#RevolutionCookbook Vegan Corn Muffins

Vegan Corn Muffins

What does a vegan revolutionary have for breakfast? Some days you just want to feel normal, like everyone else. No food issues. No living proof of your strong ethical animal treatment beliefs. Just one of the crowd. What could be more normal that a corn muffin?

I give you a simple, delicious, nutritious recipe that will fool your non-vegan friends into believing that you’ve given it all up.

Ingredients
• 1 cup corn meal (fine ground)
• 1 cup flour
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 4 tablespoons sugar (or sweetener equivalent)
• Salt to taste
• 1 cup alt milk (e.g., almond or soy work well, so does regular milk for non-vegans who don’t want to go all the way)
• 3 tablespoons oil
• 1 ½ tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 ½ cups of cooked corn (I often use frozen and put it in water for about an hour to defrost, fresh off cob is delicious but not always practical)

Directions
1. In one bowl, mix all dry ingredients
2. In another bowl, whisk all wet ingredients
3. Dump wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Mix.
4. Place into pre-heated 350F degree oven for 23 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins. I use those little paper muffin cups. If you can make it work without them, more power to you!

#RevolutionaryHeroes -- Housing Works

Housing Works

I started writing about Housing Works as a Quirky NYC experience—and it is!—but it is also a quintessential never give up kind of revolutionary organization. People think of Housing Works as a great place to buy second-hand furniture, clothes and books, stylishly presented at irresistible-bargain prices. Their outposts are located in neighborhoods where rich people live and donate great stuff!

Housing Works was born in 1990 and is the brain child of the legendary AIDS activist group ACT UP. At the time, the AIDS epidemic in NYC was exploding, as was the homeless crisis. Not surprisingly the two overlapped in complex and often unpopular ways. The founders believed that stable housing was the key to helping people living with HIV live healthy and fulfilling lives and to prevent the further spread of the virus.

In order to expand the many services that Housing Works also provides (e.g., health care, legal aid, job training), in 1995 they opened their now famous thrift shops and eventually opened the Bookstore Café at 126 Crosby Street. Talk about your out of the box thinking! Amazingly, they proved the skeptics wrong and started bringing in significant amounts of money—funding nearly 90% of their operating costs.

Housing Works is the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Even though many think that HIV/AIDS is no longer a problem in the US, approximately 45,000 Americans will be newly infected with HIV this year alone.

Just because an issue is unpopular or ignored, doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. Remember that! You’ll need to in order to keep moving forward.

The next thing to do? Check them out: http://www.housingworks.org/ Buy things from them! Here’s a radical idea: volunteer and become a member! This is how revolution starts…and continues.

#HousingWorks #QuirkyNYC #AIDS #homeless #TheResistance

#WednesdayWomen Priya & Dharshni--WiDS, New York City

#QuirkyNYC: Free (or incredibly cheap) WiDS

I just spent the day with some of the smartest women in town—for free! I signed up for the Women in Data Science (WiDS) NYC conference. The room was jam packed and, apparently, the waiting list was even longer.

What is data science? Basically, it’s anything to do with the combination of numbers AND (this is the really important part) creativity. These two elements are used to problem solve a wide variety of questions: anything from improved customer experience to climate change to the relationship between fried chicken and labradoodles (really!).

I want to give a big shout out to Dr. Tian Zheng @tz33cu a brilliant and funny statistics(!) professor. She emphasized the importance of bringing the skill set that you have—whatever it is—to the table; of working collaboratively, since no one person can have all of the answers; and of sharing the process and methods in a public forum so that others can replicate and improve on the final product, which is never really final.

Technically, this is not exclusively a quirky NYC activity, since WiDS has conferences across the US and around the world! Here’s how to get involved: http://www.widsconference.org/register.html

#WiDS #smartwomen

#Resist --and how: #SanctuaryCities

This sign is taped on the gates of the hardware store that was the subject of my post on this blog on January 3: http://maureentravels.blogspot.com/2017/01/sanctuarycity.html

#americathebeautiful

#RevolutionCookbook Scallion Pancakes

Scallion Pancakes--Korean Style

Today is all about appetizers—easy, impressive and delicious (and need I say economical)!

Ingredients:
Pancakes
• 2 cups flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1.5 cups water
• 1 bunch of scallions, halved and cut into 2-3 inch lengths
• 1 tsp salt
• Oil for cooking

Dipping sauce
• Soy sauce
• Chinese Chinkiang (black) vinegar
• Fresh ginger (if inspired)

Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients together and let sit for about 10 minutes. Check consistency before cooking – batter should be a little bit runnier than American pancake batter, so that the Pa Jun cooks quickly and evenly.
2. Heat a saute pan over medium heat and coat with a thin layer of oil.
3. Fry 4” to 5’” rounds in hot vegetable oil (3-4 minutes until set and golden brown on bottom, turn over and finish by cooking 1-2 more minutes, adding more oil if necessary).
4. Drain on paper towels and cut into quarters.
5. Serve with dipping sauce of ½ soy sauce and ½ Chinese Chinkiang vinegar—add some slivered ginger.

Serves 5-6.

#WednesdayWomen Mileka-- #FrenchRoast New York City