Ok, fine, I’ll add a pop of color!

Ok, now to the fun part…I’m giving away two tickets to see Honor by August at the 9:30 Club this Friday! Their love songs are fun and sweet and the show would be a perfect girlfriend date night in DC. Plus it turns out these guys look pretty cute in black and white too. (Fun fact: they were the first band I ever saw at 9:30 when they opened for Hanson in 2005.) To enter to win, leave a comment below with your current favorite song. Good luck!

{ Image credits: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8  }

Just a little something to kick off your week and get me inspired to post again soon. xo

roses

Start your week feeling just like this. Bright. Sunny. Everything is good.

popsicles | bicycle | lounge

Hello friends. Life has been pretty crazy recently, and I absolutely feel like I’m missing something every day when I don’t post. Of course life and work gets in the way, but I really want to try to write and create here more often than I have been. It makes me feel so much better. More alive. Most like me.

This week was this blog’s fourth birthday! Of course first I forgot the day and second I completely forgot what my first post was about. (Warning: if you click on these links you’re going to see some pretty awful and hilarious photos.) I thought my inaugural post was this brownie recipe, but it was actually this post about a blueberry galette. Oh goodness. When things sometimes feel so hard and you’re struggling to get somewhere, it’s refreshing to look at something like that to see how I’ve grown. How this little blog has grown.

To celebrate little victories – like knowing how to take a better photo (even if it is with my iphone) or knowing how to develop my own recipes now or not having to eat off plastic plates anymore or living on my own and being an independent, determined, and strong woman – let’s bake some gooey grown up brownies. (And pretend this is actually coming full circle and brownies weren’t my second post.) Use two kinds of chocolate. Toast almonds. Stir in much needed strong coffee for a kick. Sprinkle with flaky sea salt. This is a girl who knows what she’s doing now. Although she still and always will love her dessert with a glass of milk!

Double Chocolate, Espresso, Salted, Almond Brownies

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
• 9 ounces semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (or use chocolate chips)
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup espresso or strong coffee, room temperature
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds
• Sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°. In a double boiler, combine and melt chocolates and butter. Let cool slightly.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix sugar, eggs, coffee, and chocolate. Slowly add flour, salt, and toasted almonds and mix to combine.
3. Pour brownie mix into an 8×8″ greased pan. Sprinkle sea salt on top. Bake just until set and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 35-40 minutes. Let cool completely before digging in – or totally skip this step and cut into them when they’re still warm and top with ice cream, like I did.

When you were younger, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Olympic gymnast (age 8), Graphic designer (age 15), Arabic media analyst…or a spy (most of college), Graphic designer (some dreams do come true!)

What do you do now? Is there anything on your list you still want to do?

By day, I’m the Multimedia Editor for the Department of Energy – and I absolutely, positively, couldn’t-be-happier love it. By night, I work as a freelance designer, mainly for Google and Visual.ly. And when I’m not completely wiped of all creativity, I mix, sauté, bake, and blend for Sweetsonian.

Most of my work revolves around designing infographics. Career highlight? Barack Obama retweeted the very first infographic I designed. I’m pretty sure my life peaked at that very moment.

I do a bit of freelance photography and logo design, but designing infographics is what I give up sleep for.

What inspires you?

Person: Sara Forte of Sprouted Kitchen. I love love love everything she writes and cooks.
Artist: Hands down, Amanda, of Wit & Whistle
Flavor: Red. Lobster. cheddar. biscuits. { Photo }
Color: I find myself swooning over shades of blue. { Feathers // Print }
Music: Mellow hipster music – if that doesn’t make sense, you can check out my Spotify playlists here.

When did you realize something you liked was actually one of your passions. What did you decide to do with it?

My last job was working as a communications assistant at a little international development nonprofit. Initially, I planned on somehow transferring into their Middle East department, so I could actually use my Arabic degree and work on development programming… but after six months, I had learned so much about communications, and it was like I woke up one day and realized that I had redesigned everything at that nonprofit… flyers, emails, newsletters, you name it.

That day. That was it. I decided to be a designer, and I decided to put 200% into being a designer. I designed things day and night until I found my design style, and eventually finagled my way into my job that I love.

Tell us about a risk you’ve taken in the process of figuring it out.

Something that always felt like a huge risk to me was making decisions entirely based on what I wanted and needed in my life — being selfish. Putting your own needs first can be scary on several levels: I worried about how people might react and how people would see me. But the truth is, sometimes, we all need to put ourselves first — in our careers, in relationships, and in day-to-day life. Understanding the reality of when it’s okay to put yourself first and when you can put others first is something that took me years — a college degree, two coasts, and three different jobs — to figure out. Sometimes I need to cloister myself for a weekend to finish a few projects, and sometimes, I need to say “no” to some of my clients. But all the time, what I really need is to spend a day cooking something fabulous for my closest friends.

What are the biggest obstacles that you have overcome to get to where you want to be? And if you aren’t there, what are your fears in getting there?

As a self-taught graphic designer, my biggest mental hurdle was getting over the fact that I didn’t have any sort of academic background in art or design.

Before I started my current job, I interviewed for 23 different jobs in one year, and nothing was really a good fit. Designing infographics at the Energy Department was my big break – and it felt weird to call myself a designer, even though I had been designing things all day, every day for more than a few months. This might sound ridiculous, but after about six months of day-and-night design work, I had to cave. Everything just felt right.

How does blogging help you figure it out?

With my current work, I create things 24/7 – for the Energy Department, for Google, for other clients, etc. Sweetsonian is the one place in my life where I have the ultimate say, so these days, my blog is my form of creative release. I’ve been a writer as long as I can remember, and writing is something that helps me figure out what’s going on in my life – what’s stressing me out, what makes me happy, and what I need to really be focusing on.

Oh, and blogging helps me figure out what I want to eat for dinner. And breakfast, lunch, and dessert.

* * *

Read more from the Figuring it Out series!

Just a little note for today. Sun is shining. Coffee is strong. Have a sweet one.

via

Just a little set that has me thinking about summer. I’m over these April showers – bring on the steamy nights and strawberry cocktails!

sparklers | bows and stripes | strawberry gimlet

cake | daises | ceremony | yellow dress | bow tie | flowers | getaway | juleps | lemon souffles

The title of this post comes from a great book I read several years ago that chronicles all the meals the author has made for the men in her life. When I read it at 21, I thought I could relate, but now at 26, I wish I had stolen and kept this title for myself.

The first boy I cooked for was my high school boyfriend Aaron. It’s funny thinking about the grown up things you want to do when you’re 14, but having no license or no money really prevents you from trying. I think it was Valentine’s Day. I followed a recipe from my mom’s Joy of Cooking for spaghetti bolognese, his favorite meal. I remember chopping the onions, carrot, and celery for the sauce and thinking it was so strange that these three things go in pasta. Now I understand the importance of mirepoix in cooking, the holy trinity, and I can recognize it in any dish I eat.

I spent a long time over the stove, stirring, smelling, following the recipe to a t, asking my mom if it looked right. Finally, it was the big moment and I was very nervous for my cooking debut. We ate in our library where I set up a card table and folding chairs. We shut the French doors and had the room to ourselves, although mom and dad definitely peeked their heads in a few times. I probably lit candles and played a Creed cd. He gave me a song he wrote about seasons changing and the color of my eyes. I think I thought this meal was the most romantic thing ever. Haha. I’m glad to be 12 years older and wiser now (if anything, at least in music taste!)

There have been more boys and many more pastas since that first bolognese. (And we get to drink wine with it now too!) Fresh corn and pesto cappellini on a rooftop, a super simple carbonara because I had nothing else in my fridge except two eggs and I really wanted to cook for him, rigatoni with sausage peppers and onions eaten on the couch wearing matching sweatpants, meatball lasagna for another Valentine’s Day, chicken and peppers penne with creamy goat cheese that we cooked together, adding pancetta to spaghetti because I want to win your heart over with bacon.

I love cooking for these guys and surely for the yet-to-be-determined next guy and guy after that. I love that I don’t have to follow recipes anymore. Garlic, olive oil, and butter is really all I need. Fresh veggies or heart-winning bacon? Throw it in. Got some heavy cream? Duh. And grated fresh parm on top of course. It’s so easy… (and now I guess I can leave my nerves for the part that matters). I love slyly waiting and watching them take their first bite, to see their reaction. (FYI dudes, this is a really important moment. Don’t f-it up. Tell me it’s good. Cause I know it is.) Oh and I love that these pastas are simple to make that I don’t have too many dishes to do after dinner. Extra props to the guys who offer to wash them, while I just sit there and do nothing.

Ok, here’s the cheesy part. There isn’t always a boy to cook for. But so what? I still make the same amount just for myself. And I still put in the same amount of love into it – honestly, probably even more. I still win over my own heart with pancetta. There’s still wine and memorable nights. I just have to do my own dishes.

I made this dish for dinner recently and it’s a perfect example of a no-fuss, delicious treat for myself. Here’s the Nikki no-recipe version:

Roasted Red Pepper Carbonara

In a big pan, sautée garlic, olive, oil and butter over medium heat. Chop roasted red peppers and add to pan. Meanwhile, boil water and cook pasta. Add al dente pasta to pan with peppers/sauce. In a small bowl, scramble a raw egg with salt and pepper. Swirl egg into pasta/peppers until creamy (but not too much that the egg cooks and forms white pieces). Add fresh parm and extra pepper. Serve with wine and side of cute boy (Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love will do just fine). Bon appétit!

Just a few things that have been keeping me smiling recently…quiet weekend morning moments at my favorite coffee shop, spring weather = spring outfits, making it home early enough to cook dinner, taking #wiwt photos of my coworkers, cherry blossoms in DC (but not the allergies that come with it), a fab dress found at TJ Maxx which will be my date to a wedding in two weeks. Happy things.

Follow me on instagram for more photos of delicious food, girly outfits, and life in DC.