Changing of the Guard

I'm a very sentimental person and I always feel some bit of remorse when it comes to replacing an item I use frequently. Since beginning law school in the summer of 1998 and continuing forward into my career, I've always brought my lunch with me in a reusable Arctic Zone lunch bag. I started off with plain black, then moved onto pink. I don't replace them until they're old or have tears in the lining, so about 2 years of use out of each. The most recent retiree is pictured above next to its replacement (don't worry, I moved the vegan buttons to the new lunch bag), which I'm loving. I've mentioned before that I'm learning to play the guitar and I've been singing my whole life, so the whole skull and crossed guitars graphic speaks to me at the moment.

In the background of the above photo, you'll see my copy of My Sweet Vegan by the incredibly talented Hannah Kaminsky opened to the recipe for Better Banana Nut Muffins. Mine did not turn out perfectly, but that is my own fault for replacing all the oil with applesauce. You see, if I'm going to be the only one eating the baked goods (I ate one and froze the rest), I have no problem with the minor issues that might come from that substitution (mainly, that the muffins stick to the liners more). However, if I were to serve these to other people, regardless of where they stand on the omni to vegan spectrum, I would certainly have made them as the recipe was written. I also replaced the all-purpose flour with spelt flour and left out the nuts. Oh, and for all you Trader Joe's fans out there, I used the dried flattened bananas for the dried bananas called for in the recipe and followed the recipe instructions as written. The flattened bananas didn't hold up as they should have, so next time, I'd just chop the flattened bananas and add them in instead of rehydrating them first. The flavor of these muffins is amazing and, as always, it was a delight to bake one of Hannah's goodies.