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Tag Archives: work

I make! Buttermilk berry muffin edition

I have had a huge craving for muffins recently.  I don’t really know why.  In particular, I wanted raspberry muffins, which is weird because I’ve never had raspberry muffins before.  I had a friend in Canada who would often get a raspberry muffin during his coffee break and would tell me about it.  But that’s about the only exposure I’ve had with raspberry muffins.  It did make me really jealous though.  The muffins he got sounded so delicious.  And there are no raspberry muffins to be found in CA for some reason.

Anyway, I’ve had some time off recently and I had been filling my time with YouTube videos on cooking because I wasn’t really in a position to do anything else that was productive.  During my marathoning of various YouTube videos, I found the Joy of Baking channel and on it, there is a recipe and demonstration for buttermilk berry muffins.  PERFECT.

I made these one Friday with the girls and instead of using mixed berries, I used up the raspberries I had in the freezer.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any buttermilk on hand that day, so I used milk and lemon juice as a substitute.  They turned out pretty good, but missing the fragrance and flavor you get with buttermilk.  I had also cut down on the sugar the first time to about 120g.  I’ve decided it’s not necessary.  Her recipe isn’t sickly sweet to begin with and using the full amount of sugar she calls for is perfectly fine.

So I tried the recipe again, this time with buttermilk.  Actually, I ended up just getting a canister of powdered buttermilk because I’m tired of always going on last minute hunts for buttermilk when I need to use it in a recipe.  Now I have lots of buttermilk!  And it’s easy to use in baked goods!

Anyway, the second time I tried it, I used up the blueberries in the freezer.  They baked up really nicely and they look so nice coming out of the oven and they smell so good (they taste good too, in case you’re wondering).  So good, that even sharks want muffins.

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I have the best oven mitts, guys.

And then I heard a POW!

I’m late.  I know.  I’m sorry.  There were…things…that needed to be figured out.

Tuesday, early morning:

Draw 5_2_2014 18_04

In case you’re wondering, that jagged hole is about 3/4″ long. Not. Patchable.

I was on my way to work on Tuesday and because I left later than I wanted, I had to detour from my normal (shortest) route because of traffic.  I was on the 60WB and mere miles from the 605 when I heard quite a bit of commotion on the right side of my car.  I know I had run over something and that something sounded heavy, but I didn’t immediately feel anything different and I didn’t see anything in the rear view mirror, so I opted to continue driving for awhile to see what would happen.

Well, my car started feeling sluggish on the right side.  I don’t know any other way to describe it.  It felt sluggish.  And only on one side.  And I felt something similar before…when I have a tire doing its best to deflate itself.  And sure enough, a few seconds later my low tire pressure light comes on.

I was able to pull off the freeway and into a very accommodating Jack in the Box and listened to my tire hiss alarmingly for awhile.  Then I proceeded to change my tire.

I did not appreciate the stares I got from people walking into the restaurant.  I also did not appreciate that they stared and didn’t offer to help.  Not that I needed help.  I mean, I was even dressed for the job of changing a tire.  Yes, I was going to work but I often work in manufacturing facilities.  That means jeans are perfectly acceptable and I almost always wear steel toed boots.  I kind of wish that I put a pair of work gloves in the trunk like I’ve been meaning to since I collected Puddul from the dealership, but whatever.  Washing your hands isn’t that big of a deal.

Anyway, I got the tire changed, which I apparently can do in less than 10 min now, I am so practiced, and took a look at the flat tire.  It had a very large, jagged hole in it.  It was obviously not salvageable.  It made me very sad.  Because this was the third tire I’ve had to replace.  Actually, third and fourth, because my tires were at about half their lifespan and I couldn’t just change the one without messing up my alignment.

Sugh.

At least I didn’t have to order the tires this time.  My dealership had them in stock.  For once.  (Also, yes I took my car to the dealership for a mere tire change because I really prefer only Subaru touching my alignment from past experiences with other cars.)