October in Pictures!

Shoot, I suck at blogging. Once again I will make up the excuse that this month has been crazy! Partially because we officially launched my sweet little dessert business, Crafted! I am so excited that we are finally at this point. We had been working with one of our good friends on our logo for a couple of months, here is what Donnie came up with for us:

Do you love it? I do :) 

Once we got the logo, we officially made our Etsy shop - check it out here: CRAFTEDconfection

I got all my packaging supplies on Saturday, and will get my plastic sealer tomorrow - who knew kraft bags, green bakers twine, and something that seals plastic bags closed could make a girl so happy?!

The Etsy shop is in a soft opening phase, we are playing around with, but will be adding product quite frequently during the next couple weeks to make sure we don't miss out on the holiday market. Soon we will also be able to post our offerings on a menu on Facebook. I love, love, LOVE all of you friends & family members that have been posting my links to Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest it means so much to me!

Now here is to shameless promoting, if you are looking for ANYTHING please email me and I would love to help you out Whitney@CraftedConfection.com

In other important (?) news:

I was a Zombie Bride for Halloween

At Kirk's work, his department had the theme of dead rockstars, so he ended up being Jerry Garcia

He grew out his beard for way too long and it was so scraggly. When he shaved I shed a tear of happiness, true story.

Kirk's office had a baking contest, and I submitted the "Cherry Garcia Magic Brownies." They were my original brownie recipe with some ground sage and cherry preserves - and they won 1st place! I contribute it to team work though, Kirk marketed those babies like crazy!

We celebrated Steve's birthday, and he got a special My Little Pony birthday cake from moi. Just what you'd expect for a 28 year old man - right?!

I have a new obsession for wreath making, I made an indoor and outdoor one for fall

We carved pumpkins - I carved a cat (Bella specifically) and Kirk carved the Husky logo. I would have an image for you, however there are either squirrels, rabbits, or cats who had been munching on our pumpkins so by the time we were ready to light a candle in our pumpkins, the carved design was basically gone haha..

Here is a picture of Kirk at the pumpkin patch in Carnation:

I have planted a TON of tulip bulbs! We have a very long driveway that had no plants or flowers down one side, so there are enough bulbs for 250 tulips come spring! I am going to try and plant some more within the next week if I have time. What can I say?! I love flowers!

Kirk and I have started going on walks down to the wineries in the warehouses and a favorite local brewery of ours, Dirty Bucket. The walk takes about 20-30 minutes each way, so it ends up being a nice little walk with a reward of wine tasting or pumpkin beer. It balances itself out quite nicely ;)

Here is me on one of our walks, I am a leaf wizard!

I also had the honor of telling my beautiful sister in-law Erica, and her husband Ryan the sex of their baby! Their doctor had wrote down the gender on a piece of paper and sealed it in an envelope for me. The assignment Erica gave me was to make a cake with the color frosting in the middle being either blue or pink to identify what it was! It was really special to make and I was SO excited for them to cut it open!

Here is my little cake before it headed out to the party! Erica and Ryan had a huge group of their friends over for the announcement! I basically had to avoid everyone in the room so I wouldn't give it away.

It's a boy! I'm going to be an aunt to a little guy! Being an aunt to Chloe has been so fun, I am excited to see how much fun a nephew can be!

Here's to November! xo

It's October!

Yay! It's October 1st! While September was lovely, I was just waiting for October. I love pretty much everything about the fall - pretty scenery, football, pumpkin spice lattes, apple season, pumpkins, BOOTS.. the list can go on and on but I'll hold back a little and calm down. I love decorating and hosting events and I think that between now and New Years, that passion grows and I am constantly thinking of creative ideas to make every weekend better than the last.

Yesterday we hosted the first official Snack Pack of the season with our friends. What's Snack Pack you ask?! It is a large group of our friends who get together every Sunday, each bringing a dish and cheering on the Seahawks. Since everyone brings a dish or two, it becomes this huge potluck with delicious snacks (how the Snack Pack name was born). We host this throughout the season, and end on a big Superbowl party. It's always delicious, and the perfect excuse to get everyone together. Yesterday we had 20 people over, which was great! I started to think about last year when we were in a one bedroom apartment hosting the same amount of people...crazy I know.

This picture doesn't do justice, I used the most gorgeous, sparkly blue & green paper for this :)

The decorated table!

Katie made these awesome team flags

The party table before the Snack Pack arrived

After the game we had a BBQ in our backyard with everyone. I had made this special tutu for the Seahawks season...if you didn't already know, I love all things girly with a touch of sparkle. And of course, Eric made his way into the picture. Silly, silly boy.

Well, I promise to be better at updating this month with our weekend adventures and tasty recipes. Stay tuned.. xo

Vancouver, AT LAST!

Oh my, I have been totally slacking and am embarrassed I haven't posted about our August anniversary trip to Vancouver yet! Life has been busy, and I am hoping that as we creep closer to fall, I will get some "catch up" time!

I had never been to Canada, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this whole drive & border deal. I am super impatient, and not a fan of long car drives. Kirk had told me the trip would take four hours, so I was kind of dreading it. Luckily, my husband didn't remember the exact driving time it would take to get there, so instead of a four hour drive, it only took us 1.5 hours! I was thrilled to say the least. Kirk blamed us moving to Woodinville for the time difference... silly boy.

Before we even headed to Vancouver, we went into Richmond for dim sum. Richmond is known for having some of the best Asian cuisine on the West Coast and because Asian food is Kirk's fave - it was a no brainer that we would be stopping for lunch. We got a recommendation from Kirk's co-worker who lives in Vancouver to try out South Ocean for dim sum.

These little guys were my favorite!

After a nice amount of dim sum, we headed to our hotel. It was really, really nice. We usually don't care too much where we are staying since we are always out on the town exploring, but Kirk decided since it was our anniversary, we deserved a nice room :) He spoils me.

This was our view out of the room. It was windows from floor to ceiling, so it was a little scary to look down haha.

We had planned to just explore Gastown our first night since we were doing a fancy dinner the next day. Our first stop was Salt Tasting Room. We walked in to a small room, with long communal tables, and blackboard wall with their daily offerings which change often. I really appreciated their concept of pairing meats, cheeses, & condiments together. With the help of our server, we had picked three condiments to pair with a meat and two cheeses for our tasting plate. They also offer you a chance to pair your wine with each, but we opted for a glass of wine instead. I had Ormarine Picpoul de Pinet from France which I *loved* and Kirk had a Six Hats Shiraz from South Africa.

From left to right, we had smoked beef with a Guinness mustard (our fave), Chaumes cheese with a quince paste, and their local Chevre with honeycomb.

Later that night, we headed to The Clough Club. It is in a 110 year old building, and the decorating definitely shows off their classic style. We sat outside on one of their darling little benches with some pretty succulents in the center. They are very dark spirit forward, which I was a little nervous about, but I trusted them to make a nice whiskey cocktail. I had ordered their Wax Poetic which was bourbon with pressed pink grapefruit, agave nectar, lemon juice, Peychaud’s bitters, egg white, flamed grapefruit peel. It was the best drink I have ever had with bourbon. Not saying I'm totally going to convert from my love of vino to bourbon, however it was a lovely drink.

Saturday we slept in, and decided we would just use it as an exploring day! We were able to walk to one of the farmer's markets since it was just a couple blocks from our hotel. It was a nice and big market full of a little bit of everything! There was even a maple syrup booth where the woman was pouring maple syrup onto ice, and rolling into taffy. I wanted one so badly and then I quickly realized we only had American money on us -- oops!

MAPLE EVERYTHING!

After the market we walked over to Gastown to go to a French bakery called Cadeaux. Their pastry case was super tempting, yet somehow Kirk and I made it out with only two desserts!

Gingersnap Cookie Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwich!

Salted Caramel Brownie

We continued to stroll around town, and found a cute little patio bar next to the water so thought it would be a nice spot to grab a drink. We decided to share their sangria, not realizing how large it was!

It was a FISHBOWL of sangria. While it was delicious, we were pretty embarrassed drinking this right next to a family with two little kids. We did get quite a good laugh out of this later :)

For lunch we went to the most AMAZING sandwich place - ever. Seriously, I can not tell you enough how delicious Meat and Bread was. They had two choices of sandwiches, a pork verde and l'orange duck. Kirk and I made the logical decision and got both so we could split.

As much as wanted to continue discovering places, we went back to the hotel to get some rest time in. I had brought my wedding shoes to wear, and the dress I wore to my rehearsal dinner one year prior :) I thought it was pretty successful that after a year of marriage I still fit in that! PHEW!

For dinner we went to dinner at Black and Blue. We had saw it on the Top Chef Austin season, and really wanted to check it out. I know that that sounds pretty nerdy but what can I say... we really like Top Chef! It was a really beautiful restaurant, and the food was good! We did the whole table side caesar deal with filet and potatoes. We LOVE our steak houses!

We had planned on going out after, but I was EXHAUSTED! Kirk being the trooper he was suggest we get a bottle of champagne, and head back to our nice room and watch the Olympics. That sounded like the perfect night for me being such a tired girl. It is so nice to do something laid back and just have so much fun together :)

Before the way home we had checked out Stanley Park, and it was SO gorgeous! Vancouver is such a lovely city and we can't wait to go back soon!

Our First Wedding Anniversary!

I feel like it was just yesterday that I walked down the aisle to my groom at the beautiful Sodo Park filled with our family and friends. I remember all my bridesmaids looking at me nervous and anxious, asking me if I was really as calm as I looked. And the truth is, I was. I was so excited to start our journey in life together! Having a partner that continually challenges me to grow, while always being kind and patient is something really special, and I can't wait to continue growing and see where this life takes us.

I had originally planning on making a nice little meal for us on our actual anniversary but we had got home a little late from our trip to Vancouver and didn't want to rush a special meal, so we decided to move it out a night. As Kirk put it, "extending our anniversary even longer". Silly boy.

Somehow we had managed to save a couple pieces of frangipane tart and raspberry brownies from our dessert bar at our wedding. At one point during last winter I saw Kirk snacking on a brownie and I was like "whaaaat are you doing!?!?!" -- he clearly had no idea that I had been saving them for this crazy tradition, so I guess we are lucky we had anything left over!

The original from our wedding!

A little rough, a year later

I made us a herb mix salad with some fresh peaches, goat cheese, and blueberry vinaigrette, King crab---one of Kirk's favorite things ever that we rarely get to indulge in, and a darling little chocolate cake with fresh strawberries & unsweetened coconut! We paired it with one of our favorite champagnes by Laetita!

The spread!

One year! :)

A tasty celebration to say the least!

This was just a quick little post but I will be posting about our Vancouver trip sometime this week - till then we just want to say thank you to our dear friends and family that have shown us so much love through our journey this past year! We love YOU!

Our Portland Pilgrimage

By: Kirk

Hold on to your butts people, it’s time for my (Kirk) first blog post on Savor the Sweet! Not sure how I was able to convince Whitney to let me cover such an awesome adventure, but I did, so here we go…

Hands down, one of the best events Whitney and I have ever attended is the Oregon Brewer’s Festival held in Portland. If you are unfamiliar with this glorious festival, let me break it down for you… Over 85 craft breweries, 3 days, riverfront lounging and a maze of tasty food trucks. Sound dumb? Well, I think you’re dumb.

This year was the 25^th annual Oregon Brewer’s Festival and we made the trek with a whole crew of friends. Here are some highlights…

Please excuse the quality of my mobile hipster Instagram photos...

Magical Goodie Bags of Sudstenance +2
(RPG joke for all the nerds out there).

Goodie bags make any adventure better. I bet Frodo Baggins would’ve been way more confident trekking off to Mt. Doom if he’d been equipped with one of Whitney’s precious, glittery breakfast goodie bags. Thankfully Whitney and Katie were kind enough to wake up extra early and quickly assemble these. Each treat bag was equipped with a Sage-Bacon Egg Sandwich, Chocolate Espresso Breakfast Cookies and an energy drink.

In addition to their food,
Pok Pok has some amazing and exotic cocktails.

For our first night in Portland we made reservations at the local favorite Pok Pok, a Thai restaurant from Andy Ricker, 2011’s James Beard winner for Best Chef Northwest. His food is strictly traditional, backed by his commitment to never serve Phad Thai. Our motley crew ordered everything from chicken wings to cat fish to pork belly to boar collar. Every dish was phenomenal and deeply flavored. Every dish was devoured. The combination of incredible food, cocktails and friends catapulted this meal atop my list of all-time favorites.

The original, famous Chicken Schnitzelwich.

    Did you know that Portland is Spanish for, The Land of a Thousand Food Trucks? Well, now you know. It’s incredibly easy to wander from any downtown hotel and stumble upon some amazing street style grub. While we were excited to finally score a sandwich from Schnitzelwitch, the show stealer was the pulled pork sandwich with tostones from a little Cuban food truck named "El Cubo de Cuba" … succulent, succulent meat. If you’re hoping to experience Food Truck Xanadu, we recommend going on a weekday. This will ensure a more robust variety of options since many trucks are closed on the weekend.

  

These are our beer-snob faces. We've been practicing.

Saturday was our official Brew Fest day. Our group drank the gambit from traditional Red Ales, IPAs and Pilsners, to more exotic beers like Peach Trippel Ale, Honey Basil Ale, and Raspberry Sour Ales. We did our best to stay responsible and spread this beer banquet out over the course of the day. If you love craft beer and hanging out in the sun, put the Oregon Brewer’s Festival on your bucket list.

Aw, look how beautiful she is whilst enjoying a Raspberry Crush Ale!

~ THE END ~

Bing Cherry Ice Cream with Pickled Cherries!

Cherry season is the Pacific NW is short but so very sweet. Growing up, I only had terrible experiences with cherries. My parents gave me one of those Hostess fruit pies with "real cherry filling" and after that, I had this idea that cherries tasted syrupy sweet, and overly processed. I immediately decided I hated cherries and banned them. This ban lasted for 15 years until I had entered the culinary world professionally, and was able to have access to some of the very best fruit that was in season from local farmers. Now, I can't get enough during this short time they are in season and I take full advantage of what I can make with them.

I had decided to pickle 12 oz. of Bing cherries in a mason jar, not totally sure of what I would use them for... but I always come up with something. A few days later, I had some inspiration! I had just bought the lovely Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream book with her chapters being categorized by seasons - love! One of the first ones I scanned over was for her flavor, Cherry Chocolate Chunk.

Whenever Kirk and I have a date night in Seattle, we somehow always seem to end up at a Molly Moon shop. Thankfully she has 4 locations + a truck so we are pretty much covered in whatever neighborhood we are in. Kirk is pretty good at experimenting with new flavors every time, but I'm a sucker for 1/2 scoop Salted Caramel & 1/2 scoop Stumptown Coffee with a waffle cone (EVERYTIME!)

Enough of my rambling - I ended up making Molly's Cherry ice cream (minus the chocolate) and added some of my pickled cherries chopped up for a topping. Here is the recipe, be prepared for the perfect summer sundae!

Cherry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream

By Molly Moon Neitzel & Christina Spittler

Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream

Makes 1 - 1 1/2 Quarts

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup whole milk

1 cup sugar

Pinch of kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups pitted and coarsely chopped cherries (I used Bing, but feel free to experiment)

1 cup coarsely chopped dark chocolate (about 6 oz, I recommend using Theo's Dark 70%, its heavenly!)

Put the cream, milk, sugar, and salt into a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Just before the mixture comes to a boil, remove from the heat and add the cherries. Pour the mixture into a shallow pan or bowl and place in the refrigerator to chill thoroughly, 1-2 hours. 

When the mixture is cold, stir in the vanilla. Pour into an ice cream maker and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. During the last minute of processing, add the chocolate. Using a rubber spatula, transfer the ice cream to an airtight glass or plastic freezer container. Cover tightly and freeze until the ice cream is firm, at least 4 hours.

NOW - if you want to step out of your comfort zone a little, make these pickled cherries! I pickle them whole (pit in) and then slice them up for my sundaes.

Pickled Cherries

12 oz mason jar (or glass container) filled with Bing Cherries

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup champagne vinegar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1/2 teaspoon whole coriander

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Put all ingredients (besides cherries) into bowl, stir until combined. Pour over cherries into the mason jar. Shake a few times to make sure all ingredients are blended. I used these 72 hours after mixing, but you can use them after a couple hours - it all depends on your taste. This must stay refrigerated. Be cautious that when you try these little guys straight up, you might be thrown off, but put on this ice cream is AMAZING. You can also use them in salads, or as a garnish on a cheese plate.

My current pickling projects! I have green beans, cauliflower, and carrots in a traditional pickling brine. Bing cherries in the above recipe, and lastly these super tangy bits of awesome - pickled red onions! I have been having an excessive amount of tacos this past week that I have been topping with these!

 In quick other news, I have done my first post for my feature The Sweet House on the Girl Power Hour blog. Check it out!

We are headed out of town this weekend to Portland with a group of our friends for the Oregon Brewer's fest! I'm super stoked and plan on "foodie-ing" it up on Friday hitting up a few spots that have been on my list. Look out next week for oodles and oodles of some fun pictures :)

xo

Rosemary & Lavender

It is no secret that I love entertaining, and I love making any get together extra special by putting some home made touches and a lot of thought into what I make, and share with my family and friends. This weekend was no different :)

On Saturday, Kirk's family had come over for a casual dinner on the deck. We did a fancy burger night which seems to be an on-going trend for the Heinrichs. Erica has bought some nice burgers from Whole Foods, and I made grilled caesar salad, a fruit salad with rosemary simple syrup, rosemary lemonade (I had some extra rosemary in my garden) and a coconut cream pie for dessert.

Rosemary Lemonade! Recipe below...

Heavenly..

Unfortunately we didn't get to the pie for dessert, but Chloe (our niece) did grab some of my graham crackers...

Continuing on, we  invited a few friends over  to celebrate our fire pit! For the occasion I had made graham crackers, marshmallows, and had Katie pick up some milk and dark Theo Chocolate. Two words. Gourmet S'mores!

On Sunday, Kirk and I spent the day walking around Woodinville, exploring some of the side farms. We stumbled upon Woodinville Lavender, which I had heard about through a friend, and I was dying to go! It's a stunning property with so much lavender it warms my heart. Kirk and I did the U-Pick option, and went to the lavender fields to cut some. We also had each bought an ice cream bar.. I chose vanilla lavender, and Kirk had blackberry lavender.

A third of the field

Our lavender we picked. It was pretty fun to joke to Kirk about "man once you get married, you spend your Sunday's picking lavender :)"


RECIPE FOR ROSEMARY LEMONADE
Makes roughly 1 pitcher of lemonade

8 cups water
A handful of rosemary
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup agave nectar
A pinch of kosher salt
Rosemary simple syrup to taste (if you want it sweeter)

1. Bring the water, rosemary, and salt to boil. Turn off, let steep for 2-4 hours.
2. Strain the rosemary out of the water
3. Stir in lemon juice and agave nectar.

Voila! Super easy and delicious... however:

If you want it to be sweeter (which I personally did) you can add some rosemary simple syrup.
To make the rosemary simple syrup, I combined 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and a couple sprigs of rosemary. I boiled all three together until it reduced down to a thin syrupy condition. I probably added 1/3 cup of the simple syrup mix to my lemonade. You will have extra rosemary simple syrup left, but there are tons of things you can do with it. I threw some into my fruit salad, and it will also be a lovely addition to a gin cocktail. Endless possibilities people!