baked!

So, on the schedule today was approximately 11 hours of studying, of which I've so far done about 2.5. I also went to the gym (during which somehow several hours apparently disappeared, even though I only worked out for an hour and 20 mins), Trader Joe's, and Target, and I baked 2 dozen pretty good vegan blueberry muffins.

Behold:
Yum! I haven't baked vegan muffins in a zillion years, probably because I kind of gave up on vegan baking a long time ago when all the recipes I tried were so crappy. But ever since Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and other such Isa Chandra Moskowitz masterpieces, my faith is renewed.

These muffins are fluffy, sweet-but-not-too-sweet, and extremely gooey because of the overload of blueberries in there. They could probably do with fewer, but come on. It's not such a bad thing to bite in and realize that the whole muffin is pretty much just fresh jam masquerading as baked goods.

They do need a little something, maybe a little cinnamon and nutmeg as they are spiceless. However, looking around the internets now it seems like a lot of muffin recipes are sans spice, so I guess it's not so uncommon.

Here is the recipe, for vegans, those who've run out of eggs & milk, or who want to treat your vegan friends:

Vegan Blueberry Muffins (adapted from EgglessCooking.com)
makes 24

Ingredients:

• 2 cups soymilk
• 1 Tbsp white vinegar (apple cider vinegar is great for this, but white is also fine)
• 4 cups white flour (could substitute whole wheat for 1-2 cups of this)
• 1 Tbsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• zest of one lemon
  

• 1.5 cups granulated sugar (I use Trader Joe's organic, as it's also vegan--even non vegans must agree, "non-vegan sugar" just sounds horrifying!)
• 2/3 cup canola oil
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
  

• 3 cups fresh blueberries (could reduce this if you want your muffins more muffiny)

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Line 2 muffin pans with paper liners or lightly grease them.
2. Mix vinegar into soymilk and set aside to let it thicken up.
   
3. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and lemon zest to combine them and to get rid of any lumps in the flour (this is a substitute for sifting, so think "airy").
4. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, milk&vinegar combo, and lemon juice until very well combined and a little frothy.
5. Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ones (can do this half at a time or all at once, doesn't matter much) and fold gently to combine. A rubber spatula is helpful here. When the dry stuff is all coated in the wet stuff but still lumpy, throw in the blueberries and fold so they're evenly distributed. If you see pockets of flour as you do this, gently break them up and incorporate them into the batter.
6. Divide the batter among the 24 muffin cups, filling them nearly to the top. Bake for about 20-24 mins, until a toothpick inserted into one of the middle muffins comes out dry.
   

There's my muffin, alongside my bar study books at the kitchen table. And that's the timer to tell me that I have 1 hour and 35 mins left of studying torts, before I move onto practice questions, then going over practice questions, then studying some Mass state stuff. Oy. Did I mention the 8.5ish hours I'm still meant to do today? I'm going to study a bit into the wee hours and then pick it back up tomorrow and keep on truckin'.

A few days ago I was pretty ready to just kill myself and get it over with, but I am in reasonably good spirits today and I'm really attributing it to (1) working out really really hard the last couple days and (2) a wee bit of sunlight. My hope is that this more positive outlook, Vitamin D infusion, and heightened blood flow to my brain will all help out in the not-failing-the-bar department, but we'll see. I just didn't expect to be this worried about it, but the stakes feel very high. However, even if I fail, and even if I then lose my job and become homeless because there's no other job I'm remotely qualified for that could help pay my crushing, crushing debt, well it would at least mean that I do not have to be a lawyer anymore. Because obviously what I really wanted all along is to be legally-educated and then go to culinary school or some such thing. What I mean to say is, I will keep on going and figure it all out if it comes to that.

AND I lifted weights today like a TOTAL BADASS. I squatted 95 pounds! I don't know if that is actually a lot, but it sure sounds like a lot to me and it is the most I've done. It just kind of took me a while psychologically to realize that this is something I am able to do without injuring or embarrassing myself -- I'm doing it in the Smith machine, so I don't have to feel like I'm going to drop a barbell on my neck and have to hope my little brother sees and comes to the rescue.

That's all from here. I'm home all day long now so I'm going to start doing more food photos, but it's going to be pretty boring the next week as I try to push through and pass this em-effing exam. And then I'm going to drink all of the martinis in the world!

PS Hi Angie if you're reading this! Your shout-out totally made my day!