Lemon Ricotta Muffins

Every day, every walk we take, Clyde picks up a stick or a branch along the way.

Today, this one stopped him in his tracks.  He turned around and looked at me as if to say, "Yikes!"  Then he did an about-face and dragged me home.

We came home and he promptly took a nap so he could sleep off his trauma.

While he slept, I baked a batch of muffins.

  I wanted to take a picture of the muffins, and the best place for natural light is on this bench in my dining room.

Gus understands the meaning of "look but don't touch."  Clyde--not so much.  Good thing he was sleeping.

If you haven't yet entered the giveaway for the Whole Foods gift card, head on over to this post and leave a comment telling me what your favorite comfort food is.  The winner will be announced on March 31.  Good luck!

Comfort Food Cooking Show...and Whole Foods Giveaway!

  I'm so ready for the snow to be gone!

Even though it is fun to throw snowballs for Gus.

Got it!  Clyde usually looks on in admiration, he simply doesn't have the desire to catch snowballs. 

 We filmed another episode of the cooking show this week.  With the freezing temperatures outside, it only seemed fitting that the theme of this show should be comfort food!

What did we make?

 Chicken Pot Pie

A large, family-sized chicken pot pie and cute li'l individual ones.

Lentil Soup.

Puff Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce

Click on the links to be taken to the recipes.

Chicken Pesto Pizza (with mushrooms)

Caitie:     We should bake something today!

Erin (smirking, sarcastic):    uh, WE?

Caitie:    Well, YOU should bake something, and I'll sit here and keep you company!


That was a recent conversation between the two of them.

If you read my blog regularly, you may have seen the brownies and cupcakes and creative cakes that Erin regularly bakes.

Caitie does her best to avoid the kitchen.   Just imagine my surprise when I walked in the door one day last week and was greeted by this:

Caitie got busy baking blondies.  They were still warm!

And then she requested that I make Chicken Pesto Pizza.  She's hard to resist when she plies me with warm blondies.

I feel the need to warn you that this is going to be a long recipe.  Three recipes, actually.   I made the crust from scratch.  I made the pesto from scratch.  And THEN  I made the pizza.

But before I made the crust, pesto and pizza, I roasted the garlic (for the pesto), roasted the chicken (for the pizza), sautéed some mushrooms (because NO pizza-o-mine is complete without 'shrooms).  It turned into a two-hour ordeal.  Two hours!!!  For two pizzas.  But it was soooooo good.

Make that sooooooooooooooo good.

To save time, make it easy on yourself.  It's the pesto & chicken combo that's important,  and nobody's going to judge you if you don't prepare all of your ingredients from scratch.  Buy ready-made pizza dough.  Buy ready-made pesto.  Buy pre-cooked (or rotisserie) chicken.