Re-Indigenizing Snacks: 3-Ingredient Sunflower Cookies

Today I’ll be making (and tasting!) a recipe from indigikitchen.com.

Indigikitchen hosts recipes curated by Mariah Gladstone. She is a member of the Blackfeet and Cherokee tribes where she learned about indigenous food systems, diets and cooking through her grandparents and parents. Indigikitchen is a website and show “dedicated to re-indigenizing our diets.” Re-indigenizing diets isn't just about health; it's about sovereignty and reconnecting with the land—defining one’s own food and agriculture systems and supporting cultural revitalization. Gladstone describes it as follows: "...pre-contact foods, especially those harvested locally, are a testament to the resilience of Native lifestyles and a delicious way of resisting colonization."

Out of the 30+ recipes on the Indigikitchen website, I chose to make the sunflower maple cookies. The cookies themselves are made out of just three ingredients: sunflower flour, maple syrup and salt! Sunflower Seeds are an ancient North American crop high in protein and vitamin E. Maple Syrup is a traditional sweetener from the sap of maple trees. And sea salt was often traded between coastal and inland nations for preservation and flavor.

I couldn’t find a store that sells sunflower flour, so I went out and found some raw, shelled sunflower seeds instead. These were just $2.50, a great budget-friendly option for a snack. Next time I see some locally grown seeds, I’ll be sure to scoop them up! 

Sunflowers are one of the few plants north of Mexico that were domesticated by Indigenous peoples thousands of years ago—long before the popular crops (corn, beans, and squash) arrived in many regions.

Gladstone suggested many methods of turning seeds into flour: a ziploc bag with a rolling pin, a coffee grinder, a mortar and pestle. I chose to grind them up using a multimix.

Here’s what the seeds looked like after grinding them in bursts for a few minutes:

Similar to wheat flour, just a little clumpier! This is because sunflower seeds are high in healthy fats/oils. Because sunflower seeds have a high oil content, grinding them too long can actually turn your 'flour' into sunflower butter! It’s a fine line between a powder and a paste. 

Next, I combined the freshly ground sunflower flour with salt and maple syrup. The syrup allowed the powder to bind together and begin to stick:

After that, I shaped them into balls and put them onto a pan on medium-high heat. This part was optional but recommended to give the cookies a roasted, toasty flavour. When the seeds hit the pan, the kitchen smelled a bit like roasted popcorn!

A note on oil: I used extra virgin olive oil; however, if I was to make them again, I would use a more neutral-flavored oil (Gladstone recommends avocado oil) or simply use less of it. They ended up being a tiny bit too oily for my liking.

Here is the final result! The cookies were soft in the middle. Because they weren’t baked, their texture was closer to cookie dough than to traditional crunchy cookies. They had a nutty, buttery, rich flavour. One of my favourite parts of the cookies is that you can distinctly taste all three ingredients: the nuttiness of the sunflower seeds, the sweetness and roundness of the maple syrup, and the sea salt that balances it all out and keeps it from being bland or too sweet.

Overall, these cookies are a testament to the idea that you don't need a long list of processed ingredients to make something delicious. We can make healthy, traditional study snacks using tried-and-true recipes and ingredients. Next time, I’ll be experimenting with the amount of grinding to see if I can get that consistency perfect!

Look through the recipes yourself on Indigikitchen's recipe page, and maybe you’ll find your next favourite meal! 

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Author: Callum Eaket, ITMP Blog Writer

Image credits

Indigikitchen Logo: https://www.indigikitchen.com/ 

Photographs: Callum Eaket