Whole Chicken with Stuffing

This was the first time I have ever made a whole chicken with stuffing. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be and it was delish! I also put stuffing in it (not homemade, but still good) and enjoyed the leftovers for days.

I cooked it at 350 for longer than I was supposed to because it was done a whole two hours early, so I just put it on low until the hubby got home for dinner. Still good, but a bit on the dry side.

Lemon Ricotta Biscuits . . . . or are they muffins?!

Giada made these delicious-looking "things," as we'll call them, on her show a few weeks ago. I have had the recipe on my Safari page in my iPhone for I don't know how long. Yesterday, I decided to finally make them.

My neighbor has a lemon tree in her front yard. It actually looks more like a bush of sorts. She has mentioned to me, while walking her dog, that we are free to come over and take lemons from her tree anytime. And I did just that! Carly and I walked right over and picked a few, well, 5 to be exact. But who's counting?

They were super easy and are quite tasty. You only need two lemons. The recipe calls for whole milk ricotta and I substituted it with low-fat ricotta. I thought they might come out less moist, but surprisingly, they are not dry. (If you know me, most of my food has to be moist. Especially my chicken and turkey.) I also ran out of cupcake liners, so for two of the "things," I just sprayed the muffin tin with cooking spray. And lastly, I didn't have any slivered or sliced almonds to garnish the top, so I simply put an almond.

Now, to my question. These muffin-shaped yummies are sweet - calls for a cup of sugar and extra for garnishing the top. I had one for breakfast this morning with my coffee. The lemon and almond flavors remind me of a dessert or muffin I would have with my latte. The word biscuit gives these guys the connotation one would have them with chicken or other hearty dinner. Thinking about it, I do like my cornbread sweet, and I usually like it with butter and honey to boot!

After doing some research, this is what I found.

The definition for muffin and biscuit, respectively:

muf⋅fin   [muhf-in]
–noun
1. an individual cup-shaped quick bread made with wheat flour, cornmeal, or the like, and baked in a pan (muffin pan) containing a series of cuplike forms.

bis⋅cuit   [bis-kit]
–noun
1. a kind of bread in small, soft cakes, raised with baking powder or soda, or sometimes with yeast.
2. Chiefly British.
a. a dry and crisp or hard bread in thin, flat cakes, made without yeast or other raising agent; a cracker.
b. a cookie.

I also realized that the episode Giada made this was titled Everyday Desserts. I never knew the definition of biscuit, and it does seem to fit these lil treats well. My assumption that a muffin is sweet, has proved me wrong and that it is the shape that makes something a muffin.

Enjoy these biscuits, they're a real treat, a sweet treat!

Nonna's Lemon Ricotta Biscuits
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar or more as needed for sprinkling
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 large egg
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/3 cup thinly sliced almonds
Directions
Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer, beat 1 cup sugar, butter, and lemon zest in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the ricotta. Beat in the egg, lemon juice, and almond extract. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until blended (the batter will be thick and fluffy).

Divide the batter among the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle the almonds and then the remaining 1 teaspoon of sugar over the muffins. Bake until the muffins just become pale golden on top, about 20 minutes. Cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Thanksgiving Cards Galore

Hi Folks!

Well, I have put quite a few Thanksgiving Cards up on my website. All of them are $1.50! And, if you buy two cards by the 18th of this month, you get the third free. So, my friends, order up!

Here are a few of the newly listed cards:

Baby Furniture is in - let's celebrate!!

Well, I will be taking photos sometime this week of the nursery to show you how adorable my lil girls room is. Her furniture came on Friday in some very nasty packaging - it appeared the FedEx man decided to eat dinner and spill it all over the boxes they came in! Luckily, the furniture was in good condition and there was another box inside the box, if you know what I mean.

In celebration of her furniture and new room, let's have a sale, why not?! Buy 2 items and get the 3rd item FREE (of equal or lesser value). Please note in the "Message to Seller" upon checkout, what 3rd item you would like and I will include it in your order. That's right, you don't pay for the shipping of the 3rd item either - lucky you! Sale ends on the 18th - my due date! So, get your order in before it's too late (or her, perhaps, too!).

Another Special!

Hurray for Friday! Buy 2 items this weekend and get 1 of equal or lesser value free! Don't delay. Offer is good until Monday, September 29th. I know, Monday shouldn't count, but what can I say?! I'm nice for those procrastinators . . . Have a good weekend!

Hurray for Baby Furniture

Well, after a long and tedious process, more than the average pregnant lady, I have found furniture that I pray I am going to be happy with. It all started on craigslist . . . .

I had decided that I wanted a sleigh crib and couldn't decide if I wanted a wood finish or a white finish. I'm not a huge fan of the dark woods, so I had been looking at light - colored, blonde wood, and the occasional white, which was few and far between. After not having much luck and looking obssessively for a week, I found this:



I sing in my head like angels, "Ahhhhh!!" - perfect. Everything matches, it appears to be in great condition. I immediately email the ad letting them know I am interested and she calls 5 minutes later wanting to know when I would be willing to pick it up. I agree to pick it up that evening and with my husband in tow, we set out in two cars to pick up all three items.

When we arrive, the furniture is not disassembled and bigger than life. Oh, and did I forget to mention that there was an enormous flight of stairs to get to the baby's room? Oh yes, my friends. Erik could not be happier! There is just me and two other short and petite ladies within screaming distance to get some help, so he's pretty much out of luck. We both like the furniture and proceed to load it in the car, ahem (cough cough) - Erik proceeds to dolly it carefully down the stairs and to the respective cars.

Only two pieces fit in both cars - the hutch and dresser in one and the armoire in the other, so we give her partial payment and tell her that we'll be back on Sunday before or after church to pick up the crib. This made for a long evening as the lady who we purchased the furniture lived a great distance from the freeway, so we grabbed a bite to eat before we made the long trek home.

A day or two later I begin to have second thoughts about the crib. This is not the crib I had envisioned in my head and I certainly didn't want to go back and get it if I could find something else that fit my ideal crib. And after playing phone tag with the seller for a few days, I get a hold of her and tell her that I just don't think I want the crib. Although she wanted to sell it all as a set, she sympathetically said that if I didn't want it, I didn't have to buy it and she would sell it separately. She didn't want me to buy it for my first baby if it wasn't something I wanted. I thanked her profusely and then went out and purchased my ultimate crib:



Let me tell you, this is the Madison Lifetime Crib by Jardine - I LOVE THIS CRIB. But let me tell you, with the room yellow and the blonde-colored furniture accenting the room, it wasn't much of an accent. Imagine this: the room is 80% set up with all the furniture and supplies one needs to be ready for a baby and your spouse (at 8 months pregnant) decides to have a meltdown and tell you she already feels guilty she bought used furniture for her baby and she's not even born! She proceeds to say that the color of the furniture isn't right, it doesn't match, she doesn't like it. This is all in between tears falling from her face. Yes, it's true. That was me. Poor Erik. Yes, his wife is a bit looney. Nice, consoling husband that he is, he tells me that if I don't like it that I should try and resell it on craigslist and buy something else.

And a few weeks later, that's exactly what I did. With the help from the Choir members at my church who gave me money to buy some new furniture, I purchased this today:





I went with white and as you can see, the crib is very similar to the Madison Lifetime Crib. The pieces above are made by Storkcraft and are made with solid wood. I am really looking forward to it's arrival (as I purchased it from csnbaby.com).

Finding Space

My gosh! My husband and I bought a house in mid-March and it was a definite "fixer upper." Because I was in my first trimester (of being pregnant), helping my husband fix it up, made things quite a challenge - for him and me! Fast forward to six months later, our house is looking fabulous. Hubby did a photo montage last night with photos of the house before we moved in as well as the construction photos and we are looking forward to adding photos of the house "done and complete" sometime this week.

This brings me to the title of my post, however. We have a huge house (considering my single life I had a one bedroom apartment) - over 1800 square feet! Three bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 living rooms (formal and informal), 2 dining areas (formal and informal), and of course, the kitchen. I must admit that I have so much stuff. It's insane! I think to myself, "Where did this all come from? How did I get all of this? Why do I still have all of this?" Well, the answer to the last question is that I always have the mentality that eventually, someday, I may need it, so why throw it out? I have this feeling when I know I haven't used something in a while, I'm going to throw it out, and immediately regret my toss because I now, after all these years of not needing it, will be able to use it, and it's gone. Ever feel like that?!

My craft stuff is currently in what we call the "third bedroom" - also known as the craft room or guest room. My scrapbooking stuff is scattered all over the guest bed - being used as a virtual desk. Mind you, there is a real desk, but where do I lay out all of my stickers and photos and other things to view? It looks like a tornado hit this room . . .




The other bedroom is designated for the lil miss (due in mid-October). That photo will be shown later . . .

I currently have my music stuff scattered all over the formal living room in hopes to organize and place in a filing cabinet. The pretty books are on the bookshelves, but the ugly copies and mish-mash of paper could use a home where they are in hiding, so to speak. I'm slowly, but surely, going through them all. Thoughts of "Do I really need this? Am I going to look at this? Can I easily find this if I need it again?" come to mind, again.


And, like I was saying earlier, I'm hoping to find a place for all of this. I'm so young now and I know I have so much more to "collect" in the future, I need to start minimizing and throwing away. That, and creating more stuff to sell on etsy, right?!

Have a great week. And when you're cleaning your house, remember to "throw it away!" (as this is what I will be trying to tell myself this week) . . .