower Seed Butter Bread for my ornithology students, which I had also made for my students last year at the same time.  

I did this without realizing it until much later.

The recipe was almost exactly the same, too.  Which I also did without realizing it until much later.  

(True story: I don’t look at recipes when I am baking.  I know the basic ratios and just go off memory.  The results are usually good, or at least goodish.  If not, I feed poor college kids.  They’ll eat anything.)

And then, yesterday morning, I woke up a little early.  So I did what any sane person who is awake at 4 am during a thunderstorm about to take 11 students out to look at birds would do.

This was taken the day before the rain; on Monday.

I baked.

And what did my uber-creative self make?  (Aside: I have no idea how to get umlauts on that u.  But see?  I recognize the typo and the poor grammar, but I just can’t be bothered to fix it. Told you so.)

I made….wait for it…..Peanut Butter….MUFFINS.

Whoa.  Hold the phones, she branched out?!?! 

 Yeah baby!  Muffins this time, not bread.  I like to get c-r-a-z-y in the early hours of the day.

I should make muffins more often, because, you may already know this, but muffins are far easier to transport and they bake a lot faster.  Not that speed was particularly important yesterday, since the bus driver didn’t show up because apparently no one told him that you can still watch birds in the rain.

No really.  People do.

See?  Birders are nuts.

Apparently, when I set out to bake at 4 am, I have only one thing on my mind:  Peanut butter.  Or Sunflower Seed Butter.  

Since I’ve now made this recipe, with only slight variations, twice in the last 2 weeks, I think it’s high time I give you the recipe.  

Peanut Butter (or Sunflower Seed Butter) Bread (or Muffins) (Or really any combination of these things)

• 2/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/4 cup oat flour
• 6 T peanut butter (or sunflower seed butter)
• 1/3 cup margarine
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup almond milk (start with 1/2 cup’ if your nut/seed butter is thick, you need to add more)
• 1/4 tsp salt

Both of the times, I just tossed everything into a bowl at once and then mixed it up.  There’s really no need to cream this and add that, especially not at 4 am.  The dough should be about the consistency of pancake batter.  

 

Bake in lined muffin tins or in a greased 8×8 inch pan for 20-25 minutes.  You could also bake these in a regular bread loaf pan, but it would take longer; 40-50 minutes, I’m guessing.

Both of the times I made it, there were none leftover.  But yesterday, even through the early morning brain fog, I remembered to take a picture!  (After four years of blogging….I’m starting to learn.)

Oh and?  I doubled the batch.  So I had enough to make some bread when I got home.  

For myself.  Because I’m selfish.  

But not creative.  

Do you consider yourself creative?  What’s your creative “strength”?  

Do you use recipes when you bake?  

It’s back!!

There was a time in the not too distant past that I ate more tahini than any other nut or seed butters.  There was a time, in fact, when that was the only nut or seed butter I ate.

Yes, I ate it just I do nut butters, which is to say 90% straight from the jar and 10% in baking.

So, what happened?  Why did I suddenly stop with the tahini obsession?

When I moved here two years ago, I moved A LOT of pantry items with me.  It kind of seems silly now, but I was really worried that I wouldn’t find my favorite foods, so I loaded up on them.  This was obviously before I discovered that you can buy anything on Amazon.  

[Also, I stopped eating hummus because as much as I love the stuff, it tears me up.  Literally.  As much as it pains me still, I just can't eat hummus without getting sick for days.]

After I ate my 4 jars of Joyva (best tahini EVER!), I didn’t see it at the store.  I saw Krinos, which, though expensive, I still tried it and I didn’t love it.  So….an unplanned tahini drought happened.  This drought lasted for almost a year and a half.  

Then I got this book.  

You might be thinking  ”What the hell does a KOREAN book have to do with a Middle Eastern/Israeli/Greek condiment, Katie?”

The answer, in all honesty, is nothing really, but for a single recipe for Mushroom Sesame Soup which suddenly had me craving tahini.  I read the recipe (which you can find here), saw the accompanying photo, and immediately set out to find some tahini.  

And by “set out” I mean “opened my computer.”  By “to find” I mean “searched for on Amazon”.  Amazon, ever the trusty source, delivered again.  (Literally.)

A 4 pack of Tahini, made in Israel, for less than $15.  

Yes, I went from no tahini for a year and a half to 4 jars of it.  That’s the beauty of the internet, kids.  

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it is good.  A little runnier than I am used to, but most real tahini is kind of runny.  (The ingredients in this is “sesame seeds”.  Can’t beat that.)

It should come as no surprise that I made cookies the first day I opened it.  And the second day.  But more on those later…..

I made several other things from the Korean Table book last week also.  You can check them all out here, but here’s the Reader’s Digest version:

Korean Kimchi and Seaweed Salad.  Inspired by equal parts The Korean Table and The Seaweed Salad I bought at Trader Joes many months ago.

The TJs salad was great if a little heavy on the sauce (did I just say that?).  So again I hit up….wait for it….Amazon (shocking) and ordered a bag of mixed dried seaweed, which I’ve been eating….let’s just say a lot.

It’s so easy!  You just soak some dried seaweed in cold water for about 10 minutes, drain, and add whatever you want.  I’ve also mixed it with Soy-Scallion Dipping Sauce (from the Korean cookbook also) for a sweeter, less spicy version.

I made other stuff too, but I’m going to make you click over and read about them because I’m feeling too lazy to give you a proper update.  

Something tells me you will live though.  Especially with the promise of a cookie recipe to come…..

Do you like tahini?  What’s your favorite tahini recipe?