Sotd: Californication

What I will probably miss most about SoCal is how the radio stations down here always seem to play the right song at the right time and driving through the mountains overlooking the ocean today this gem came on and I couldn't have been happier in that moment anywhere else. A favorite song from a favorite band.

  

Therapy

I find the simplest things to be soothing, like lining my eggs up by shade and putting them back in the carton. Ombré eggs will be trending, I guarantee it.

Find your France

This post has been a long time coming but better late than never.  Here's the back story:
For as long as I can remember I have loved France.  Don't know why, just always had a connection to it.  It always held this allure, like it's where my heart wants to be.  I've never wanted to see the Eifel Tower or even the museums, I just want to go there and drink coffee. That's it. That's my french fantasy.  To sit at a cafe, drink coffee, eat bread and breathe.  And so when I get stressed or overwhelmed I have 3 thoughts that calm me down and one of them is of being at a cafe in Paris.  My favorite painting is Van Gogh's Café Terrace at Night, I've had a print of it hanging behind my door since high school so that only I could see it, it embodies everything I see in my head.  Moving on.  When I was back home for the week I was so anxious and I couldn't find a place to calm down until eventually I wandered to one of my favorite coffee shops in Davis and as soon as I sat down outside my soul settled.  I took a picture to remind myself of the feeling (which I do often) and as soon as I looked at it I realized it's like my own version of Cafe Terrace.  And so began my pursuit to "Find my France".  Not to say France isn't still my France because I will be going there, several times in my lifetime without a doubt, but to find that same kind of joy in every day occurrences.  Even if the feeling is brief, embrace it.  We get so caught up chasing down that ultimate goal that we bypass all the little joys that help to make those big moments that much greater.  I came across that Emerson quote, "we are always getting ready to live, but never living" and it has struck me as especially true at this moment in my life.  I got so caught up in having to get things done by a certain age to keep up with "normalcy" that I was letting so much good pass me by.  We work so hard and sacrifice so much to reach that ONE thing that will change our lives and make us so happy only to find once we have it, it wasn't what we expected.  Deeba posted THIS video which I feel like really sums it all up.  But I digress. Find your France, soak up all the little moments, go on all the little adventures you can, take pictures of everything because when you're older you don't want look back at all the time you wasted with your tunnel vision.

My little bits of France

Fun art that speaks to my heart by one of my favorite Etsy shops, Little Canoe

Being able to walk to this every day

When I have water in my favorite glass and it smells like strawberries

Morning coffee walks with my Mr.

Good coffee and lemon bars while having grown up conversations with my baby sister

Watching my plants grow from seeds

Having a beautiful man play the guitar for me while I blog

The moral of it all is have a dream, an unshakable one and work towards it, but don't lose sight of how wonderful life is along the way.

Coping cabana

I have a very very veryyyy close relationship with my mommy so not being with her on Mother's Day was really tough for me.  Luckily I married a human Carebear who spent the whole day doing everything I wanted.  Since we won't be down here much longer we've taken every available opportunity to 1. Go to the beach and 2. Eat somewhere new. 

There's this really super awesome place called Taco Mesa and the food is great but the atmosphere is greater.  It's all patio seating with sugar skulls decor and the food is cheap for how much and how good it is.  We didn't go there though...We tried their neighbor, Jugos Acapulco, which as you may have guessed is a restaurant that specializes in juices.  So we went there and Dan got nachos which were straight whack and I stuck to my go-to of "you can't really screw this up" asada street tacos.  The tacos were meh...the salsa bar however had whole stalks of fresh celery, roasted jalapeno slices and a house habanero salsa that would blow your mind.  

We ordered a large juice to share with passion fruit, pineapple, orange, guava and banana...

We didn't know large meant the whole blender. Not bad for $7, suck on that Jamba juice.

Got to lay out in my most favorite bikini

Dropped another 3 inches this week, dunno how many pounds, haven't been near a scale.

Ended the night seeing The Great Gatsby which was beautifully done.  How I love the 1920's.  

The truth is...

It's 3 a.m. and I am so in love with my life

legitimate post to follow...maybe

Mini lemon bars...tarts...things

Lemon bars are my favorite thing ever and I've been eating an incredible amount lately for some reason so I decided to make some and like most things I do halfway through I decide to do something different so instead of making them in a baking dish I put them in a cupcake pan but it works the same either way

Crust:
1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. room temp unsalted butter
pinch of salt
zest of 1/2 lemon

Filling:
3/4 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tbs. flour
1/4 tbs. baking powder
4 tbs. lemon juice
zest of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 325
mix the ingredients for the dough and and press it into a parchment lined baking dish or into the cups of a greased cupcake pan.
***if you do the cupcakes make sure to use a fork and poke some holes in the dough once it's pressed into the cups so they don't puff up and take over

Bake the dough at 300 for 10-15 mins. until dough begins to brown

meanwhile whisk together filling ingredients and once dough is brown pour it over or into the cups and continue baking 15-20 mins. until the filling is set.  Let it cool completely before removing it.

Sift some powdered sugar on top and go nuts.

Earl Grey Scones with Honey Lavender glaze

I've got a friend who is trying to get pregnant so she's cutting back on caffeine (which in our job is VERY necessary).  We were having our weekly tea talk when she told me that she's cut out drinking tea and instead makes breakfast muffins and mixes tea into the batter...genius!  I'm not really a fan of muffins but I looooove making scones and went through a phase where there were 3 different kinds of scones in our house at any given time. I've decided to take full advantage of my day off and dive in to all the things I've been wanting this week.  So here are the scones.

2 c. All-purpose flour

1/2 c. almond flour
1/4 c. ground flaxseed
(if you don't want to use almond and flaxseed just 2.5 c. of A-P flour)
1/4 c. light brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. allspice
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 earl grey teabags
1 egg
1/2 c. cold butter
1/2 c. of buttermilk
***Instead of buttermilk I take 1c. of almond milk and 1 tbs. vinegar, mix them together, let it sit for 5 mins. then use however much the recipe calls for***
Preheat oven to 300 degrees
Mix all the dry ingredients by hand or with a mixer.  I prefer by hand when I'm not in a rush, it's like grown up play doh.

After you mix the dry ingredients quickly cube the cold butter and mix it in until the dough is crumbly.

whisk the vanilla, milk and egg together then pour in with the rest and mix thoroughly but do not overmix.

Place dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead 5-6 times.

Shape it into a circle and press it out to about 3/4 inch thickness, slice however your heart desires, I prefer tiny scones.

Place on a silpat sheet or a baking sheet with parchment and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  They're done when the bottoms are starting to brown.

Place them on a cooling rack until completely cooled.

Optional Glaze:

I always put a powdered sugar glaze on my scones but with these being so perfect and tea-like I had to go a little overboard. I took a teaspoon of lavender, lightly crushed and put it into a tea ball, heated up some almond milk and let it steep. The house smelled like a little tea shop.

2/3 c. powdered sugar
1 tsp. honey powder
2 tablespoons of lavender infused almond milk
whisk into submission and drizzle over your cooled scones.

**adjust sugar to milk ratio for desired consistency**

Make your mark

I've got way too much caffeine in my system so I went to work slimming down my FB audience and whilst doing that I decided I'd take a look back at all of my FB activity from during wedding planning and man did it bring back SO MANY memories.  What an exciting time that was and it felt like forever but going back and being able to read it and see what I was thinking and feeling and all the pictures I posted made me so happy (so if anyone got any likes on comments they left a year ago...hi.).  Then I decided to go back and look at just the interactions between me and Dan and it took me to a flirty little sarcastic back and forth that neither of us remember having.  We sat together and read messages and comments and little inside jokes we'd forgotten about and it just reminded us how far our little love has come.  I've kept a journal since Dan and I started dating and when we'd do something or say something fun I'd put it in the journal with a little drawing accompanying it.  Sometimes, because he was away during our engagement, I'd write letters in it to him letting him know how much I hated being apart but that it would all be worth it.  I gave it to him on our wedding day, only half full and now as things still come up I add to it.  He'll get to read it again on our 1 year and then give it back again.  So much happens in our lives, write as much as you can.

Speaking of Cakes...

I don't have a butt...yet.

I'm one of those individuals who just doesn't have the genes for it.  I come from a family of small hips and flat butts on both sides.  I've been trying for years to bulk this baby up and didn't discover until recently that my legs are too damn strong.  My quads and hamstrings get very bulky very fast and so alot of the standard butt exercises that I had been doing my leg muscles took over.  The last few weeks I've been testing out different exercises to see which one's isolate my glute muscles the most and the results are in and I am always so sore. 

*I did these exercises with either two 20lb. dumbbells or two 3lb. ankle weights*

1.  Straight leg deadlift 

This one works the very top of my hamstrings and the bottom of my butt

 2. Bulgarian split squat

 3. Crossover lunges

 4. Donkey Kicks

 5. Fire Hydrant

 6. One Leg Bridge

Sweet Nostalgia

I have 4 e-mail accounts.  My high school, my college, my work and my personal.  I only check the last 2.  For whatever reason I checked my college account and I just to happened to have an E-mail from a woman at the hospital I used to work at wanting to know if I still had my cupcake business because she'd like to place an order for a party.  How cool! I hadn't really thought about "The Cupcake Nook" in quite some time.  It wasn't a real business, just word of mouth and I had business at least every weekend for the amount of time I was doing it and then for whatever reason I just stopped.  Just made me feel good knowing that it's been 3 years since I've worked there and someone who I had very little interaction with liked my cupcakes enough to 1. remember me and 2.  to go through the channels to find someone who had my personal e-mail account to get in touch with me.  It's easy to overlook little accomplishments in your life when you're constantly focusing on what you don't have and didn't do but it's the small things that help shape us and every once in a while it's good to look back and just be proud of what we've done so far.

Hopefully by moving back home I can get back in the swing of things, no fun making cupcakes for just 2 people.


In the spirit of the evening I dug through my computer and found some of my little gems.

Fondant Fortune Cookie

Breast Cancer Walk

Easter Daisy

Easter Cakepops

Mother's Day

Salted Caramel Coffee 

Cinnamon Toast Crunch 

Jungle Babyshower

Superbowl Cake

Peanut Butter & Carrot Pupcakes

Boston Cream Pie 

 Broadway themed retirement party

Pitmasters

We're cycling through everything on Netflix and last night we stumbled upon BBQ Pitmasters, neither one of us slept well because all we could thing about were rubs and bark and peach wood and brisket, Sigh. 

I decided to make today my meat-eater Monday instead of my normal Thursday carnivorous rampage.  

Dan went and grabbed some chicken and we made 4 different dry rubs, no clue what we put in what, just a flurry of seasonings but they all turned out so sooooooo good.

AND THEN...

We made sauce.

and all was well.

Dan has named this, "Sweet Mamma Jamma Sauce" which was better than his other names

"slap yo daddy sauce" or "your ass or a hole in the ground sauce"

Sweet Mamma Jamma Sauce

1/4 c. apple cider vinegar

1 c. ketchup

2 tsp. honey

1 tbs. Worcestershire sauce

1 tbs. steak sauce

1/2 tsp. smoked salt

1 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. fine black pepper

1 tsp. Hungarian sweet paprika

1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. chimayo powder
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

2 shakes of cinnamon

1/2 tsp. black truffle salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan on medium-low, once sauce begins bubbling take it off and slap it on.

The sauce is tangy and spicy with a little sweetness.