When our favorite pizzeria changed hands and no longer offered our choice pie, we sulked for a little while then decided to find a replacement. We went through a very common tasting process with local digs and managed to find a new go-to, but that unique combo we craved was not part of their menu.

Well, you know I love a culinary challenge! So, the other night, I made my version for Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza. Now I know all the pizza aficionados out there reading this are probably scratching their heads, but follow along with me. There is something so comforting about that smack of smoke and salty flavor, crispy crunch, and punch of heat eased with a drizzle of creamy herbs. The blend of flavor just satisfies - think buffalo chicken wings meet bacon ranch dressing. Is your mouth watering yet? 

You folks can try it at home too!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza

1 premade pizza crust (I used Pillsbury Thin Crust)

1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out the pizza crust on a sheet of parchment (for even baking, easy transfer, and clean-up) and brush the edges with olive oil. Prebake on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes. This will create a crisp crust preventing a doughy underlayer.

2) Toss the diced chicken with the buffalo wing sauce in a bowl. Set aside.

3) Once the crust is prebaked, take out of the oven and start layering the ingredients. Begin with spooning an even layer of tomato sauce, followed by the shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, and top with the buffalo-sauced chicken.

4) Place in the oven on a middle rack and continue to bake for 15 minutes to melt all the cheese and mingle the flavors.

5) Once done, take the sheet out of the oven, let it sit on the counter for a minute or two and cool. Drizzle your favorite ranch salad dressing all over the top of the pie, and voila!

My daughter gave the final approval because this is one of her favorite combinations. All three of us savored this quick and relatively easy dinner with a side salad of simple mesclun greens.

We found our favorite, baked in our own oven! Yes! Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza lives on! xoxo-Sonya

Temps anxiously inched up at the 2019 PHS Philadelphia Flower Show in the Pennsylvania Convention Center this week. The theme was 60's inspired Flower Power with exhibits ranging from really groovy and psychedelic to far-out fabulous, paying tribute to the enormous impact of flowers on our lives. Botanical beauty was seen everywhere you turned in stunning displays by the world’s premier floral and landscape designers created to delight and educate. Through imaginative examples, ideas like community, healing, peace, transformation, and hope were brought to life in surprising, vibrant ways.

The PHS Philadelphia Flower Show is the nation's largest and longest-running horticultural event. Started in 1829 by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the show introduces diverse and sustainable plant varieties along with garden and design concepts.

The show is also a mecca for outstanding young talent in middle and high schools via competitive projects tying into the show's theme. Using only natural materials such as pistachio shells, acorn tops, mustard seeds, and cantaloupe skin to name a few, students created functional, wearable jewelry. We were in awe! This brooch (above) was the first place winner using a variety of hand-painted seeds, dried leaves, and palm. Judges remarked, "Excellent tribute to Jimi - worthy of the best of blues as a novice!"

Could you imagine cloves, coriander, allspice, and millet were used to create this bee necklace? 

Careful quilling with naturally dried leaf strips construct these detailed dangle earrings.

Peppers, pods, and peas, oh my!

Each nugget in this bracelet is made of dried bits of hand-painted cantaloupe rind.

All the bright colored flowers pop in pistachio shells.

Sweet pea, Norfolk pine, almonds, and wild rice combine to capture incredible texture.

Blending inspiration from innovators of the Pop Art movement era, influential techniques helped today's designers re-imagine traditional flower and garden imagery in many unexpected ways. Flower power lives on. Far-out groovy, man... xoxo-Sonya