Saturday

I woke up at 1 in the afternoon, shamelessly. As I've mentioned before, my family eats breakfast together at 10AM on weekends. It's a cute, healthy habit, in my opinion. Well, at 1PM, I had my Brötchen and then I made muffins. Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins, to be precise. Why aren't they simply called cupcakes, you ask? Because there's zucchini in them and that makes them healthy, duh! I made them for a “girls' night in” that I was invited to that evening.

The “girls' night in” was hosted by my vegan friend in Krefeld. That girl is awesome for a good many reasons, but one of them is that we have the same taste buds. We do vegan stuff together sometimes like eat out at veg-friendly places and visit organic grocery stores and we almost always end up getting the same things. When I asked what she felt like cooking on Saturday, she said, “Something Italian themed from Vegan with a Vengeance.” I said, “Stuffed shells?” She agreed. I'd been wanting to make stuffed shells for ages, but didn't want to make them for myself alone. I'm not kidding; there has got to be some vegan-psychic shit goin' on there.

After I finished making the zucchini “muffins,” it was getting time for me to head out. I checked the train times and then left the house with plenty of time to spare so I could buy the pasta shells and basil (for the basil tofu ricotta à la VwaV). I bagged up most of the muffins (leaving a few for my host fam, if they so chose) and took to the road.

Here's the part with an unexpected tangent:

I felt like such a foreigner that day! I didn't realize that specialized shops like organic grocery stores (don't think American-sized, think country-cottage-sized) and health food stores closed at 3PM on Saturdays! I'd seen a package of whole wheat pasta shells at a big organic grocery store in Düsseldorf earlier that week and assumed that I could find the same or similar in one of the smaller shops in Neuss. I never got to find out.

Instead, I opted for lasagna noodles. I feared that the girls would be disappointed in the menu change, but they were fine with it. My friend and host sliced some vegan cheese on top and left the sides sauce-free, making them a little crunchy. Our dinner was delectable. The muffins, though, ended up getting crushed in my bag. I'd meant well, I really did. We were going to eat them anyway with some vegan ice cream, but we got distracted by wine and Black Books. I consciously left the bag of bruised and beaten muffs in her kitchen upon my departure so I wouldn't have to deal with them myself. There are worse weights to leave on friends' shoulders.

p.s. my camera isn't uploading photos right now. i'll post a photo of the zucc muffs later.