Cooking with The Pioneer Woman: Weekly Update
Written by Amy on February 1st, 2010 at 9:39 am
Yes, I think I’m making it official. I need weekly updates to what I’ve cooked. Now I’m not going all Julie on her but I am cooking enough to give some decent updates.
OK, so here’s what we made this week. Chocolate sheet cake, Marlboro Man’s Sandwich, Onion Strings, Oatmeal Crispies, Cowboy Calzones, Enchiladas. I also made a pizza from her pizza crust but didn’t do one of her exact pizzas.
Let me tell you a little story about chocolate sheet cake. It does NOT work to substitute the sugar with Splenda and a few tablespoons of butter with Country Crock. Trust me on this. But when you use sugar and butter? Angels sing and your mouth does a dance. Now there’s nothing new about this cake. If you’ve had sheet cake, you’re not going to be surprised. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth making. I did find the cake especially fluffy and moist and it lasted all week as our dessert.
Dear Marlboro Man, I love your chaps but I do not love your sandwich. It had a fantastic taste and was very moist but I’m just not a fan of cube steak. I really should have known better. Even Scott was not impressed 
. I will say the girls did love the steak cut up as a main dish.
I actually made them twice this week. I’ve never been good at duplicating the taste and texture of onion strings from restaurants but I think these get darn near close. They are fantastic. Perfect for on top of a steak or hamburger or all on their own.
I’m not a huge fan of oatmeal cookies but these are really good. Just imagine a whole lot of sugar and some oats rolled around and baked.
Cowboy Calzones
These almost didn’t happen. I planned them on Thursday when the girls had gymnastics so I almost canceled them. I ended up running home during my longest break at the gym and got everything together and baked. But really, I shouldn’t have made so much effort. They were edible, but nothing to brag about. I think the Cowboy part of this should be stressed. It’s no surprise Scott liked it a lot. If you’re feeding someone that likes more meat and less everything else, this might be the dish for them. The rest of us found we wanted more cheese. Lots more cheese even after I added extra cheese! This was definitely not the calzone you find at your local Italian restaurant. But I guess I should have known that. It is a Cowboy Calzone after all.
This was probably the biggest disappointment of the week. It was a lot of work to put this dish together and in the end, the girls wouldn’t eat it and the rest of them choked it down. It was HOT. The meat filling was delicious though and Emma was willing to eat that separately. But I think the Enchilada sauce we used was over the top hot. I didn’t care much for the texture of the cooked corn tortillas either.
This one I didn’t directly make but I must include it. Mom made it on Saturday night with filets and it was OUT OF THIS WORLD good. You know when you go to the restaurants and the sauces make the dishes perfection and you just know you can never duplicate it at home? Well, this tastes like one of those sauces but it is SO easy. Mom gave me the leftovers and I also used it with some leftover fish I had. Perfecto!
What I’ll be making again ASAP: sheet cake, onion rings and blue cheese sauce
What I won’t make again (I’m so sorry, PW, I still love you and I’m very sure every other family loves these): calzones and enchiladas
Tags: blue cheese sauce, Chocolate sheet cake, Cowboy Calzones, Enchiladas, Marlboro Man’s Sandwich, Oatmeal Crispies, Onion Strings, pioneer woman
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Cooking, I didn’t know I could love you
Written by Amy on January 24th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
The cooking is out of control in this house. For the third week in a row, we only went out to eat one time a week. And we’re not skimping on the meals at home. I am WEARING OUT P-Dub’s cookbook. In fact, I ate a cinnamon roll for snack this afternoon, ate some leftover tomato soup for dinner and now have jalapeno poppers in the oven as a snack this evening. Actually, they were meant for tomorrow but Scott and I just couldn’t wait 24 hours to have them so we cheated and made the filling for all of it but only cut up 4 of peppers. In the span of a week, I’ve also made the chicken pot pie twice, corn bread and beans, blueberry cobbler, chocolate sheet cake and mocha brownies.
To say that you need to go buy the cookbook is an understatement. You need to go buy it, do a happy dance and immediately drive to the grocery store for the ingredients to the tomato soup. It is ridiculously easy and delicious. Make the corn bread with it and dip it in the soup while you’re at it. Oh and then have any one of the desserts. But if it were me, I’d have some more mocha brownies.
I might just have to start a weekly update of my progress.
Oh, and the jalapeno thingies just came out and YUM! That needs to be your appetizer!
Out.
of.
control.
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Breakfast for Dinner – The Pioneer Woman’s Sour Cream Pancakes and Egg-in-the-Hole
Written by Amy on January 3rd, 2010 at 4:16 pmWe were supposed to go out with Mom and Dad after church today but they decided they had enough leftovers to stay home. Breakfast for dinner is always my go-to meal but I remembered that Ree had a pancake recipe. Actually my nephew said while looking at the recipe over Christmas, “Sour cream in pancakes?? Ewww…” But I knew Ree knew what she was doing when she added it to the cookbook and anything with sour cream in it is usually a winner. Ree didn’t let me down again.
Honest to goodness, these were THE BEST pancakes I’ve ever had in my life. It was so good it was almost like dessert. But not in the IHOP cream cheese, I’m going to die if I eat this dessert way. It’s basically a batter with a lot of sour cream, vanilla and sugar all fried up into a pancake. Yeah, you don’t want to eat these every day of your life but WOW, were they delicious. I made a HUGE mistake by halving the recipe. Most of the time Scott skips on the pancakes and we have leftover pancakes even with the halved Bisquick recipe on the box. But not this time. We were scrounging the kids plates for any bits left behind.
The kids declared it good. Emma said, “Mom, you need to bookmark this one.” Lexi I believed declared it the best pancake ever. Let’s just say kid tested, mother approved was never more appropriate.
And I certainly don’t want to leave out the egg-in-the-holes. I wasn’t at all familiar with this thing but it was easy and it was different than just over easy eggs. And hey, bread, butter and eggs? Can’t really go wrong.
They were easy-peasy and delish.
How many recipes do I need to make and blog about before you go buy her cookbook?
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Salsa Chicken Recipe
Written by Amy on March 8th, 2008 at 9:21 amYou normally don’t find recipes here. Ever. This might be one of two on the entire blog. While I can cook, I normally just get by. But I thought the salsa chicken recipe I know and cooked last night was worth posting because it’s just SO EASY.
Put a package of thawed boneless skinless chicken breasts or tenders and a 16oz jar of Salsa in a crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until it’s tender enough for you.
That’s it.
You can also wait until it is tender after a few hours and shred it and then let it finish cooking for the last hour or two. That’s what I did and then we made chicken tacos out of it. You can also serve it as a main dish.
FYI, normally you would use a package of thawed boneless skinless chicken breasts or tenders but of course I didn’t start thinking about dinner until lunch so I took my chicken out of the freezer and thawed mine in some warm water for about an hour and then put the crockpot on high for an hour or two to start with and then it only cooked a total of about 4 hours. The cool thing about the crockpot is it’s kind of hard to mess it up.
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