organic chocolate-almond-pina colada-oat&wheat bran muffins

the best part of using a recipe from vegweb.com is that it usually needs some tweaking, thus with your creative alterations, the outcome is all your own. i’ve been using this bran muffin recipe, which has this experimental mentality built-in. i love it. there’s the dry base: bran, flour & baking soda, and then, depending on your mood, you can play around with the rest of the ingredients.

so far, i’ve tried using soy milk as the ‘liquid’ for one batch and for another i did a soy milk+orange juice mixture (which i think made the texture of the muffins much better). i’ve tried fruit and nut combos such as: sour cherry-ginger-carrot muffins, walnut-cranberry-mango muffins, and this last batch i used chocolate chips, sliced almonds, dried pineapple and coconut using both oat and wheat bran.

i have yet to try this new batch because earlier i visited ethan at starbucks and got a banana-chocolate vivanno. it made me pretty full. i am waiting for brian or ethan to come home so i can make them try it.

update: i decided to take a picture of one of the muffins, just looking at it made my tummy grumble, so i ate it up. then, ethan came home and i offered one to him. we both thought they were delicious. this recipe has never failed me.

a bag of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

i have been so stressed out lately.

i don’t know what to do with myself.

i’m exhausted.

hungry

at first this post was going to be a long ranting entry about how frustrating my job is right now. but i just spent 8 hours there, so i am deciding to move on with my night.

now all i can think about is how hungry i am. i think i might want sushi tonight, but we’ll see.

okay, i’ll admit, i don’t really have anything to say, i just wanted to write a post.

pb&j and sierra nevada summerfest

my first portfolio is due and just like in college, i have put off a major assignment to the very last moment. even though alcohol is best ingested when there is nothing urgent pending, i decided to try some beer we sell at our shop. now i feel great but i sure don’t feel like working on my portfolio.

munchin’ on some fudge

i am so excited! my friend ethan is moving from virginia to seattle TODAY! i am leaving in a few minutes to go pick him up. while i wait, i’m munching on some free fudge i got at work. chocolate walnut.

dinner

tonight i made a super yummy dinner with soba noodles, tons of garlic & scallions, grated carrots, mushrooms, fresh minced ginger, seitan and miso paste.

for dessert i made a fresh batch of bran muffins, this time with dried cranberries, mango and walnuts (it turned out way better than the cherry & ginger batch). we crumbled the warm muffins in a bowl and added a dollop of ice cream and drizzled a bit of raspberry sauce on top.

mmm.

espresso, coffee cake, fudge & a bananna

business was slow today but i made more in tips than usual. how does that work?

one of our regulars commented on how beautiful i was and continued to say it over and over again. she also moved really slowly and is the type of old shaky person that has to do everything by herself. which i totally respect but i thought it was a little silly when she wouldn’t accept any help, even as her hand uncontrollably shook all the food off of her plate. (i offered to take the plate to her table but she insisted on doing it by herself.) she was very good natured about it though and continued to comment on how sweet and pretty i am.

later, while i was taking my break, i saw the woman who usually comes in to shoplift. she was getting off of the 44. she didn’t come into the shop today but as she walked by she stole a whole stack of menus we left outside for the sidewalk traffic.

lets see, today i am going to finally go through the pile of important papers i’ve been neglecting to organize for several months. i also have to pay some bills and do laundry. later i am cooking dinner, i want to use up the buckwheat noodles i have. they are so yummy.

that’s all for now.

accidental pork

i got to sleep in this morning and it was great. when we finally decided to get out of bed, brian and i went to the international district for some dim sum at a new place. this place had more of a variety of food we could eat and were more receptive to our restricted diets than the other place we’ve been too. well, except when they gave us a turnip cake with pork in it. i only had a bite before i realized it was meaty. it’s okay though, i spit it out and enjoyed the rest of the meal. i’d go back but next time i’ll be clearer about not wanting to eat pork.

chardonnay

today i went to school at 745am. i worked through my lunch and stayed late, making my school day a whopping 11 hours and 15 minutes. i had a good day, but still, that’s a long fucking time to be anywhere doing work.

of course, because i got out of school late, i missed my bus and had to catch the 66 and transfer to the 44 in the u-district. i figured that it was okay because the 44 drops me off in ballard, right in front of the place i work at on the days i don’t go to school and i had a measly paycheck to pick up. for a minute, i considered not going in and just waiting until my scheduled shift to pick up my check. the reason for this is because every time i go in (when i am not scheduled) i am confronted with a hideous situation in which i am compelled to clock-in.

basically, the people who are in charge of scheduling think they can get away with stretching people as far as they possibly can in order to save some money. tonight, when i went in to pick up my paycheck, i found one of my coworkers about to pull out her hair because someone got fired, or quit ( you never know, ’cause the turnover rate is fucking ridiculous) and the management didn’t bother to call anyone in to fill the shift for the missing person. this left one of the strongest employees with the responsibility to close the cafe, on a bustling SATURDAY night, all by her self. because this wasn’t the first time she has had to close (which is definitely not a one-person job, even when you are one of the hardest working employees) all by herself on a busy night, she admitted to me that she was ready to quit.

even though i would have rather left to go to the party me and brian were hosting that night, after seeing her so frazzled and exhausted, i had to clock-in. i didn’t do it so people could tell me that i am a good, or nice person, i did it because i am fucking pissed that people in high positions in a company are allowed to go home come 8 hours of the day (sometimes less) and all the rest of the people have to stay much later to keep the business running. on top of that slap on the face, they rather not be put in the uncomfortable situation of calling people to fill a shift so one person isn’t stretched so thin. therefore, no one gets called and the general attitude is that that employee can handle it.

so, i stayed. i clocked in and i worked so that my fellow employee wouldn’t have a panic attack and she could get home at a decent hour. when someone ordered two glasses of chardonnay, that left us with the rest of the bottle, which was supposed to be put back with the rest of the wine, but you know what? instead we said fuck it and drank the rest of the bottle. if we weren’t so bogged down we might have not have been so quick to steal a drink. well, i’m not sorry about that.

sandwich on the duck

on our second date, brian and i rode our bikes to gas works park, parked our bikes on the grass, threw down a blanket and proceeded to make out for 4 hours. who knew you could pass 4 hours that way, not only in public, but in public at a family friendly park. yeah, we were those people.

anyway, in between make-out sessions, we looked on to lake union and probably saw about 100 of those ‘ride the ducks’ aquatic vehicles float by. we were both pretty surprised and disgusted by the number of ducks we were seeing and i was pretty sure at that time that i would never voluntarily ride on one.

that was almost a year ago and i guess this proves that people can change because when brian told me that his company rented two ducks and he was allowed to invite someone (with out hesitation) i eagerly agreed to go.

we went today and the “captain” was really energetic and ridiculous, just as i had imagined. brian’s company had bought everyone jimmy john’s sandwiches and i found riding the duck and eating a generic sub sandwich to be pretty nauseating. besides the food and bumpy ride combo, i will admit that i did have a lot of fun. although, i did find myself doing a lot of day dreaming. my week is almost over, my day off is approaching and i am exhausted. feeling this way made it a bit difficult to pay attention to all the quirky jokes the driver was making. also, thanks to school, i’ve been getting really good at tuning out annoying music.

so the experience, i’d say, was a good one and i’m glad i had the opportunity to ‘ride the duck.’ now that i’ve done this, maybe things will change and from now on i wont scowl at the ducks every time i see them drive by? well, who knows.