I think I've made it very clear I'm not the biggest fan of soup. I prefer heartier meals, and I don't care how hearty a soup claims to be, it just isn't on par with a meal I can, well, 'sink my teeth' into, as they say.  I'm not weird about textures, but I do like to feel like I've eaten my meal, not drank it.  (Also REALLY not a fan of juicing, as you may have guessed. ;)  BUT, I do like some soups, and this is one that I don't even know why I tried, but I immediately loved it and saved the recipe in my files.

My friend Kimberly mentioned to me that her daughter, my mini-me, needed a colonial outfit for school.  I sooooo wanted to make it!  I was trying to be nice and not steal the opportunity to make the costume from Kimberly, but oh, how I wanted to make this!!!  She graciously agreed to let me do it, and I immediately started shopping for fabric. Even though this is for a kid, and a school thing, I still wanted to go historically accurate. Because that's most of the fun for me.  ;) The outfit is made mostly from 100% linen, and the underthings are in a cotton muslin.

I have been searching for a good clam chowder recips for some time now.  There is nothing better than a hot bowl of flavorful clam chowder, thick and rich and still showcasing the delicate clam flavor.  Oddly, duplicating restaurant quality chowder has proven to be quite challenging!  I originally tried thickening the chowder with flour, which gave it a texture I was not thrilled with. And in spite of most recipes calling for canned clams, I just have not found a brand I can get locally that I like.

I've been with Crest-Care Chinese Crested rescue for over 5 years now, and have fostered, transported, and done placements for the foster dogs.  We network quite a bit to find and move dogs, and so I receive emails regularly from Crest-Care about dogs in shelters, and often will make arrangements to get the dogs out of the shelter, and transport them to foster homes.  There are very few Crested reps in California, and so I work very closely with the same two ladies for each of the dogs. Linus was a little different than previous transports.

This is such a great recipe for a special dinner, or for entertaining.  The sauce is a bit sweet, and the port gives it such great depth, and the color is just gorgeous.  It is such a welcome change from boring everyday chicken!  The sauce is prepared while the chicken is roasted, so the total time to prepare is about an hour if using chicken pieces, longer if roasting a whole chicken, as the original recipe calls for.