seitan is my motor

Last time I talked about expanding the blog a little bit but the truth is in order to expand the topics covered here, I also have to cut out some things. The sad thing is that I don’t have the time I’d like to devote to blogging, reading other blogs, commenting, etc. anymore. Every time I open my reader (which is probably once a week these days) I feel overwhelmed. There are so many awesome posts, recipes, etc. out there and I just don’t have the time to catch up with them any longer. I don’t really feel connected to the blogging world anymore, if that makes sense. I thought about going on a hiatus for quite some time now but in the end, I don’t think this is what I want to do. So I made another decision. To save some time, I am going back to posting in English only. Since I started blogging so many amazing German blogs popped up and I don’t feel it’s not really necessary to translate my posts anymore. I feel sad about this decision and maybe I am going back to bilingual posts once things slow down again. There are still many German posts in the archives which I am going to keep. Anyway, thank you so much for reading the German entries!

Now for today’s recipe: If I would make these muffins again I would change two things: I would not use muffin liners because the muffins stick. And I would not waste 1/4 cup of whiskey on them because you can’t taste it at all. And maybe not tasting it is a good thing because these are perfect breakfast muffins. Not very sweet and also rather mild you can slice them in half and top them with some vegan butter and jam (or rhubarb compote!). And you won’t have to leave the house tipsy.

Some people have a CSA box, I have a SVB, a secret vegetable and fruit provider. From time to time when I open the appartment door, there’s a bag with fresh vegetables on the door knob. This week I got salsify, ramps, and rhubarb. Of course I know who my secret vegetable santa is. I think I wrote about our neighbour with the huge garden before. And she’s still so kind to share many of her delicious and fresh veggies with us.

Rhubarb Muffins (makes 10 large muffins)

110 g (6 tablespoons) agave nectar
80 g (6 tablespoons) melted refined coconut oil
360 ml (1 1/2 cups) soymilk
120 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
120 g (1 cup) whole wheat flour
30 g (1/4 cup) chickpea flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
100 g (3.5 oz) finely sliced rhubarb

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Grease 10 holes of a standard muffin pan with oil.
Whisk together agave, coconut oil, and soymilk. In a second bowl whisk together flours, baking powder and salt. Add dry to wet ingredients and whisk again to combine. Fold in rhubarb. Divide batter between the holes and fill them completely. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Note: Since these contain agave, they’ll brown pretty quickly and they will come out a bit darker than regular muffins.

Hello dear blog, it’s me!

I went on a little hiatus and I probably would have gone on blog vacation for a little longer. So much has been going on lately and I have a hard time keeping up with things. But then I remembered that this month is my blog and vegan anniversary. Five years seitanismymotor and five years vegan me. Wow! So I guess I need to come out of hibernation and dust off my keyboard.

I have several projects going one right now and one of them is testing for Celine Steen’s and Tamasin Noyes new cookbook on wholegrain baking! Yes, ok, this is not my project, it is theirs. But I am very exited for them! (And I guess for me and my belly, too.) Celine has been whipping up tasty whole grain baked goods on her blog for quite some time now and Tami is a kick-ass baker, too. I already made my grain mill work overtime and produced quite an amount of delicious breads and sweet treats. Like these Speculoos Doughnuts (The recipe is on Celine’s blog. Just click on the link above.):

I also came up with a couple of new recipes myself and of course I wrote them all down. Well, if I write something down on a tiny piece of paper and leave it somewhere in the kitchen, it’s gone. Which is a shame because I have been constantly working on my cookie skills. And I think I am almost there. Here’s a picture of one of the cookies I used to come up with:

And here’s one of a version that is already much better. Not perfect yet and a little pale maybe, but much crispier than the ones I used to come up with.

I have not only been cooking, I have also been toying with the idea of expanding this blog a bit. I like cooking and baking but that is not the only thing I am interested in regarding to veganism. And lately there have been some things going on that I would like to write about. For example most of you probably have heard of the embarrassing and shameful ads that PCRM came up with. (If not, don’t worry. It’s probably better that way. If you still wanna know, Ginny Messina wrote an excellent article on the whole thing.) To be honest, it has been bugging me for quite some time how veganism is often equated with health and thinness. My main questions are: Why are people stigmatized, who do not fit into our frames of what we consider healthy and beautiful?  And why do so many people still think that being thin means being healthy? Why do we work so hard to match a often very biased and repressive ideal of beauty – when in so many other areas we try to fight oppression and be compassionate? For a long time my head was spinning but I think I finally found some answers. I wrote something about it but so far it’s only available in German. Maybe I’m going to translate it soon.

Okay, now let’s finally celebrate my anniversary with fat and sugar!

Hazelnut Pie in Chocolate Crust

This shortbread crust is ridiculously easy to prepare and so is the filling. For extra hazelnut flavour I suggest to roast the hazelnuts before grinding them. Usually, when one of my recipes calls for coconut oil I mean refined coconut oil. For this crust I used unrefined oil and was quite pleased with the results.

For the crust:

120 g (1/2 cup) coconut oil, softened
60 g (1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
170 g (1 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon) all-purpose flour
20 g (3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoon) cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon soy milk

Cream together coconut oil, sugar, and starch. Sift together flour, cocoa, and salt. Add to coconut oil mixture. Beat with a handheld mixer until the mixture turns into crumbs. This should only take one or two minutes. Add the soy milk. Use your hands to form a smooth dough.

Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) round pan with oil. (I used one with a removable bottom, 4 cm [1.5 inch] deep, similar to this one. If you want to use a springform pan instead that’s fine. When pressing the dough into the sides remember not to go all the way up as a springform pan is usually deeper than a sandwich cake pan.)

Press 2/3 of the dough into the pan. Cover with plasic and freeze for 1 hour. Wrap the remaining dough in plastic as well and place in the fridge.

To make the filling:

350 g (12.3 oz) hazelnuts, preferably roasted
250 g (8.8 oz) quince jelly
seeds from half a vanilla bean or two teaspoons pure extract
1 tablespoon whiskey or orange juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch

Grind 3/4 of the hazelnuts into a fine meal. Combine meal and remaining ingredients. Use a fork or a spoon to blend everything well. Mix in remaining whole hazelnuts.

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F). Transfer the filling into the pan and distribute evenly. For the topping, chop the remaining dough into bite sized pieces. Sprinkle on top. Bake for 30 minutes, then lower the temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes. Let cool before removing the pan.