Vodka Muffins | Mercurial Musings

Part I of Cooking with Hard Liquor

Vegan pica. That's all that justifies this recipe. I wanted to make

• Bread for breakfast
• Carrot cake muffins like these
• Quinoa chocolate muffins like these
• Something with the vodka I bought for my 23rd birthday.

I bought potato vodka when I turned 23 just to say I bought hard liquor. I hadn't bought hard liquor, though I have bought beer and wine, since I turned 21. I don't drink. More than a few sips of alcohol makes me feel very badly very quickly. My tolerance is so low that drinking an entire bottle of kombucha effs up my meditation practice. Nothing is worth compromising the meditation practice. End of story.

Quinoa Vodka Chocolate Muffins (QVC Muffins)

Inspired by the abovementioned recipes

1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

1/3 cup canola oil

3/4 cup vodka

3/4 cup coconut sugar

1 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup buckwheat flour

1/2 cup amaranth flour

1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa (I used part Dutch and part black cocoa)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup cooked quinoa (cooked, not raw!)

1/2 cup Trader Joe's fruit leather bits, snipped to 1/2-inch chunks

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 12-well muffin tin and set aside.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together the water, flax, oil, vodka, and coconut sugar. Stir briskly to dissolve the coconut sugar.

In a large bowl, sift then whisk the flours, cocoa, leavening, and spices.  Add the wet to the dry and fold in the quinoa and fruit leather. Stir until well-combined. Transfer to the muffin wells. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops spring back to the touch.  Cool in the pan for 5 minutes then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Mmm, slightly ethanol-y.

***

"Go eat a cupcake."

There is this social ill called "thin-shaming," the other body type extreme from "fat-shaming." Both are discrimination, as this Everyday Feminism article explains so well.

The most pertinent point from the article I would like to point out today is this:

Are my negative experiences related to my body grievances, or are they pervasive issues on a societal level?

While I was doing INSANITY for the first time, I posted a lot of selfies on Instagram. I was marvelling at my results, genuinely surprised that I could fit in old clothes from 2010 again due to this new exercise and diet program. I was pushing myself and being far more disciplined at the time than I had been compared to my own life in several months. Apparently this rubbed several of my acquaintances the wrong way. 

Some prefacing. When I was more in the anorexic phase of being eating disordered in 2009, my classmates would check on me about eating regular meals (I asked them to help me figure out my relationship to food, full disclosure). 

Fast forward. Because I am vegan and gluten-free, both of which are the kind of diets that have been touted in the media for weight-loss, people remark, "Oh, you can be that and never have to worry about your weight." False. 

There's a saying in the fitness community, "You cannot out-exercise a bad diet." True.

I fell off the wagon sometime at the end of the first round of Insanity. Les Mills Combat and P90X I was not as dedicated to the five small meals (two of which were shakes) and workout each day. This round of Insanity is more difficult. Excuses? Social life. Stress from job transition. Still not knowing how to turn off and go to bed (workaholism).

Side views, because they are consistent.

Because this is my blog, and I can be immature if I want to, to the people who I pissed off because I succeeded at Insanity this summer, are you happy now?

Because I'm not. Motherfuckers.

I have a gut to lose again. It's the constant losing and gaining of weight, called weight cycling, that can be harmful to one's health.  Last week's Real Food Rebellion against the tyranny of protein shakes has put me on a quest to tease out the healthy, sustainable habits from what I already do, and to make doing them a priority. (Nota bene: Protein shakes/smoothies really just remind me of when I worked at a place where my snack options were restricted to the food I could drink, hence why I'm sick of them now. I'm not down on them as a category.) I'll report on them here. 

Before you start judging me versus you, look in the mirror. You are your own best benchmark for your health. When did you feel best? When did you feel worst? What did you do at both points? What habits can you take from the good and forget from the bad?

I compare myself to myself. Comparing myself to others brings needless suffering. I know there was a point where doing kundalini yoga was hard work and I don't want to be that weak again. However, there was a point where I was strong enough for my purposes and had less body fat in dangerous places. What did I do? I ate my VGF diet, I chewed my food well, I slept on a regular schedule, I had a spiritual practice that involved going to a communal worship place, I exercised as felt appropriate, I did fulfilling work, and I made time for creativity. Add social life and things would've been perfect (being social has always been a part of my life in which I've been lagging until this year).

So, what do you think I'm going to do? I'll start by paying attention and noticing--without negative self-talk--how I'm doing with reinstating the good habits, how I'm doing with letting go of the bad. For example, last night, I binged on Eat Pastry cookie dough, which is vegan, gluten-free, and loaded with my primary drug, sugar (BTW, if I haven't said it a thousand times, raw chickpea flour in cookies is ass-nasty). Before I bought it I was wavering to put it back, and the little voice in my head said, "Put it back, you stupid bitch." Well, of course I bought it! Rather, if I remembered the compassion practice I've done, I would say to myself, "What's wrong? What else is going on? Sit down and tell me." Then I get out my notebook and write. It's making space for the emotions that drive me to be self-destructive that can avert the actual self-destruction.

Now it is time for bed. 

I'm glad this is out of my head. 

It's not very pretty, 

nor is it witty, 

but it's better than staying unsaid.