The one beauty of working (on my own business!) from home is that I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule. Every week I have a set of things I want to accomplish, but since I’m my own boss – I get to choose exactly what day and time I want to do them. The problem with that? Sometimes too much flexibility leaves a little too much wiggle room… which in turn accomplishes less.
Want an example? Let’s do something easy, like working out (I have a feeling a lot of you could relate!). I plan on working out daily (actually 6 times a week) but sometimes I don’t feel like doing it at the convenient time… or I start getting nervous about all those pull-ups P90X loves so much, so I tell myself I’m hungry and should eat first. Of course that follows my the need to digest before I can get to it. I tell myself I have the whole day to do it. And then 6/7/8pm rolls around and I’m too tired to work out. Too much wiggle room and a whole lot of nothing gets accomplished! 
So I realized on Monday that I need to whip my ass into shape and get organized! Because besides all the things my business requires, I have a personal life too… with responsibilities and a social life, all of which require some juggling. 
On the personal front, my 30th birthday is coming up and that means it was time to revisit my 30 by 30 list. On this lovely list, I saw the goal of making and blogging about 25 new Russian recipes. And since I’m still 15 recipes short (with the last Russian recipe posted over 2 months ago!), I’ve got some serious catching up to do!! On the calendar a new weekly Russian recipe went immediately. It’s now an appointment I must keep.
There was no way around it. I had to whip something delicious (and Russian) right away – a treat I used to enjoy as a kid – shokoladnaya karthoshka (translation: chocolate potato… yeah). I’ve written about this before but Russian have this weird obsession with trying to shape foods into strange things (examples include chocolate sausage, black poodle cake, little hill cake… and now potatoes!). I suppose out of those examples, potatoes seem almost normal. But have no fear, they always taste amazing.
These babies are made of milk, sugar, butter, cacao and crushed cookies and walnuts, creating fudgy little balls of goodness…which you can choose to shape into mini potatoes, or not. I actually kind of got into it and thought it was fun to make little potato sprouts out of pine nuts.
Make the batter, refrigerate overnight, then shape into potatoes (or just balls) and toss in cacao/sugar mixture.
I 
Russian treats! 
See the resemblance?
How about NOW?
Oh yeah. 
Or you can just go the plain non-potatoey route.
Soft fudgy goodness
ARRR (<—sound of me biting into one! 
)
How do you organize yourself? Have you ever shaped foods into something non-traditional? Would you like to try one of these potato truffles? Yes, I’m full of questions today and I want answers! 
P.S. The Dahlicious lassi giveaway winner is Lily. Congrats!! Please email me your address to elina@healthyandsane.com
So cute! They do look just like potatoes. I would definitely love to try one!
Come over – I have plenty left
I ate something like this a couple of weeks ago from my fiance’s grandmother… it’s tough to describe them — sweet like toffee but the texture is a bit crumbly yet chewy. Love them, though I know my dairy-intolerant self shouldn’t eat too much of it — plus, they are rich.
These guys are soft and fudgy, and yes – I think they do have toffee notes from the butter/sugar. You can try making them with soy milk maybe? Mmm
So adorable! I love the pine nuts as the little potato “eyes”.
These are very cute and look delicious!
So cute!! I love the pine nuts as sprouts. They sound delicious.
How cool and SO yummy looking. In Germany, you can get marzipan shaped and colored to look like potatoes. It’s a traditional Christmas treat.
Sheesh, now I want both.
Hi Elina, I’ve been really looking forward to the next Russian recipe from you and here it is… I remember it from childhood and how pretty much obsessed most of us kids were with these Chocolate Potatoes! Your recipe looks and sounds delicious!
Yay! Hope you make them soon!
These are adorable! It reminds me of a dessert I made in Italy called salami dolci, or sweet salami. It was chocolate and crushed cookies rolled into a log to look like salami.
Sounds like the Russian chocolate sausage – that one is definitely more chocolaty than the “potatoes”
http://www.russianbites.com/chocolate-sausage-shokoladnaya-kalbasa
I’ve never seen these, but they look and sound tasty from your post!
Chocolate shaped like mini potatoes? Adorable!
The resemblance to the real thing is striking. i would love to try one!
ha, even without the “eyes” they really do look like potatoes
Aw, the sprouts are the best part. These make my traditional truffles I posted look downright boring!
Truffles are never boring
Ok, I would much rather eat these truffles than a regular potato! I love that.
Lately I find that I need to schedule my work that gets done on the weekends or I don’t know how to use my time at all. Planning that in advance is a huge help!
Yup, I’ve established some scheduling parameters for my weekdays this week and it’s been amazing how much more productive I am. It feels good to be productive and also have time for (guilt free!) play
Yummy, yummy, yummy! Your recipes are beautiful.
P.S. I tagged you in my latest post for this survey going around the blog world. Take part if you haven’t already yet!
http://healthy-chicks.com/2012/02/10/tgif-11-things/
These are so cute – they look just like potatoes! Very creative.
I love how you added the pine nuts – too cute! They sound delicious!
There exactly the same as rum balls, but if I may say they might be better. I’m Russian, trust there very good. I can never get enough of them
This looks like a really cute little recipe- that I would really like to use- but does it come with any measurments?
I don’t really like to ‘just wing it’ unless I’ve made the recipe a few times before.
Hi Sandra, at the end of the post there is a link that says “printable recipe here” – you’ll find all the measurements there