A Saturday Out and a Salute to Averie!
It is not unusual for us to put the dog in the car…
Drive an hour or two…
And hop on a ferry bound for somewhere we haven’t been. This Saturday was no different. In my combined 12 years of living in Seattle (9 growing up here and 3 being back), I have never been to Vashon Island so today we remedied that.
We are island people – not in a Jamaican sense – but in a “We like to be surrounded by water” sense. One day we’d like to have a tiny cabin by the water…or something like this:
This house photographed more shacky than eco-modern but trust me on this one.
Vashon is pretty and has the advantage of being super close to Seattle, unlike the San Juan Islands which are a little more of a trek. People actually commute from Vashon to Seattle. We got super lucky with the ferry and got there in a little over an hour from our door.
We're diggin' the whole rocks in a wire fence thing.
Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate and the rain got worse and worse. We drove around for a while, stopped into a nursery, ate roasted chickpea snacks (YUM), and called it a day.
Once home, I decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day early with a treat to myself inspired by Averie:
Oh yes I did!
In case you can’t read the ingredients on the sugar-free Vosges Bar, they are Mexican ancho & chipotle chilies + Ceylon cinnamon + dark chocolate. I didn’t even know Vosges made sugar-free chocolate! (Chris bought himself the Bacon Bar – we were feeling rich at PCC. What can I say?)
Feast your eyes, spicy fans:
Bwahm bwahm, chucka chuck-ahhhhh!
OH. MY. GOD. This is clearly why I don’t make candy in my own home (and even this time I made ONE). As much as I love Averie, all of her deliciousness would be huge trigger foods for me (same with Katie’s Fudge Babies), so I only admire them from afar. Except for on rare occasions such as this, when I happen to have two ingredients that just HAVE to go together.
And it’s Valentine’s Day, people!
I did share it with Chris. He wasn’t that interested and said the flavors were too intense. Wha???
Maybe I should have married this guy instead:
Equally hot and drool-worthy.
Even though I have a thousand things to do (school, cleaning, etc.), I capped off my Spicy Peanut Butter Cup eating with a private viewing of The Time Traveler’s Wife and cried my eyes out. The movie didn’t actually suck as much as I feared it would, but I think it helped that it was one of the few books I’ve read twice and LOVED from the very core of my being. I could go into more analysis of the adaptation, but I won’t bore you. I thought they made some interesting, but logical choices.
And, seriously, I could watch a half-naked Bana alllllll day long. You could make a movie of him at a laundromat doing whites, and I’d be glued.
“What, Chris? Oh nothing….just working on my blog. I’ll be right down!”
PS. I could also have seen Justin Theroux as Henry. Just thought I’d throw that out there. I’ll let it go now.
I just saw those chocolate bars for the first time the other day and reallllly wanted to try them. SPICY chocolate is the best. Next time you get sick – try hot chocolate with cardamom and cayenne pepper. It’s the perfect thing for a cold… maybe not the most healthy, but still damn good.
Lol rocks in the wire fence thing!
Oh my gosh, girl… you are just WAY too cool!!! You kicked it up a notch – just like Emeril!!!
And I can’t believe I made TWELVE!! LOL – But I was making lots extra for Valentine’s Day gifts. And I can’t believe we both made ‘em at the same time. Great minds, eh?
Hugs,
Michele
Yes, I was just over at Michele’s site and saw her handiwork and now here I am to you, Tiff! Great work for making the PB Cups! I am glad that you made them!!!!!! And with hot PB! Wow, that’s cool! I have never tried anything by the PB & Co. b/c well, I’m cheap
But everyone raves about it, i really should, huh!
Love the pic of you in the rain, it’s a great shot of you!
xoxo
I LOVE Vashon Island. I visited there once and fell in love. Reading your story makes me miss the NW in general….though I have to admit all this snow in DC has been quite fun!
What a fun outing! Way to go on the peanut butter cups. I am liking spicy chocolate right now too. I tried a lemon/black pepper dark chocolate bar that rocked and a chile dark chocolate. Ya girl!
Want. Candies.
THOSE candies
That kind of outing is EXACTLY the kind of thing my husband and I would do! Well, minus the dog part – the cats won’t let us have a dog, so we just get our doggy fixes by petting everyone else’ dogs. We have done the Vashon trip before for the very same reason and we LOVE Islands.
But then I went on to read that you were brave enough to make Averie’s peanut butter cups and put up pictures of them (why do these intimidate me?). To top it all off you cinched the fact that I could easily call you friend by your choice of chocolate for the recipe! Yummers!!! My husband agreed that was a very good idea and I have a funny feeling I’ll have to get brave and do this soon, too. I added a theo coffee chocolate bar to my full circle csa order for this coming week…hmmm….
If you had made the candies BEFORE going to Vashon Island you would have been in trouble for not stopping by and leaving some for us(we would have been right on the way) – but since it happened the other way around – your forgiven. ; )
M – The PB cups took all of 10 seconds in the microwave! My biggest challenge was making it even and pretty and then letting it cool long enough in the freezer. Soooooo easy!