Championship Sunday 2018 Edition

I am all caught up on my country blogs, now just one more blog to go! 

Every year, we make NFL inspired pizzas for Championship Sunday. We started the tradition in 2014 , and we made them again in 2015, 2016, and 2017. In 2016, we also decided to start doing them for the draft- you know, so we could eat some crappy team pizzas too! 

For the AFC we had the New England Clam Chowder Pizza, and the Jacksonville Fruit Tart Pizza. Worth noting: I don't actually follow the recipe on either of these. 

First of all, we've have the New England pizza literally every year since we started doing this. (Could someone else PLEASE go to the AFC Championship game?) It's supposed to be a clam bake pizza, with canned clams (yea, I know- BLAH!) But, I have a rule to make it like the recipe says for the first go around. The next year, I put crab on it. But it still just seemed dry- like it was missing something. The third time was the charm though. I buy a little of the clam chowder from Publix deli, thicken it up, spread it over the pizza sprinkle it with cheese (and bacon bits if you prefer), and ta-da! You finally have a New England pizza I can eat year after year, which I'll apparently have to do until stinkin Tom Brady finally decides to retire. 

Then there's the Jacksonville pizza. We've never had it for Championship Sunday before, but we had had it for the draft (way to get most improved this year, Jacksonville!) Anyway, the recipe wants the pizza crust and a creme cheese based frosting. Neither of those are appealing together. So instead (and this is the only pizza I don't use a Boboli crust for)- I make a cake crust out of a box cake mix. As long as you add a little less oil and water, you can spread it out pretty easily on pizza tray (lightly sprayed with PAM of course), and get your crust. Then I use whipped cream with a little extra powdered sugar sprinkled in for the frosting. The boys like this one so much, Peyton asks for it for his birthday cake. 

Over in the NFC we had TWO newcomers. I hadn't made either of these before. We had the Minnesota Grilled Chicken Pizza, and the Philidelphia Cheesesteak Pizza. 

Like I said, this was our first go around- so I made these exactly like the recipe said. The Philly cheesesteak was good, but missing something for sure. There was no sauce here, so it seemed a little dry. If we made this again, I'm thinking some cheesey sauce like how they pour warm cheese all over the sandwiches. Something cheddary, warm, and spreadable. 

Asa and I really liked the Minnesota pizza, but the boys were not so into it. It had gouda, mushroom, spinach and red onions on it. I wouldn't change anything about this one. The boys say if I make it again, I have to leave off the mushroom, but that won't be happening. Maybe I'll be nice and do it on half. 

Of course we were really, really rooting for a Vikings, Jaguars super bowl, no matter how much of a long shot that might have been. So of course we ended up with the Eagles vs. the Patriots. And now I'm stuck rooting for the eagles. Blah. (I guess it's better than the Saints vs. the Patriots, but then there were the Eagles fans who flipped all of us off at the Bucs game, with kids in tow). 

Anyway, besides Championship Sunday, our lives have been all dogs and countries. 

Even our chores around the house were about dogs. We had to bury some pavers under the gate to keep Phenom from digging over. Fun story: our neighbors got a Beagle puppy for Christmas and it keeps digging it's way over to our yard. It's so cute, I feel bad sending her back. I'm sure eventually she won't be small enough to make it over, but for now she is TINY. Ellie does like to sniff her and lick her face when she digs under though. 

Etta is actually no longer the problem child dog. She still isn't 'living' with everyone else, but she is spending more and more time out and around the house and out and about with her doggie siblings. I can even have my morning coffee with her on the couch in the family room (well, I could, it's not her fault I haven't been able to the last three days- I'll get to that in a minute). She did make it through her vet visit. She's healthy as a horse, except for a few allergies. She has to take Benadryl and has a prescription spray for her belly (it's red because of those allergies). Oh, and she'll need sunscreen for her nose in the summer, apparently.  But the vet guesses she's only about one, and marked her down as a Standard American Bulldog. 

She's even learning new tricks with Ellie. She learned 'paw' and 'down' this week. 

Also worth noting: Ellie really likes to go running with Etta. But one might say she isn't as in of good of shape. She needs to spend some time with the heating pad, or she gets really stiff. The vet also gave her some daily glucosamine supplements, so she has those too. 

And then there's Porkchop. He had his little operation on Thursday. He also got microchipped and had his teeth cleaned, and two of them pulled. Basically, he hates his life right now- and is making sure we all hate ours as well. He has Houdini-ed himself out of his cone once (luckily we caught it)- and has put his foot through it multiple other times. Did I mention the SCREAMING? Not even whining at this point, it's screaming. Today has been slightly better (or maybe I just think that because Hayden and Asa sat with him all day while I got to spend time with Etta), but yesterday I timed him. The longest he was quiet the 12 hours I sat with him was 17 minutes, and that was BY FAR the record. 

I'm not sure if it is because of the cone, the pain, the fact that he can't be on his anxiety medication while he takes the pain pills, or the fact he can't be with Ellie (who he loves to be with) because the cone TOTALLY freaks her out, and Porkchop insists on ramming into her. Either way between Etta's allergy medicine, Ellie's stuff for her sore muscles, and Porkchops five different medications, we're running a full on animal hospital here. 

Porkchop literally has to be watched 24 hours a day- because if he gets out of that, he's going to rip his stitches, and he's going to cost even more money. So, it's become an all hands-on-deck situation, where I've got my teenagers taking the night shift so Asa and I can sleep.  

The first night he was home we realized he had to be watched, and he can't be jumping up on anything- so we sat around brainstorming until we literally dismantled Calib's bed and put half his furniture in the family room so that Porkchop could be in there without jumping up on anything. I only hope this helps with his aggression, or I really don't know what to do at this point. Keep your fingers crossed for us. 

I have dreams of eating dinner all together, maybe even leaving the house together someday. It was NHL All Star Weekend and Gasparilla in Tampa this weekend, plus the Pro Bowl at Disney and we missed it all to sit at home with dogs. It's almost a good thing Asa isn't working right now, I'm not sure how we would be pulling this all off otherwise. 

Next Up: Hopefully dogs who get along (and sleep through the night),  some leads on the job front for Asa, and something-anything- relaxing. Oh, and hopefully the last of the countries. But, I'm not holding my breath for that one either.