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.

Sauteed Mushrooms

Okay, this is my third attempt to write this post.  And since each subsequent attempt means I have to start from the beginning and edit what I've written, I am determined to finish this one.

The first edit was easy, because all that I had accomplished with my first attempt was "Sauteed Muuuuuuuuu" in the title field.  Give or take a few u's, I didn't count how many there actually were.  That's right, I fell asleep before I barely even started.

And the second attempt, I fell asleep while writing the above paragraph.  

Before you wonder if my laptop is pumping out some sort of a sleeping mist, let me just say that I've been dealing with a nasty summer upper respiratory infection which has left me wiped out by the end of the day.

And now that I'm feeling better, I'm not so wiped out, maybe just feeling grumpy.  Take last night for example.  My grumpiness prompted me to take this picture:

I was at Fenway Park, which is usually my happy place, but in the seventh inning the Red Sox blew a 9-3 lead and that made me grumpy and then I started wondering why the head of the person sitting in front of me (see picture) seemed to be growing larger as the game went on.

That was my view.  It could have been worse...despite obstructing my view, the young man with the expanding head was extremely well-behaved and hardly moved at all during the game, so there was no bobbing and weaving on my part to see around him....I simply had to lean to the left (to see the pitcher) or lean to the right (to see the batter).

Thanks for listening.

If you're not feeling well, you may consider chicken pot pie or beef stew your comfort food of choice.  Not me.  Nuh-uh.  I need mushrooms.  The steak under the mushrooms is merely incidental.

Stuffed Mushrooms!

I was at the hair salon last week, and Karen, the miracle worker who was applying her magic to my tresses, asked me what my plans were for the weekend.

I told her that the highlight of my weekend would be dinner at a friend's house on Saturday night.  I would be bringing appetizers. 

Karen, bless her coiffure-rescuing soul, follows this blog.  "What are you going to make?" she asked.

Artichoke Dip and stuffed mushrooms, I replied.  Artichoke dip, because Mr. Terrific likes it so much.  And stuffed mushrooms, because I love mushrooms.  

And then the questions started.  How do you cook them? What do you stuff them with?  I couldn't give her the exact measurements, because when I make stuffed mushrooms it's one of those recipes where I just throw everything together until it feels right and looks right and smells right.

I promised Karen I would measure the ingredients when I made the mushrooms, and then I would blog about it.  So Karen, here is the recipe I promised you!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.......

Conjures up thoughts of Simon and Garfunkel, doesn't it?

What if the next line were "........ when you use these herbs to season your steaks,

don't forget the garlic and lime."

Well, if they had thought of those lyrics instead, then you would already have the grilled steak recipe that I'm about to give you!

Ahhhh, forgive my terrible songwriting skills/poor attempt at humor/silliness.  I can't help it.

This is just the very quick, easy way I seasoned the last batch of steaks that I grilled.

I used fresh herbs, and the measurements for the herbs are the amounts I used before they were chopped.

Because there's quite a difference between "1/4 cup parsley leaves, chopped" (which means measure first, then chop)  and  "1/4 cup chopped parsley" (which means chop first, then measure). 

So for this recipe, measure first.

Then, chop-chop!

Outback Steakhouse Alice Springs Chicken and Raspberry Coffeecake

This weekend wasn't a total waste in the kitchen.  I made two recipes that are worth making again.

First, we have Outback Steakhouse Alice Springs Chicken.  How do I happen to have this recipe, you ask?  It's in a recipe book that I have, "Top Secret Restaurant Recipes" by Todd Wilbur.  I have had this book since it was published in 1997. This week is when I finally got around to making this recipe.  But I probably will repeat this fairly soon, because it was outstanding!