Radical Roots' Dina Al-Damiri has a killer Banana-Poppyseed Muffin for all you bakers, novice or otherwise.

This month we turn the Rock'n'Roll Cooking Show over to Star DT, Wavelength's trusty and adorable Reviews Editor and member of Ninja High School, as she tells us the secret to Radical Roots' fantastic vegan muffins.

There is astounding contradiction within the realm of my employability. While I am truly a skilled, dedicated and just plain hard worker, and though I've got high qualifications and many life experiences under my belt, there is one glaring problem with hiring Star DT that presents itself to employers after a few months: I absolutely hate practically all jobs and work. That's why I wasn't surprised when the new fancy-pants manager at Massey Hall fired me from my shitty usher job on the first day he met me. Enter my saving grace: a same-day phone call from my current employers, the lovely cafe and charmingly disorganized collective of tireless workers at Radical Roots. The cafe (that some of you may know by it's former name, The Vegetarium) is tucked away in a corner of the International Students Centre on the University of Toronto campus, just north of College St. on St. George. If you're familiar with Food Not Bombs, picture that gone semi-professional. If you're not, well let me tell you. Radical Roots is a not-for-profit worker-run collective kitchen and cafe that aims to make delicious, vegan, often organic and healthy meals as inexpensively as possible. You can grab a perfectly balanced (and gigantic) meal for $5, or a sandwich, or a smoothie, or you can treat yourself to a muffin, cookie or brownie, that's probably been baked by Dina.

'œBaking? Wow. It's like my passion,'? she tells me while she prepares the muffin batter. 'œBaking vegan guarantees that the most people can eat it '“ you're including everyone and that's the good thing about vegan baked goods. Even hardcore meat eaters won't have a hard time accepting them. It doesn't have eggs and butter and all that shit, but they won't even notice.'?

Dina is making me a batch of one of her simplest and most favourite muffins '“ banana-poppyseed. The recipe goes like this:

2 and a ½ cups spelt flour (you could use pretty much whatever flour though)
1 and 1/3 cups organic sugar (or whatever sugar)
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup soymilk
1 tbsp sunflower oil
½ cup poppyseeds

Yeah, poppyseeds. 'œInstead of poppyseeds you could add raisins, walnuts, other nuts, whatever you like!'? she explains.

'œEven chocolate chips?'?

'œOh yeah, totally. Coconut, anything. Whatever your imagination allows you to!'?

But how to make exactly?

'œFirst, mush the bananas. Then you mix all the dry ingredients together and all the wet ingredients together [respectively]. Slowly pour wet into dry and mix. At the same time, turn on the oven to 350. Oil the muffin tins and scoop mix into them. Bake for 20 minutes or more (until the top is hard). Take them out and let them cool.'? For novice bakers, it's worth noting that this procedure is pretty common to all baking.

The best thing about this recipe, besides it's obvious delectable product, is it's fool-proof nature. 'œThe texture is perfect for a muffin. There's no chance to screw up. I use the same recipe for mango muffins. It just holds together so well, I love it,'? Dina explains.

While the muffins rise in the oven, Dina gives me the scoop on her feelings about Radical Roots. 'œIt's a space that's basically made to recognize different people, animal rights and environmental issues, community issues, social and political issues. We try to support these issues through the food we make. Whether it's with fair trade coffee, holding free meals, catering or talks. It's not only a food place, it's a conscious place.'?

Even if you're convinced on the politics, and the vegan ingredients (which shouldn't be hard to get along with after you've tried our vegan brownies, seriously), what about the cost of baking organic? 'œBaking organic is a social, political and health issue. It's not that expensive. It's not so much of a difference [from conventional ingredients] financially, but health-wise it's a big, big difference. The benefits outweigh the costs.'?

Radical Roots is located at 33. St. George St., inside the International Students' Centre. We're open for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday, at 9:30am and 11:30, until 3ish (or whenever we run out of food).

by Star DT