Cooking Through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

Last week was a good week for me in striving to reach my goal to cook through the Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  I completed five new recipes and they were all fantastic!

Potato Skins

I made these potato skins for our football season kickoff party with Kelly, Tripp, and Caroline and they were really good!  This is only a half recipe though so when you're making them make sure to remember that how ever many potatos you have you're going to have double that many potato skins!  I have a hard time scooping the potato out of the skins and leaving them looking good.  I'm not sure if I'm undercooking them or overcooking them (anyone have any ideas??).  Other than that problem these were really easy and tasted great!  I couldn't find the recipe online but email me if you need/want it.

BBQ Jalapeno Poppers

I also made the Jalapeno Poppers for our football dinner.  I've never really eaten jalapeno's but I know Kelly likes food that's hot so I figured there wouldn't be a better time to try them!  I mixed them up and assembled them during C's nap and then let them cook before they got here and they were really good.  You do have to make sure that you are careful handling the jalapenos and that you get as much of the inside stuff out that you can otherwise they'll be really, really hot but if you do that they are actually just a mild appetizer.  One thing I noticed is that I did half the jalapeno's that the recipe called for but made a full recipe of the inside stuffing.  I used up almost all of the inside stuffing on the half recipe of jalapenos so I'm not sure if mine were just really large jalapenos or what but make sure you have enough of the inside stuff because it's good!  Again, no recipe online that I could find so email me if you want it.

Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler

No picture but I made the cobbler for dessert for our football party.  I substituted blueberries instead of blackberries since I'm not a huge blackberry fan and it was still a great recipe.  I'm kicking myself for not making this recipe before because it is SO EASY!  I'm sure I'll be making it tons from now on.  It's not the most beautiful dessert to serve since it just kind of globs when you serve it but if you're just looking for something that's good and easy then this is your dish!

French Breakfast Puffs

In my effort to finish cooking all of these recipes I made the French Breakfast Puffs for breakfast last weekend in Tuscaloosa.  Again, they were great although I'm pretty sure anything would be great if you coated it in butter and then dipped it in cinnamon and sugar!  These were pretty easy to make also and the muffins come out huge.  I made two recipes thinking that with Jason, Dad, Charlie, Mom, Dad, Charlotte and I we might need or want more than one recipe for the weekend but I ended up only taking one recipe and we brought muffins back home.  So I froze half of the others since Ree said they freeze beautifully and took the other half to our neighbors who just had a baby so they're multi purpose puffs!  Please make these because they are really good!

Guacamole

I made guacamole for Bible Study this week which involves making Ree's Pico which I had made before.  I used to really love guacamole but I'm thinking that maybe since I got pregnant with C my tastes changed and I'm no longer such a fan.  It was good but nothing spectacular.  Although since I'm not a huge fan of her pico (I think I'm not making it right somehow), I can't say that I was surprised that I didn't love this.  But it was a good side that traveled well and somehow stayed green.  I didn't know that there was a threat of it turning brown and I mixed it up during C's morning nap.  When I brought it to Bible Study one of my friends asked why it wasn't brown yet.  Apparently the lime juice must help it keep it's color in the fridge for a number of hours. 

Cooking Through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

Well, gradually I am working my way through Ree's cookbook.  I'm still hoping/planning on get the whole thing cooked by the end of the year but I do realize that my recipe per week quotient is going to have to increase significantly if I want to meet that goal.  Last weekend I went through and found that I have 36 recipes left to cook and I've cooked 26.  Let's just say that if you're in Tuscaloosa with us this weekend be prepared to eat all Pioneer Woman all the time just so that I can make my goal! :)

I have had a few successful recipes in the past few weeks that I wanted to share.

Last Thursday I made The Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast.  Oh my it was good!  My friend Leslie had emailed me asking if I had made it yet and then she made it and told me it was great and easy so I forged ahead and went for it.  I had never made any pot roast before but this one really was easy.  And it turned out so good!  Just made sure you invite someone over to help you eat it because you'll have plenty! And we had leftovers last night in sandwiches and it was still really great!

I also made her Hot Artichoke Dip for our last summer Bible Study meeting.  It was reall good and very easy if you have a big food processor.  You just dump everything into the food processor and mix it up and then add the larger artichoke pieces in later and dump into a dish and make.  It was really good but I would recommend making two recipes. Our little group of 10 ate almost an entire recipe of it so if you're having some guys in your group or less things with the dip I'd recommend at least two recipes.  Besides, you can always eat the leftovers later!  I couldn't find this recipe online but if you want it let me know and I can email it to you.

This week I went for the Chicken Pot Pie.  I had never made Chicken Pot Pie before and this required me to make not only the filling but the pie crust.  It was a great recipe although I think I used a little too much thyme.  Also, it made A LOT of filling that overflowed my Pampered Chef deep dish pie plate.  So after cleaning that up and siphoning some sauce out of the plate I covered it with the crust and baked it.  I've never had good luck with pie crust and this crust was no different  -- it always tears for me when I try and pick it up.  But the crust tasted great and I think if I had made the crust longer than 30 minutes before I needed to put it on the pie it would have been colder and that would have helped.  But overall this was a great recipe and a good way to get veggies in C since she apparently really liked it and ate all that we gave her!  I also couldn't find this recipe online so email me if you want it.

Cooking through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

Ever since May started and I got into major party planning mode cooking has taken a back seat to staying sane.  I've focused on cooking tried and true, easy recipes that I could basically make with my eyes closed.  Now that June has rolled around I'm not any less busy but my mind isn't going 100 different places at once and I'm able to get back to my goals for this year -- namely cooking through The Pioneer Woman's cookbook.  I'm sure my slacker-ness has probably lost the few people that were doing this for me but since I love to share recipes with others I'm going to keep blogging about it occasionally.  If you find yourself cooking recipes from Ree's cookbook please chime in with your opinions in the comments!  With that, here are the few recipes that I've made recently!

Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce

I don't like to over embellish things and say that they're "the best I've ever tasted" so this time Jason did it for me by saying, "This is the best non-chocolate dessert I've ever had!"  It really was that good.  Other than the time it took to peel the peaches (and go get more because it turned out I actually didn't have enough) it was a pretty easy recipe that was soooo good.  I would HIGHLY recommend this to you if you want to impress someone or if you just want to enjoy dessert.  One of the best parts for me was that it does have peaches in it so I could kind of try to tell myself that it was healthy because I was eating fruit!  Delusional? Maybe.  So worth it? Absolutely!

Olive Cheese Bread

I made this for the first gathering of our Living Proof Ministries Bible Study that some friends and I got together.  Even before Bible Study Charlotte enjoyed some of the topping for lunch so in additon to being adult friendly it's kid friendly too!  This was really yummy and really easy to put together -- just chop some things up, mix them up and spread it on bread! My only complaint of sorts is that Ree's serving sizes are just waaaaaay too big!  I guess she calculates servings for ranch hands but about half of one recipe fed 7 women last night!

Cooking through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

I haven't made a ton in the past few weeks.  But what I've made has been good!

Cowboy Calzones

Very good calzone's.  They could also serve as a breakfast burrito because of the sausage.  I just used store bought refrigerated pizza crust but if you do that make sure you get enough.  One pizza crust container made four calzone's which was more than we could eat but it only used maybe 1/3 of the filling.  So we'll be having calzone's this weekend too!  I couldn't find the recipe online so email me if you want it.

Flower Pot Desserts

These aren't in the cookbook but they're a PW recipe so I wanted to include them.  These desserts are so easy and super cute!  I made then when I took dinner to my aunt and her family.  The thing is try to find smaller pots though because I think they're still eating the ice cream out of these three days later!

Since we haven't been having any takers in joining in on this recently I'm not going to add a MckLinky.  But feel free to comment if you've made a PW recipe recently!

Cooking Through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

I made some progress these last two weeks! I made some REALLY great recipes too!

Cinnamon Rolls

So, I made them.  I was so scared because they look SO hard but I bit the bullet and gave them a try because I know that if there is one breakfast food that my husband loves it's cinnamon rolls.  They actually weren't that HARD just very time consuming.  But they were so worth it!  And the recipe makes tons of cinnamon rolls! I was able to give a lot of people in our family that we saw over Easter pans and we still have two pans in the freezer.  So good but definitely something I'll only make for special occasions just because of the time involved.  It took me two two hour nap times to make them from start to finish.  But, can I say again, so good!

Rosemary Potatoes

I made these potatoes when the Dixon's came over to watch the final round of the Master's.  They were really good potatoes and I enjoyed reheating leftovers for lunch on Monday.  My new, huge food processor that Jason got me for Christmas made slicing the potatoes easy peasy and with that done the rest of the recipe was a piece of cake.  I will definitely make these again since Jason has already requested some more!  The recipe link goes to her Herbed Potatoes recipe which is the same recipe as the Rosemary Potatoes only the herbs that you use are Rosemary and Green Onions.

Angel Sugar Cookies

I had big plans to cut out these cookies with my new golf bag cookie cutter and decorate them in green and yellow icing in honor of the Masters, but time got away from me and simple circle/squares had to do.  These cookies are really good, but, to be honest, the batter is probably better than the cookie!  And her recipe in her cookbook says that the recipe makes 18 cookies but I probably made closer to 50 so I'm not sure if my cookies were just really small compared to hers or what but my batter went a lot farther than hers did.  I got my cookies out using my medium scoop from Pampered Chef so maybe that's why mine were smaller.  Couldn't find the recipe online so email me if you'd like it!

Cooking Through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

I tried to up my PW recipe count these last two weeks. I found some new favorites!

 Cornbread (I only made the cornbread, haven't made the beans yet)

I have never liked cornbread.  As in, won't touch it with a 10 foot pole.  But Jason likes cornbread and this was in the cookbook so I had to cook it sometime.  Let me say, that this cornbread recipe might have pulled me over to a cornbread liker rather than a cornbread hater.  It was moist and warm and not too corny and without any stuff in it.  Jason said maybe my problem with cornbread was that I wasn't eating it fresh out of the oven like I ate this, but I think it's just that this recipe is good.  He said this was good but tasted like every other cornbread he's ever had.  Obviously, he doesn't know anything about cooking! :)  The cornbread was the perfect side to chili.

Chili

I couldn't find this recipe on Ree's site so email me if you want it.  I'm not a spice girl.  I like spicy things but I prefer something more flavorful than hot.  This chili was very good.  I added water at the end to make it more soupy and less meaty and it turned out great.  I didn't add any extra seasonings because I thought it was great with just the amount listed in the recipe, but you can always increase the amount of spice to make it how you prefer.  I also added a can of rotel, pinto beans, and red kidney beans into the chili to add more to it.  Very good recipe!

Cooking Through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

So sorry at my absent-mindedness and my lack of posting for the last few weeks!  Here is where we can catch up with all of the PW dishes that we've made recently.  I have really slacked off in the cooking area as well as the blog area because I got pretty burnt out on cooking a full fledged meal every night with no nights for "easy" meals.  I'm trying to balance better these days!

Chicken Fried Steak and Twice Baked Potatoes

This was a very heavenly meal!  I wouldn't change anything other than to warn you about a few things:

1. Unless you're having your entire extended family over for dinner, make sure you at least half if not fourth the twice baked potatoes recipe.  Remember that you'll get two heaping potato halves from each potato!

2. Make sure you have your stove fan going while you're cooking the steak.  I totally set off our fire alarm when the oil/grease in the frying pan started to cool and smoke once I had finished frying the steaks.  No fun with a baby and a dog in the house!

I couldn't find the Chicken Fried Steak recipe online so email me (talesofapeanut (at) gmail dot com) if you want it!

 Penne Alla Betsy
I made this pasta on Wednesday night and it was really good.  Don't forget to add the salt and pepper at the end though, which I did at first, because without it the pasta is pretty bland.  Charlotte even enjoyed some noodles!  Obviously, we used wagon wheels instead of penne pasta.  We like to shake things up around here!

Can't wait to see what you've been cooking while I've been slacking! Since I took such a long break I've got to get cracking if I'm going to finish this cookbook on time!

Cooking through the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook - Post 3

Sorry that this is delayed in getting up this morning.  With Charlotte being sick this week I didn't remember that I needed to post this until the middle of the night last night!

I'm trying to slow down with my cooking since there are so few recipes in the cookbook and I don't want to finish it in July and then not have anything else to blog about for the rest of the year.  So the past two weeks I just cooked two recipes, Breakfast Potatoes and Breakfast Burritos.  To me almost nothing is more fun than a breakfast at dinner meal and these two dishes helped me make that a reality.

 

Breakfast Potatoes

These potatoes were wonderful.  Flavored perfectly and (for the most part) crispy on the outside.  They weren't too hard to make either.  They would be great as a side for any kind of meal, not just breakfast.

 

Breakfast Burritos

I didn't use enough eggs in this and my meat ratio was too high but it was still good.   I was trying to half the recipe since it was just the two of us so I only used half of some ingredients (like the eggs) but I still used the whole recipe of meat.  Still, I feel like its hard to go wrong with breakfast burritos.  It's a good thing that Charlotte didn't come out as a breakfast burrito considering how many I ate while I was pregnant! It's hard to beat a MkyD's breakfast burrito but these are good.

Now, it's your turn! Let us know what you've made from the PW's cookbook these last two weeks! And it's never too late to join us! If you're just starting that's perfectly fine too!

Cooking through the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook - Post 2

So I feel like it's been a good two weeks for me and Ree.  I successfully cooked four recipes and all but one of them turned out fantastically.  So without further adieu here is my recap!

Chocolate Sheet Cake

This cake was worth every calorie that I'm sure it contained.  I was even so in love with it I included it in my Recipe Wednesday so that the recipe would always be on my recipe blog.  The cake was pretty easy to make and then was fantastic for days afterwards.  It also makes a ton of cake so I was able to take a good chunk to some friends whose father died and to my brother and we still had PLENTY left over.  Make this cake today, you won't regret it!

Cheese Grits

I couldn't find the recipe for this on the PW's website, so if you want it send me an email and I'll pass it along.  I loved these cheese grits and I'm not a huge huge fan of grits.  I made them as a side dish and they were great.  However, this is only a HALF recipe of the grits so make sure if you're going to make a whole recipe that you have an army coming to dinner!  If you're looking for a good breakfast recipe that finishes in the oven this is a good one.  I'm going to use it the next time I serve a brunch.

Pico de Gallo

The recipe on Ree's site is a little different than the on in the cookbook.  I wish that I had checked out the website before I started this because it might have helped.  The recipe in the cookbook stressed putting equal amounts of onions and tomatoes in the pico and so I worked hard to do that.  But that made it really onion-y.  If I was going to make this recipe again I would work from the website version as opposed to the cookbook version because it looks more tomato-y which looks better.  Overall, this wasn't something that we absolutely loved and I probably won't try it again.

Macaroni and Cheese

So far this is my favorite non-dessert PW recipe.  This Mac and Cheese is fantastic! I made it a few nights ago to go with my BBQ Pork Chops and it was the perfect side dish.  Cheesy and warm and filling.  I've enjoyed it re-heated for lunch the past few days too and it's been just as good warmed up in the microwave.  Now, if Charlotte is reading this in 7 years she doesn't need to get her hopes up because I won't be making this Mac and Cheese every day -- or even every time she wants Mac and Cheese -- because it was a little time consuming and had a lot of steps but for special occasions this is definitely a keeper!  Yummy! 

 

Recipe Wednesday - PW's Chocolate Sheet Cake

I'm not going to feature a PW recipe every week but this one is too good to not feature so that I can try and twist your arm to make this cake because you definitely won't regret it! 

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Prep Time: 20 Minutes

Cook Time: 20 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 24

Ingredients

• FOR THE CAKE:
• 2 cups Flour
• 2 cups Sugar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa
• 2 sticks Butter
• 1 cup Boiling Water
• ½ cups Buttermilk
• 2 whole Beaten Eggs
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• _____
• FOR FROSTING:
• ½ cups Finely Chopped Pecans
• 1-¾ stick Butter
• 4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa
• 6 Tablespoons Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 pound (minus 1/2 Cup) Powdered Sugar

Preparation Instructions

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa. Stir together.
Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.
In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.
While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake.
Cut into squares, eat, and totally wig out over the fact that you’ve just made the best chocolate sheet cake. Ever.

Cooking through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook - Post 1

So, it's officially here.  The first of 26 posts jounaling our journey to cook through The Pioneer Woman's cookbook in 2010.  I honestly feel a little overwhelmed with this challenge which probably isn't great since this is the first post about it, but since we were gone ALL WEEK last week this week has been my only chance to cook and it's a lot of pressure to try and cook dinner every night.  (I mean, really, cook dinner every night?!?! Only superwoman does that right!?!?) So, I decided to just try and do four recipes this week -- one main dish (Chicken Spaghetti), one side dish (Cheese Grits), one bread (Buttermilk Biscuits), and one dessert (Chocolate Sheet Cake).  Two out of four isn't bad right?!?!?! :) 

My plan was to make the cake and grits on Thursday but they got better dealed to go out with our friends.  I think friends ALWAYS take precendence!

If you want to join this little challenge there is still plenty of time.  There are only 60 some odd recipes in the cookbook so as long as you make one a week and some weeks make more than one you've got plenty of time! 

I actually did learn some things making the two recipes that I did this week. 

Chicken Spaghetti
- PW (that's short for Pioneer Woman in case you didn't know) recipes always kind of scared me because there are SO MANY steps! But, you know what? Two of the steps in this recipe included cutting your bell pepper one way and the next step was to turn it the other way in order to dice it.  Such easy steps!
- I'm sure that The PW would be mad at me for saying this, but next time I'm making this I'm not using a fryer chicken (or fryer chicken pieces like what I actually used).  I think any type of boiled chicken (be it tenders or whatever) would be fine as long as you get it into bite sized pieces!
- Don't skimp on seasoning's.  The PW is reliable and she'll tell you what to watch out for in order to not make your dish too spicy, just make sure you put in all that she says is required and don't wimp out and think you know better.  Chances are good that you (at least I) don't know better than Ree!
Summary: The whole getting the meat off of the chicken bones was a little more effort than I would like but the result was a great pasta dish that was filling and didn't leave you feeling like you ate something really unhealthy.  Overall a pretty managable dish that lives up to the hype.

Buttermilk Biscuits
- I had never made homeade biscuits before so I didn't have a biscuit cutter.  I used an old trick from my grandmother -- an upside down glass.  Worked like a charm!
- Make sure you make your biscuits thicks.  Mine were too thin and so they looked kind of wimpy.  They don't really rise a lot.
- Make sure you use fresh ingredients.  I'm thinking that maybe flour that had been in the pantry for a while or baking powder that I opened over Christmas might have caused these to be a little drier and heavier than they were intended to be?
Summary: I'm going to try these again because I don't feel like I did them justice.  But my experience with them this week was that they weren't worth the effort.

One other thing that I noticed this week while looking through the cookbook is that I need a cast iron skillet.  And I found while making the spaghetti that I need a saucepan larger than the one's I have but smaller than the humongous stockpot that I have.  So I'm on a mission to find those things this week!  Thankfully I have great knives and most other things that I need from our generous wedding gifts, but make sure you have what you need before you get in the kitchen to cook a recipe!  That would be disappointing!

In case you're just jumping on the bandwagon please know that my bi-weekly updates probably won't be this detailed.  I just have some time during nap time to make this one so.  Our goal is just to cook every recipe in The Pioneer Woman Cooks in the year 2010.  The order doesn't matter nor does the number of recipes that you cook in a two week period.  I will be posting a post to link to every other week.  If you could link to your post about your current adventures on my post we can check them all out!

I can't wait to read about your Pioneer Woman adventures! Just add a link to your blog POST (not your blog, the static link to your post) in the MckLinky carnival below. 

Cooking through The Pioneer Woman's Cookbook

I recently decided that I was going to be cooking my way through The Pioneer Woman's cookbook in 2010.  I tossed the idea out on Twitter and got a few fellow tweeter's who wanted to join me so I've decided that I will post ever other Friday (starting Friday, January 15th) about what I've cooked from her cookbook in the past two weeks.  We won't have a set schedule for when to cook which recipe, I'll leave that up to each participant, but every two weeks we'll regroup and blog about what we found easy/difficult/yummy, etc! 

I created a button for this little journey and it's below!  You can go through the steps below to add the image to your site and then once a post goes up on January 15th (and every other subsequent Friday throughout 2010) you'll just add the link to your post to the Mister Linky at the bottom of my post.  That way we can read about each other's adventures and encourage each other in our quest to achieve the perfect ranch meal!

Blogger instructions
1. Go to your layout on your blog and select to add a picture.
2. In the link box put: http://talesofapeanut.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Pioneer%20Woman
3. Click the 'Shrink to Fit' box
4. Click to select a picture from online and put this in the address: http://i796.photobucket.com/albums/yy250/talesofapeanut/PWCookbook.gif

Recipe Wednesday - The Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs

This week the recipe that I'm featuring is one of The Pioneer Woman's.  If you don't read The Pioneer Woman you should probably start.  She is hilarious with the most down to eart, funny tales about life on the ranch in Oklahoma.  She is also an amazing cook who comes up with the best recipes!  A lot of them have a lot of steps but every one that I've made so far has been so worth it!  Ree has a cookbook that has come out that I'm hoping I'm getting for Christmas!

Two weeks ago I got on a cooking kick and made a few recipes, one of which was The Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs which she calls the "ultimate comfort food."  I was surprised at the lack of elaborate steps in the recipe but I was glad that Jason was home to help me when we got to the part about dredging the meatballs in flour and then cooking them in oil on the stove.  It just helped to have two sets of hands but I'm sure you could do that step by yourself if you were a little more organized about it than I was.  Another thing that I loved about this recipe was that I ate the leftovers for lunch the next two days and the meatballs were still fantastic even two days later!  I also served these over egg noodles but I'm sure mashed potatoes would be great also.

Go and check out Ree's post for step by step pictures and instructions or to print the recipe to the size that you need for your recipe box.  But if you just want the bare bones recipe it is below.

BBQ Meatballs

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 45 Minutes Difficulty: Easy Servings: 6
Ingredients

FOR MEATBALLS
1-½ pound Ground Beef
¾ cups Oats
1 cup Milk
3 Tablespoons Very Finely Minced Onion
1-½ teaspoon Salt
Plenty Of Ground Black Pepper (to Taste)
_____

FOR COOKING MEATBALLS
1 cup All-Purpose Flour (coating For Frozen Meatballs)
Canola Oil
_____

FOR SAUCE
1 cup Ketchup
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire
4 Tablespoons (to 6 Tablespoons) Onion
1 dash(es) Tabasco

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all meatball ingredients. Roll into medium-small balls and place on a cookie sheet. Place sheet in freezer for five minutes.

After 5 minutes, remove meatballs from freezer and immediately dredge in unseasoned flour.

Brown meatballs in canola oil until just brown. Place into a baking dish.

Combine all sauce ingredients. Pour over meatballs and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or crusty French bread.