Bulgar & Feta Salad

In the midst of the madness that my life sometimes becomes, I am always grateful for certain things that simplify my world. Some of these things are probably the kinds of things that all kinds of people appreciate--pre-sliced English muffins, coffee to go and Lean Cuisines. And while I could go on for days about all the weird things I'm obsessed with, I will only highlight a few.

First, there is the wonderous world of songza. Songza figures out what time of day it is, you pick your mood and it gives you a myriad of playlists. Sounds simple enough, right? That shit is life changing. I promise. You can thank me later.

Second, automatic sprinklers. Yes, I live in San Diego. Yes, we probably have the best weather on the entire planet. Yes, I own a hose. But do I have the memory capacity to remember to water my lawn? If my garden from last summer is any indication, the answer is no. I bought my house because I wanted a yard. I didn't think about the pesky things you have to do with a yard, like water it. And mow it. When someone invents a roomba for your lawn, please let me know. That would be epic.

Finally, make up removing wipes. After anywhere from 9-12 hours at work, a work out and chores, the last thing I can be bothered to do is wash my face. I know. it's probably disgusting to even admit that. But sometimes? You're just that tired. And this is where the wipes come in... One swipe, and you're done. Even better yet? They remove your sins, too.

This winter, after a string of break-up fueled poor choices and a spree of self-depricating behavior, I was visiting with a friend. We had just gone for a run (or maybe we just woke up? I can't remember... you can draw your own conclusion as to why), and I needed to wash my face. I grabbed a face towelette from the pack in my friend's medicine cabinet and scrubbed it across my face. Seconds later, my cheeks were on fire. My eye brows tingled. My forehead felt like it was being stretched in 87 different directions. In short, my face? It was on fire.

I was in shock (and pain). I had used these same face wipes weeks before, without a similar reaction. Between whimpers, I accused my friend of tampering with her bathroom products to try and melt my face off. Her simple response? "Oh honey, it hurts to wash the whore off."

And now, those face wipes are forever dubbed, "Whore Wipes." Which sounds like a completely different personal hygiene product.

Along with whore wipes, I also have a great appreciation for things that I can throw together one day and continue to enjoy for the rest of the week. I like things that are easy, don't require a lot of my attention to establish in the first place and aren't a lot of work to maintain or preserve (sounding more and more like a case for needing another kind of whore wipe, I suppose).  And that's where this recipe comes in---it's quick, simple and easy. No complaints here.

Bulgar Wheat and Feta Salad

Adapted from Everyday Food

Easy and delicious. Could you really ask for much more?

Ingredients

1 cup bulgar

2 cups boiling chicken stock

1 can chickpeas

1 bell pepper, diced

1 jar artichoke hearts, chopped

1 tablespoon lemon zest

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 cup crumbled feta

1/4 chopped dill

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine the bulgar with the boiling stock. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. Drain the bulgar and place in a large bowl.

3. Rinse and drain the chickpeas.

4. Add chickpeas to the bulgar. Drizzle with olive oil. Toss.

5. Add remaining ingredients. Toss.

6. Serve hot or cold.

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

Growing up in the backwoods in Oregon, I wanted nothing more than to get out of town, grow the hell up and never look back. While I had cherished my summers, sprinting barefoot through my backyard, blonde hair wild and pale skin rosy with sunburn and scattered with freckles, I had grown tired with the pace of small town life. The Umpqua Valley felt smothering and the expectations folks held for high school graduates were depressing. I desperately wanted to do more than work at the Mill, the casino or follow my peers off to University of Oregon or Oregon State. I have vivid memories of flipping through college guidebooks as a freshman, fantasizing about how different my life would be in just a few short years. 

Never did I imagine the kind of “different” I would experience. Moving from a small, sheltered community to the San Diego State University campus was nothing short of culture shock. The student enrollment at SDSU almost doubled my hometown’s population. Gone were my easy days of navigating Garden Valley, Harvard and Stephens surface streets. SDSU was perched atop a tangle of freeways, all of which had more lanes in either direction than anything I had ever driven on. Walking down the hallway of my third floor traditional style dorm, I came across kids from Singapore, Alaska, Washington, Colorado and cities and towns up and down California. I was suddenly very far removed from the townies and monotony of my little logging town.

As my time at State wore on, I got used to the vast array of differences. People snickered when I let a “y’all” slip into my speech. Flip flops were appropriate footwear year round. It was normal to drink a beer before heading to class. And despite my previous desperation to distance myself from home, I frequently found myself longing for the familiarity. Seeing an Oregon license plate, or a U of O shirt, or even the occasional rainstorm, flooded me with memories of the good things that home had given me. I definitely missed home, but I was proud of myself for carving out a niche in this new (HUGE) world. I survived my freshman year without major incident, despite my parents’ messy divorce, a bout with blindness and a roommate with a penchant for Marines.

After nearly ten years in San Diego, I’ve realized I have so many things to thank Oregon for. I appreciate nature. I have a deep love for all things tie dye. I know how to drive a stick shift. I can bait a hook, clean a fish, pitch a tent and pee in the bushes. These are all valuable life skills, of course. San Diego, on the other hand, has helped me grow. I’ve made the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Been adopted into their families and welcomed into their homes. I’ve found love, and lost it again. I’ve learned perseverance, tenacity and strength. I’ve learned that a little blind faith and some reckless ambition can take you a long way—and that the journey is just as important as the destination.

The path to where I am now has been a meandering one. I have been lost, despite always having a vague idea of where I am going. Along the way I have accumulated memories, experiences and friendships that have helped me get where I am today. Deep down, I know I’ll always be the barefoot blonde, running through the grass, covered in freckles and pink with sunburn. I’ll never lose the part of me that Oregon created—the part that hates blueberries, loves peace signs and is always down for a little country music. San Diego has simply added a bit of sand to my country grit, a little more glamour to my redneck ways and a much greater appreciation (and application) for sunscreen.

I’ll never let go of all the things that make me a real country girl at heart, but I know that I’ve found my place in San Diego. Nothing in my life, this far, has gone as planned, but it’s all turned out perfectly. At times, it feels like an absolute mess… But I know what I have on my hands is simply a beautiful disaster—full of potential, possibilities and promise. I just have to figure out what to do with it.

When I first found the recipe that these muffins are based on, I dismissed it. If you know the backstory, you know that I am not a fan of blueberries. But, when I started thinking about ways I could tweak the recipe to make it more my style (and more my taste), I realized there was some potential there. So while they may seem like a basic blueberry muffin, chances are... they'll blow your mind.   

Best Ever Blueberry Muffins

Adapted from allrecipes.com

The best blueberry muffin you will ever have. Promise.

Ingredients

Muffins

1.5 cups flour

¾ cups white sugar

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup whole milk

1.5 cups fresh blueberries

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

2 tablespoons lemon zest

Topping

½ cup white sugar

1/3 cup flour

¼ cold butter, cubed

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon cardamom

½ teaspoon lemon zest

Procedure

1.    Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. Spray the top of the pan with cooking spray! These muffins are BIG and you don’t want the tops to stick to the pan.

2.    Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries, lemon juice and zest. Fill muffin cups right to the top.

3.    To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

4.    Sprinkle generous spoonfuls of the topping onto each muffin.

5.    Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until muffin tops spring back when pressed. 

Keep Calm & Bake On

I will save the world, one cupcake at a time. What I cannot fix, I will feed. After nearly two years of baking happiness into everything I do, I have yet to find a rival for the euphoria I encounter watching someone devour one of my cupcakes. In the same way that my recipients get a sugar rush from the massive amounts of deliciousness in my baked goods, I get overwhelmed by a rush of positive endorphins, simply knowing that I am responsible for the joy they are experiencing.

These girls, my newspaper and yearbook EICs, keep me sane.
They also remind me, daily, why I love my job. They are  high
school seniors, and I know my classroom won't be the same
without them. They are also go-to taste testers, despite the
fact that they don't like frosting.

It seems small, right? Bake cupcakes. Share. Enjoy. I’ve often joked that cupcakes are my coping mechanism. For some people, food is a vice. Food is a friend. Food is a comfort. People eat when they are happy, eat when they are sad, and eat when they are bored. And while I’ve battled my own share of food-related issues, I’ve come to realize that despite all my joking, cupcakes really are my way of dealing with life.  In my previous (fat) life, I would have eaten my way through my problems, one (dozen) cupcake(s) at a time. Now? Baking madness ensues every time things start to get turbulent. For the last two years, my kitchen was the one place I could go to find happiness.

The last several months of my life have been a test—of my patience, my endurance, my will power, my strength and my ability to have some blind faith. This blog has been on hiatus for quite some time—there are a number of reasons for that. Primarily, I was in a place where it was a struggle for me to find joy in anything. Daily life became a chore. Things that once had me giddy and excited created a pit in my stomach and filled me with dread. Beyond that, I had to prioritize. For weeks, getting through the day without messing up my makeup was a major accomplishment. As I watched everything I knew slip through my fingers, I simply lost the energy, drive and motivation to do much beyond exist. The safe harbor I had once found among my stainless steel appliances and granite counter tops was suddenly a cold and unwelcoming place. The comfort that the whir of my mixer created only reminded me that I was suddenly alone—no one to test my treats, no one to hold the pastry bag as I filled it with icing. It wasn’t a place I had imagined myself being, but suddenly, baking wasn’t making me happy. It sounds dramatic, but a world without cupcakes is a very scary place.

My grandma Dorothy has always been one of my
biggest cheerleaders--even when I was a bratty kid.

I realized that if baking couldn’t put a smile on my face, I was in no place to be sharing my recipes (much less my experiences) with anyone. I didn’t have a story worth telling, and even when I forced my way through a recipe, I wasn’t enjoying it. The whole reason I started this blog was to have an outlet for my passions—writing, baking, photography. If those things weren’t making me happy anymore, I realized, I needed to take some time away from it all and really focus on what it would take to make me feel like myself again. I knew I wasn’t walking away from cupcakes, but it was clear to me that we needed a break.

Several months later, I’m in a better place. I took a hiatus from my kitchen. I focused on myself. I played more volleyball. I spent more time with my girlfriends. I focused on my job. I ran. A lot. I finished my 5th half marathon. I broke in new shoes and a new attitude. I feel like the universe has continued to kick me while I am down, but I am stronger. I’ve learned what I can endure. I have learned how to cope (not just ignore). I’ve learned that I am capable. I’ve learned that I have incredible friends and a phenomenal support system. I’ve learned that no matter what life throws my way, I will get through it, one way or another. I’ve learned that it’s ok to cry. I’ve learned that meltdowns happen. Most importantly? I’ve learned how to live again.

I'm known as the Cupcake Lady on campus. 

I'm back in business and ready to live up to that moniker.

I’m back, and I’m a better version of myself. I’ve accepted the hand I’ve been dealt, and I’m done settling. I’ve made my way through a shitstorm of life that could have easily broken my spirit and smothered my drive. It broke my heart that baking took me to a dark place for a while. I could have left it alone and stopped all together. But that wouldn't have been right. I've done too much good with my cupcakes already. I'm like an aproned superhero. So rather than give up and hang up my whisk, I’ve found my calm… And I’m ready to bake on.