Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Coffee Chocolate Chip Banana Bread (from Baking Bites) + Hate-On for Campus Food Services


Rant: Do you know how much a slice of “X” bread (banana, zuchinni, carrot, cinnamon, poppyseed, etc) costs on campus?!? Yesterday, I didn’t have time to prepare anything to take with me to school (this semester my Mondays include an aquafit class at 6:45am and then classes straight from 11 through 3:30), so I decided to make my breakfast and lunch purchases on campus. Yes, I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, but in this case I was substituting money for time (I was busy Sunday night, and there is no way I’d be getting up earlier than 5am to make my food for the day). My purchases included: breakfast – milk and bagel with cream cheese (one of the cheaper choices around, about $5 total) and then for lunch I bought a black bean and artichoke salad (which I ended up throwing out because it tasted like someone dropped it in dirt and then scooped it back into the little plastic container – blech!) and a fruit salad (which was soft, but still edible). I figured I wanted more carbs in my lunch so I quickly ran to the food court between classes (I had 10 minutes and this was extremely difficult). I decided to buy a slice of (whatever) bread. I checked the price at 3 places – which was only possible because they were very close to each other. It costs between $2.25 and $2.75 a slice – A SLICE!!!!!! I COULD BUY A WHOLE LOAF FOR THE PRICE OF 2 SLICES AT THE GROCERY STORE!!!! Now I’d understand if it was some fancy sit-down coffee house where you pay for the service, atmosphere, etc., but this is on CAMPUS. What ever happened to affordability for students?? I know it’s only two bucks, but what if you lived in a residence with no kitchen and HAVE to buy food on campus (residence meal plan – it exists, I’m not making this up). That is completely unfair and total gouging of students. I could probably rant for a half hour about how Food Services rips students off and offers choices that are completely un-nutritional, but that will probably serve no purpose other than making me mad.

ANYWAY, I bought the stupid “X” loaf because I was hungry (and I’m glad I did despite the price because I ended up having to throw away that salad). So today I decided that the system will take advantage of me no more!! I am going to make my own loaves and freeze individual slices just for days like this! No more being at the mercy of the evil food court gods! End Rant.

Okay so here it is, I stumbled upon a recipe on Baking Bites that really piqued my interest. It uses the new Starbucks Via as an ingredient, and as an attempt for me to kick my (expensive) “Skinny Vanilla” addiction, I’ve developed a new (cheaper) “Via Italian Roast” addiction… so I have lots of the stuff lying around.

You can follow the recipe found here. I'm sorry about the lack of step-by-step pictures, but by the time I remembered that I wanted to blog about this, my loaf was already in the oven. (oops!) Also, I didn't read the post too carefully, but I think it was meant to make 2 mini loaves. I left my (single) loaf in for 50 mins at which point I thought it was done - I even did the toothpick test; but it seems I should've made multiple punctures because the inside on the other side of the loaf didn't turn out as nicely. I also couldn't put it back in because a) it was already cut and I don't know if you're supposed to do that (lol) and b) the outside was starting to get a little darker than my liking, so any more time I think the crust might have burned.

Next time, I think I'm going to bake the loaf for at least an hour at 300 or 325 so the outside doesn't brown as fast.

I haven't tried any yet, but boyfriend says it's good (he might just be being nice, though). I'll let you know what I think when I've had a chance to try some. All the pieces are wrapped and in the freezer now.




P.S. Just FYI, finals are coming and I may not have a chance to post here again for a little while. If I can I will, but otherwise, you may not hear from me until after Dec 15. I'm alive, just stressed. Don't worry.

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