Vegan Berry Streusel Muffins (Hello Coffee Break)

hello muffin!

Howdy Hippos!

As promised I am back to blogging after finishing my novel. I had lots of good news in my fiction writer life in the past couple of weeks. I just signed with with my dream literary agent, Stacy Testa, from a very respected literary agency, Writers House New York. And while I am on top of the world, I still have a lot of edits to handle with her before she shops my novel around. So I won't be popping these recipe puppies out by the dozen, but I do promise to give you some choice treats twice a month at the very least. Deal? (I just heard a chorus of DEAL right back at me).

Today I wanted to recreate that perfect coffee muffin with that iconic streusel on top. Turns out it's super easy. I took my inspiration from this post. Except mine had no reason to be oil-free and I also wanted to mix in flour with the oats for a more cakey-feel.

Too pretty to eat

So the first thing we'll do is make the vegan streusel. That's the crumbly bits  you add on top of the batter to recreate that coffee-cake bliss.

Vegan Streusel 

3/4th cup almonds blended/ground into flour
2 heaping teaspoons of ground cinnamon powder
3 tablespoons maple syrup (you could use jaggery syrup too)

These babies will be blended (almonds and cinnamon powder)

That's it! So all you do is add 3/4th cup of almonds and cinnamon in your blender and blend it into almond flour. Put it in a bowl, add the syrup and mix. You'll get a nice lumpy streusel. Set aside.



For the Blueberry Muffins

1 and quarter cups flour
1/2 cup oats
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1/4th cup vegetable oil
1/4th cup soya mylk
3/4th to 1  cup brown sugar ( 3/4th if you don't like it too sweet)
1 teaspoons cinnamon powder
1 and half teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar
1.5 tablespoon ground flaxseed powder
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (or strawberries or any mix of berries)

Note: You could use 1/4th cup apple sauce (just deseed, peel and blend an apple) instead of the flax seed powder. We use flaxseed powder or applesauce as a binder.

That's how your batter should-kinda look

How to Make

In a bowl add oil, brown sugar, flaxseed powder (or apple sauce),  soya mylk, vanilla, and cinnamon and mix. Add flour, oats, baking soda and powder and mix into a thick batter. It shouldn't be too dry, if it is add a few spoons of water or soya mylk. Now add your berries and mix it up again.

In a lined muffin tray add one heaping tablespoon of batter per muffin lining.  You should have enough batter for 6 medium sized muffins. Once you've done that get your streusel out. Now heap the mixture on top of each muffin.

Adding that magical streusal

Right before you pop'em in the oven

Bake at 180c for 20 minutes.

Enjoy these delights with a glass of iced or steaming hot black coffee.

Have a spectacular week. Keep it real!

Sensitive much? Why Sadness and Anger Screw Up Progress Towards Injustices We Care Most About

(Image: Collective Evolution)

The thing is, when it comes to animals, I get emotionally invested to a ridiculous level. It's the garden-variety label people like to throw a round:  'an animal lover'.

It's one of the reasons I can't look at any graphic videos/pictures of animals in pain or in circumstances where they are rendered helpless. It's the reason I walked the path to veganism, slowly over the past decade. Over the years, I made the connection to meat, and then a year and half ago to dairy. But this post is not about why I turned vegan. It is about identifying potent sensitivities we all have and regularising them to other issues that need our collective attention.

A couple months ago, a situation near my house that involved dogs was making me emotionally miserable. I won't go into the situation because it could trigger others, and the point of this blog is finding paths to emotional productivity within a world that triggers us.

Anyway, the situation was on my face 24/7, so one day I shut down. I didn't have the headspace to fight the situation, I was too emotionally torn about it. I couldn't do anything except think about it and make my self more miserable. Anxiety kicked in followed my depression. I stayed in bed for almost 2 days. I couldn't go to work and I literally sobbed one entire night away.

My boyfriend came up to me and said: 'This isn't helping the situation and it certainly isn't helping you, your emotions have to be channeled into something that can make both the sitation and yourself better.'

While words alone can't stop you from 'feeling' a certain way, I knew one thing to be true. And that was that I could so something to make it better, even if it was small, even if it did not solve the problem entirely. There are  issues that can be blown out of proportion in your mind (with good reason), and there are issue  that can't be technically solved. But the way you work with that emotion? That can be up for scrutiny and you can help yourself to a reasonable extent, that is if your mental health is otherwise healthy.

There are two important things that this experience taught me:

1. Not everybody will be emotionally invested in animals. I certainly am not triggered half as much when I hear/read about human issues.

2. But most people are emotionally invested in something: abuse, caste/class injustices, politics, a family situation, a personal loss, and other broad spectrum issues that render us feeling helpless and stewing about the unfairness of the world.

It also taught me 2 things about  our responses to emotional triggers. People usually resort to one of the two responses :

1. Shutting Down/Being overwhelmingly Sad : This cripples you and makes everything else feel as sad. Much like how I responded.

2. Anger and Self-Righteousness: I've also been guilty of using this response to not only veganism but other social justice issues. This is easy to spot on social media. When it comes to animal rights and human rights, a lot of anger and blame results in a unshakable force that provokes us to show people how the world ought to be. You find yourself pointing out the hypocrisies of the world and why it's plain stupid that people are so apathetic.

 Perhaps guilty is the wrong word. it's after all an authentic response. But my intent is to work past these responses to not only better us emotionally but to make tangible change.

There are two things that both these responses hold in common:

1. It's detrimental to the individual
2. It lowers the possibility for actual change.


Shutting down and feeling sad about it makes you look at the world with hopeless eyes and keeps your headspace filled up with angst and sadness. It cripples your ability to make your time on earth count towards things you are so passionate about.

Anger keeps feeding anger. You'll attract more people who can't see past the rage and injustice. The will get angry for you, and that's what keeps your own anger sustained. This does two things: it alienates people further from caring and secondly it ultimately lets you view the entire world with those glasses on. You'll find enough reasons to carry that anger everywhere.

Like I said, I've used both responses for issues that affect me (shutting down for animal-related injustices and anger for human-related injustices). Over the years, I've experienced the utter futility of both. I've found myself walking away from possibilities of small changes I'am capable of.

One profound understanding occurred during this time. Obviously not everyone is triggered the way I am about animals. But there are people who feel the same intensity of emotion about other issues. This gives me a platform to act with added productivity when it comes to educating myself and understanding those other injustices. That lets me see that I have to look at the world holistically and

try to cover other bases of injustices as well. 

You as an individual could react to specific kinds of injustices in different ways: anger/shutting down at varying levels. And once you find a club of people who will support that through the same kind of dialogue/comments/hand holding will unintentionally support this undesirable state of existing.

I don't mean to discredit pain, sadness and anger. They are very valid emotions. If nothing fails to hurt/anger  you then we'd be living in a world that had no organisations, movements, books, speeches, and resources for humanity to grow and thrive. But when it's all you can do, then you're stuck in a situation that helps no one, much less your self.

On a truly philosophical level, you'd want to help yourself first. You are the body and mind that takes in the world in a unique way, and your responses to it are solely because you exist. Your wellbeing is the most important factor to change. Your ability to keep pushing yourself to know more, discuss, and take 'action' on various micro and macro levels count towards collective evolution.

Make no mistake about it, collective evolution towards a better world is the ONLY way we are going to get to a better place. We are riding on a lot of peoples' sadness and anger from the past in order to be living with the privileges we do now. But know that sustained change depends on empathy for a world that is complex. A world where there are no real back and white issues but a merging of history, culture, class, politics, and human curiosity. All the evil in the world sure seems to poke through the lens of 'one' potent issue, but the truth is, these evils are reflections of our every day. Our every day choices, views, and hopes. It's also the reflection of our own apathy for some things. There is no one answer for a ideal world much less an understanding of what an ideal world is.

You have your gut and instinct to follow. You have resources to educate yourself on how your choices hurt humans and animals. You have choices on how you want to respond to them. Being an observer as well counts, because you sometimes you need to sit back and view the world as a whole before you can take a particular action. If you start to look at the world as a place where you can perform random short bursts of unexpected kindness chances are that's the exciting headspace you will live in. If you start to look at the world with the idea that you could use your own social privileges and access to knowledge to learn more, understand more, and do things that you feel add up to a better world, then undoubtedly that's how you will think and feel about the world.

The world is not black and white. But your emotional responses often can be. Search for that perfect blend where you feel peace inside and reflect it on the outside. The bottom line? If you feel one potent emotion/response to a social issue, you care, and within this emotion lies your power to do something extraordinarily beautiful.

P.S 

A note on mental health: While I've discussed emotions here, I don't intend to minimise the reality of mental illness. Depression and anxiety are real clinical problems that one can't always be 'talked out of'. I myself suffer from mild to moderate depression. To that effect this blog is primarily a nudge on perspective for people who are otherwise healthy in mind and body.

The Most Epic Vegan Sunday Brunch with Friends & Family

Sundays have branded brunch really well, eh? Who came up with this brunch idea anyway? It reeks of bourgeois whimsy. Oh, we want to wake up late, eat a lot and then not have to worry about cooking lunch. Also, we'd like to eat till our guts burst and then sleep till the late afternoon nudges us into some lackadaisical evening activity.


Bourgeois whimsy aside, I must say I do love a good brunch. Tradition and pop-culture have a aesthetic mood board already in place. You're thinking pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, fruits, cheese, and sangria. Luckily for the animals, I am here to state otherwise. You can have brunch without all them animal products and it can be a dizzyingly delicious array of slurp-slurp.

My mother is in town and I invited my childhood friend and her husband to Brunch. I also had my cousin sister Disha visiting from Manipal to dig in too. And there was my faithful life partner Indra and our dogs snooping around the table too. So what, pray, was on the menu?

The first thing I wanted to include was something zesty, fresh, and wholesome. I had a packet of quinoa that had been lying around for months. I cooked that, added chopped cucumber, green peppers, jalapeños, tomato, cooked chickpeas, and avocado. Then I made a cheesy-dressing with nutritional yeast, cashews, peri-peri chili powder, pepper, salt, and a splash of jaggery syrup. I just pored it over the quinoa salad and YUM. Fresh, zesty, and nutritious.


Then we had a grand tofu scramble. Just slice 2 packets of tofu into small squares. On a frying pan I added some onions, chilies, tomatoes and olive oil. Add the tofu cubes and mixed dried herbs (oregano, basil, chili flakes, pepper), 2 teaspoons of garlic powder, and a few squirts of chili sauce. Stir fry for a few more minutes and it's good to go.

Scrambled Tofu

I made a pistachio loaf that came out super spectacular. It went really well with the freshly brewed coffee we made. I used 3/4 cup brown sugar, a squirt of maple syrup, a dash of salt, 1/3 rd cup olive oil, and 3/4th cup soya mylk. I then added 1/2 cup of ground pistachio and cashews into it along with 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder +baking soda, and 1 table spoon of ground flax seeds (which you can omit). I poured in the batter into a loaf tin, and sprinkled 1/4th cup of whole pistachios on top. Bake for 35 min at 180c.

Out of the Oven. That Pistachio Loaf.

Next up was an experiment. My very own vegan 'meatballs'. You'll need vital wheat gluten for this one, it's basically seitan. You take 1.5 cups of vital wheat gluten flour + 1.5 cups of soaked 'soya keema' which you get at any store. Then you mix up the vital wheat gluten with the soaked soya to make a dough. Add garlic powder, soya sauce, chili sauce, pepper, salt and whatever seasoning you wish. Make little balls and toss them in the oven for 25 min at 180 with some olive oil drizzled on top. The result is chewy meaty plant-based spicy meat!

vegan meat balls out of the oven

All I had to do was make a fruit salad with pineapple, pomegranate, and bananas. Thank god for my mother who chopped up the pineapple like a savage. We also had a fresh tomato jalapeno salsa which was just fresh tomato, garlic seasoning, and 2 jalapeños blended with a dash of water and olive oil. Side accompaniments were store-bought hummus, baguette bread, and olives.

That's the SPREAD.

We all drank a bunch of black coffee (with soya mylk and sugar for some) and chatted about high-school and college which was like last century ago.

What my plate looked like. 

The mother laying out the table

And that was that people. Vegan brunch can be bad-ass amazing. Start planning your own.

I'll see you guys next week! Keep it real.

till next time, pistachio loaf bids you farewell 

The Real Neel Deal (The Vegan 2am Ultra Runner)

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Meet Neelanjan Banerjee. If that's a tongue twister, breath easy, he's better known as Neel. This man can run long-ass distances and make it look easy-peasy. But to run those distances he has to balance his life in the armed forces, be an all-star husband, father, and dog papa. That means he wakes up at, um, 2am on some mornings just so he can run.

Neel was born in Mohali, Chandigarh and then moved to Gurgaon. Now Gurgaonites, haven’t heard a name like his, so you better believe that in addition to butchering his name he was featured in a whole range of class jokes. 

Right after he finished 12th grade he joined the Armed Forces. Today he lives in Gwalior with his wife Tumpa, his 6-year old son and his dalmatian. Fun fact about Tumpa: she was a year senior to Dhoni's wife, Sakshi. She also makes homemade wine and perfume!

Let's get to know this vegan mega runner, shall we?

You run real long distances. You casually talk to your youtube fans about

doing a 10, 15km, or 20km run on a regular morning. What got you started?

N.B: Well, I am in the Armed Forces, so I am used to physical activity. I love it. I've been running since I was in school. I mean, in school it was a different kind of running. More like football and hockey. Later it was all about endurance running.

I think I started running marathons in 2012 . I owe that to a mid life crisis of sorts. I guess my crises came quicker for me. Running helped me overcome it and gave me  purpose. Anyway, after few marathons, the most logical step for me was to run ultras. Just to put into perspective, a half marathon is 21.1 km, a full marathon is 42.2 km and anything beyond it is an ultra. The ultra races are typically distances ranging from 50 km, 80 km, 100 km, 160 km, 220 km, and then the 24- hour run.

In 2015, I dipped my toes in a 100 km race( Bhatti Lakes Ultra). Training for an ultra is bit different from marathon training. The average daily and weekly long runs are  way longer. That’s why running 90-100 km per week mileage is a walk in the park. But it took me a while to reach the place where I am now. I am still a novice. There are many runners who have a higher weekly mileage and run much faster than me.

What time do you get up in the morning to run? How many times a week do you do this?

  I have to highlight my life constraints to answer this question properly. The first being I have to reach my workplace by 8:30 AM. Two, I had been a single parent for a while.That meant that I had to get my run in on time and be back to wake up my kid at 6AM to send him to school.

With those calculations in mind, I have to get up at 3 AM and get back home by 6 AM for my kid. If it’s the weekly long run, then 3 AM gets pushed back to to 1 or 2 AM. I am used to this time now as my wife has now joined me back in Gwalior. She was working in Delhi for a while. Gwalior has bad traffic that's why I need to finish before 7 AM. I do this  5-6 days a week.

  Are you a natural runner or do you have to work real hard at it? What does your son and wife think about your running life?

I am not a natural long distance runner. I can sprint well. I have to work hard enough to run long. Now in ultras, the cut offs timings are quite liberal, so an average runner can finish the distance if he has done the training and has the right mental approach to it. Despite the odds, I love going on for long hours on trails and roads. I love the feeling of numbness while running and the calmness after finishing.The most common remark I get from people is that I don’t look like a runner. I have a pretty heavy build. 

My son is  too young to understand what and why I run ultras but he joins me whenever I workout at home. My wife is not entirely happy about this crazy pursuit but knows that it's the one activity that keeps me happy and healthy. She has every right  to be mad at me because I am not available to her on weekdays, but she is making the sacrifice by letting me train. I try to balance everything out, but I am tired most of the days. I try to make it up to her on weekends after I am done with my weekly long run. But I have been faltering on that aspect for sometime now.

Neel, the little guy, and his wife Tumpa

  When did you get to know about veganism? How has it blended with your running life?

In 2015, I increased my weekly mileage to train for my first 100 km race. That's when I started catching colds and coughs every week. I would be sneezing continuously for hours, my nose wold water like somebody opened a tap inside, and I would cough like crazy.

 I hired a nutritionist, posted questions on ultra running Facebook groups, but nothing helped. I knew that with increased running the immune system would take a hit . It's only the right food that can help maintain it. I read some books and listened to podcasts by vegan ultra runners. That's when it struck me. If I went vegan I could perhaps train without suffering so often. So, in April 2017, I decided to turn vegan.

 I am Bengali by birth and have grown up eating fish, meat, and sweets. People jokingly say that Bengalis must have been cats in their previous life because of our fondness for fish. People around me have a hard time understanding why I have decided to walk this path. It’s no use explaining because in general, people don't get it. After turning vegan, the colds and coughs have stopped completely. I can train more consistently. My recovery time after runs have improved and I feel much better. I even ran a 100 km race on 06 October 2017  virtually on fruits because they served curd rice for lunch. Overall, I feel that going vegan was the next logical step.

Running fuel

Good old south indian vegan

What's a typical food day for you? Get real specific.

My diet is really simple actually. No fancy stuff because Gwalior isn't the place for fancy. Breakfast is a big smoothie with 2-3 bananas and some other fruit like apple/ papaya/mango with a spoon of peanut butter, chia seeds and a handful of cranberries plus mixed nuts. I use plain cold water to mix it with. Lately I have started making Dalia with sautéed onion, tomato with some veggies as well. If my wife is in good mood, she makes me a bowl of Poha.

Mid day snack is a fruit - banana or an apple.

Lunch is rice/roti(3), a katori of dal, and two different kind of veggies. For veggies I mostly eat cauliflower, lady finger, bitter gourd, and cabbage cooked Bengali style. Along with the food, I love a piece of raw onion and some papad.

Evening snack is a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit. If I am famished, then I may make myself a bowl of Maggi with green chillies.

Dinner is same as lunch except I don’t eat rice at night. I am a big black coffee junkie. I drink copious amounts of coffee without sugar throughout  the day.

I drink alcohol once a week and that's only after my weekly long run. No booze on weekdays. Race day nutrition is a whole other discussion. I won't even get into that. 

the winning smoothie

who needs cheese?

 What's the weirdest thing that has happened on a long distance run for you?

I love this question because I've faced one of the most bizarre incidents. I wrote an article on this too. If you want to read it click here. 

 In 2015, I was staying in Bengdubi, a small town near Siliguri, West Bengal. This place is famous for wild elephants. The same year, I registered for a 100 km race.  I had a scheduled 40 km run. I had to get to work in the morning, so I started running at 2 AM. Crazy, right?

On my first loop, there was a dark patch on the road where the elephants used to frequently cross over to the jungle. As I was running in that dark patch, I came face to face with a lone male elephant. He was merrily munching on some leaves. We were about 10 feet apart.We surprised each other. He stopped munching, let out a terrifyingly loud roar and started to chase me with his ears flapping and his trunk raised. I thought I was a dead man. I ran my fastest 100 metre, jumped a drain, and went right  inside some house that was nearby.

I changed my route and finished my 40 km. On reaching home, I woke my wife to tell her the story. She also chased me for waking her up! Just kidding! She heard my story and told me that I was mad. Then she went back to sleep.

It's the life of Neel. For real.

 It's a fantasy world. You are not allowed to run. But you can do any other physical activity on a regular basis. What would that be? Why?

I would do scuba diving. I love that sport. I am a certified Advanced Open Water Diver from PADI. The beauty of the underwater world, the thrill and excitement, well it's something to die for. 

Tumpa has to put up with this

So reader people, isn't this guy wild? 

Yes, yes, I do think this fellow is wild and amazing. How do I make him a part of my life?

Well, just shy of literal stalking, you can follow and keep in touch with Neel in 4 easy ways.

Keep up with Neel and his life and running adventures on his youtube channel 

Be FB friends with him

Follow him on twitter

Keep up with his blog 

Happy Dog

Till then keep it real. Keep it kind. 

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Oddly Flat Vegan Baked Donuts

Ola Rabbits

So I took a long break. And truth be told I am kind of on a pause with the cooking until November. I am hunkering down and working on my novel. I had an epic wave of positive things happen in my writerly life. The biggest one being the fact that I got into Pitchwars! That means really revising my novel manuscript with my mentor until my October 30th deadline.


Between running Write Leela Write and the book, I can't give my best to the blog. So I am giving you one little treat until I take off till the end of the year.

Are you ready for this? Because these donuts kind of worked, but not really. It's all about perspective. I was inspired to make vegan donuts. I was hanging around youtube and was inspired by a youtube video that made these baked donuts. There's that LIE we bakers love to employ: oh here's a 'healthy' donut. Look there is no such thing as a healthy donut, even if it's baked. It might have less oil than a fried donut, but it's got a shit ton of sugar in it. Plus flour. And oil.

So the secret ingredient here is nutmeg which kind of gives it that bakery donut taste. But it has no yeast and relies on the chemistry of vinegar and baking soda. So yeah, kind of worked, but they turned out to be scrawny. They were delicious though and you can kind of eat them as mini-cakes without the chocolate glaze as well.


Let's get right into this


What you need

For the donuts

2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup-3/4th cup powdered sugar (I used 1/2)
2 teaspoons nutmeg powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4th cup oil
1/4th cup vinegar
1 cup soya mylk (or almond/coconut/cashew)


For the glaze

1 cup sugar
1/3rd cup water
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
splash of vanilla
pinch of salt
Sprinkles


How to Make


In a bowl dump your flour, salt, sugar, baking soda, and nutmeg in. Blend. Set aside.

Secret Ingredient. Check.

In large glass or bowl add your  soya mylk,  oil, vanilla, and vinegar in. Now pour this mix into your dry mix. It will bubble a little ( that's a good sign). Mix into a sticky wet batter.

Vinegar, oil, and soya mylk are an unlikely trio. But it works. Trust.

Now get a baking tray out and slap on a sheet of wax paper on it. In a large ziplock bag or a piping bag pour half the mixture in. Snip the corner and pipe a circle. Make sure to leave a big hole in the middle. It might disappear while baking but later on you can take a shot glass and cut it out. Hey we ain't professionals here ok!

It's gonna be ok. You got this.

Preheat oven to 185c. Bake the piped donuts for 12 min. I could only do 3-4 donuts per tray since I have a small oven.

About to go in the oven. Mad piping skills, eh?

While they are baking get yourself to the stove. In a pot add water, sugar, cocoa, vanilla and salt. Stir continuously until it boils and thickens a bit.

Let your donuts cool. Then dip them in the chocolate sauce and sprinkle that baby! Yay! You're amateur and oddly flat donuts are ready. And they're vegan. And that's freaking amazeballs.


Wish me luck for the coming months. I promise I'll be back. Keep it kind.