Excuse me while I mush for a second: my lovely boyfriend went to the vans outlet today, and decided to suprise me with these lovely babies! He is so thoughtful. My favorite color is green, so I’m especially excited about the green ones :) He also got himself a cute little nikon camera from the pawn shop near his work. Apparently, business was good today… hehe. I get to see him again in 10 days (Aug 5th), which will also mark 6 months of being together! I couldn’t imagine being with anyone more perfect for me. I love him to death, and I’m so proud of him.

I’m so glad I will be living closer to him soon. I return from visiting on August 9th, and I think I’m just going to start heading up north at that point. My stuff is already packed from moving out of my Apartment (my last day there is Tuesday), and since I don’t have a job anymore… I’m just passing time, unemployed. My mom wants to ride with me and go on a roadtrip (she’ll fly back once we arrive to our destination), and I’ll just stay with Vic for a couple weeks while I find a job, and hopefully… an apartment. I’m still undecided on philly or not (many pros and cons), but I figure I’ll end up where i should be. I’m pretty damn happy.

I’ve been staying at my parents house for the past few days in order to go through some old stuff and get rid of a lot of it, and i’ve been taking full advantage of having a nice kitchen at my disposal :) my parents are the type that have everything all fancy and top of the line. its nuts (but awesome). Yesterday I made myself dinner (steamed squash/asparagus, rice, and fruit salad with strawberries, grapes, and cantelope), and then i tried my second attempt at vegan cupcakes. the first one was not so successful, they tasted like sweet bread (i tried vanilla ones). This time I tried Vegan Chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate buttercream, and they turned out so amazing.

Cake Recipe (from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)
1 cup soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar in a bowl and set it aside to allow curdling (i just did this in the same mixing bowl, and waited a few minutes, to eliminate more dishes to wash). Add the sugar, oil, vanilla extract to the soy milk mixture and beat until it’s foamy.

In a separate bowl (once again, i just did this in the same bowl and it was fine), sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add in two batches to wet ingredients, beating until no large lumps remain.

Pour into lined cupcake pans, filling cups about 3/4 full. Bake 18-20 minutes and remove when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.

Buttercream Recipe
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup margarine (I used half a stick… make sure it’s vegan!)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (sifted)
2 & 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar (sifted)
3 tbs. soymilk
1 & 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Cream together margarine and the shortening until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and beat until well combined. Add the powdered sugar… about 1/2 cup at a time, adding a splash of soy milk after each addition. Once that’s mixed, add the vanilla extract and beat at high speed about 3 minutes until fluffy.

*tip: try adding a TSP of peppermint extract to the buttercream for awesome chocolate peppermint cupcakes. Also, If you dont have any piping bags + tips to use (or you’re just cheap like me), you can pile the frosting into a ziplock bag (the normal sized ones), and cut one of the tips off… and voila!

I’ve been a barista for a little under a year now, and I’m still learning a lot about coffee all the time. When I worked at taft, I began starting to have my go at latte art. I’m just a beginner still, and I can’t do free pour latte art yet… but here are a few pictures from some stuff I did about 1 1/2 weeks ago.

for more crazy good examples (ok, seriously?) of latte art, check out the coffee art pool and the latte art pool on flickr. I’ll post more pictures as I get more practice. Hopefully one day, I will have my own espresso machine (probably when I’m married… seeing as how I dont really care to actually drink coffee, lol) and can practice more often at home. Until then, I need to find a new job as a barista!