I don’t just have shopping disease. I have the plague. Exactly one week and one day ago, I successfully sniped my first item ever on ebay. Ever since then, it’s been a downward spiral. :[ I got a ton of stuff that would normally have been a crap ton more expensive, but were basically super awesome deals–the only problem is, a bunch of super awesome deals summed up together is still a considerable chunk of money. My only solace is that what I consider to be spending a good chunk of money is actually still well under what a couple people I know would blow in a single shopping trip to the mall.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have [unfortunately] spent ~$245 in the past week. BUT, this is all the stuff that it paid for:
-3 sweater dress-lookin’ things (that I can wear in cold weather)
-1 Calvin Klein fitted athletic jacket
-1 Nike athletic jacket
-1 fitted athletic jacket (yay Costco! can you tell I have a thing for fitted jackets >_>)
-1 super-cute blue/white dress
-1 Sunbeam 5891 2 lb. programmable breadmaker
-Grecian headband, flower hair accessory, dragon ear wrap, ear cuff, 2 pairs of earrings, 1 ring
-1 super-cute apricot-white hooded coat
-1 Cuisinart ICE-21 Frozen Yogurt/Ice Cream/Sorbet Maker
-1 pair of yoga pants
-4 Burt’s Bees lip balms (2 regular, 2 pink grapefruit)
-1 Burt’s Bees Head to Toe Kit
-1 fitted hoodie
-1 halter bikini top
Anyway, my loss = your gain. (Well, my gain too, I guess, but not in a monetary sense.) My purchases include a breadmaker from ebay for much cheaper than it would’ve been otherwise, as well as an ice cream maker, which apparently used to be $80, went on sale for $60 with an additional 10% off yesterday. Coupled with the gift card that I won at Casino Night back in December of last year…let’s just say it was an awesome deal. So stay tuned for future bread/ice cream/frozen yogurt recipes! I hope to get lots of use out of them, and I hope this also means I won’t ever have to buy bread/ice cream again. (I haven’t had ice cream in half a year. o_O )
I made these for a potluck farewell dinner for one of our professors back in September. :O (The quinoa, as usual, was cooked in my rice cooker: 1 cup quinoa, 2 cups water.) I wasn’t sure of everyone’s dietary preferences, so I looked up a vegan recipe and here we are. :O This recipe was adapted from wellvegan.
Apricot Quinoa Muffins
Ingredients
-1 cup vanilla soy milk
-1 tbsp ground flaxseeds
-1/4 cup EVOO
-1/8 cup honey
-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
-1-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
-1 1/4 cups cooked quinoa
-1/2 cup finely chopped dried apricots
Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 350° F. In a medium-size bowl, whisk together the soy milk and ground flaxseed. Allow to sit for 1 minute, then whisk in oil, honey, and vanilla.
2) In a large bowl, sift together flour, almond meal, baking powder, salt and spices. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just incorporated. Gently fold in the cooked quinoa and the dried fruit.
3) Pour into the muffin tin and bake for 20-22 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test.
