The Pioneer Woman Cooked, and So Did I!

Pancakes are weird. To be honest, they’re not really my fave. I think anyone who claims pancakes are their #1 breakfast food really just likes to eat butter and syrup. Not that I find fault in that! What I mean by “weird” is that they seem like they should be very simple to make and to perfect. Nothing could be further from the truth! EVERY culture appears to have their own “right” way to make pancakes, and the variety of shapes is endless! Blinis, Dutch babies, bings, injeras, crêpes, latkes, æbleskivers… all basically a pancake! And then there are the mix-ins, from fruit to nuts to chocolate chips, people will toss just about anything into a basic batter and call it breakfast. So what am I complaining about? My issue is that I just can’t NAIL a pancake unless it’s Bisquick. I’ve made buttermilk pancakes, ricotta pancakes, created my own pancake dry-mix similar to Bisquick… but nothing ever fluffs up and browns as evenly as the reliable old box mix. And I take offense to that! Edna Mae’s Sour Cream Pancakes are no exception. I used the not-so-secret ingredient, but I was directed to “barely combine” it with the dry. Leaving great gobs of unmixed elements goes against all my baking instincts! Then it got worse when I added the beaten eggs: “Don’t worry about the mixture being totally combined; a little white and yellow swirling is fine!” Kill me now… Although these turned out “fine”, not quite round but tasty enough… I think I will stick with my happy yellow box! In fact, just give me hash browns and bacon!

Move over sports bars of the world, I’ve got the best hot, creamy Artichoke Dip right here! If you happen to read this blog often, you may recall that I made a similar dip from the last cookbook I worked through and was not overly impressed. That’s because I was mentally comparing it to THIS recipe. Technically Ree’s was “artichoke, hold the spinach” dip, but I didn’t let that stop me from adding the vitamin-packed super food to the final product. I mean, there has to be some redeeming nutritional quality, right?? Spinach and artichokes go together like peanut butter and carrots! Wait… that’s not right… Well anyway, they make a great pair! And when you add cream cheese, mayonnaise and Parmesan, you just cannot go wrong. The Super Bowl called, they demand you make this in two weeks!

While we are on the subject of flawless recipes, I have to give a shout-out to the aptly named Perfect Pot Roast and Creamy Mashed Potatoes. But what makes it perfect? Is it 12 hours marinating in a multi-ingredient bath? Is it heirloom vegetables, picked at the peak of harvest? How about Kobe beef, flown in from Japan, after a lengthy dry-aging process at a carefully maintained temperature? Nah… It’s literally keeping it simple as can be, and sautéing every part separately. Ensuring a seared crust on your standard supermarket chuck roast and gently blistering the onions and carrots allows the flavors to shine. You don’t know torture until you’ve had to be at home the entire time this amazing pot roast is cooking, low and slow, for the 5-ish hours it takes to reach fall-apart perfection. The aroma is likely to make you swoon! And the mashed potatoes? Much like pancakes, you can throw just about anything into them and come up with your own unique twist, but I side with Ree that cream cheese and half-and-half is all you need, along with liberally applied seasoned salt and pepper to jazz it up. No gravy required!

If I were looking for a single cookbook to meet all my kale-preparation needs or open my eyes to new and improved ways to make cauliflower exciting… I would have failed miserably with this one. Between her young, picky children (at the time of its publishing) and her vegetable-eschewing husband, Ree didn’t give me much to work with of the non-meat variety. Considering she herself WAS a vegetarian when she met the cattle-ranching love of her life, I find that a little surprising, but she did throw me a bone (so to speak) with at least one salad. Literally just one… in the whole cookbook! It’s not exactly haute cuisine, but the Wedge Salad with Ranch Dressing is nonetheless one of my favorites so far! I have thrown untold amounts of Romaine lettuce and fresh spinach into the trash after it outlived its edibleness. I have unearthed the liquified remains of a deflated cucumber from the bottom of the crisper drawer more times than I can count. I have wasted endless bottles of dressings that just didn’t live up to their restaurant counterparts. All of that makes me irritable at the uncertainty of buying perishable salad veggies and annoyed that the bottled dressing manufacturers of the world can’t seem to get it right (Hidden Valley, you’re off the hook here!) Since Ree was preparing for the, shall we say, limited salad palates in her home, a good ol’ wedge of nutritionally-devoid iceberg lettuce was the answer. It ain’t fancy, but it gets the job done. The fact that it’s topped with shredded cheese and bacon means it was acceptable on the ranch. The RANCH! That’s actually the best part of this entire thing; Ree’s dressings are the absolute best I’ve ever tried, hands down. I’ve made her bleu cheese, I’ve made her chipotle, I’ve even made her sesame-ginger dressing, but nothing compares to the simple perfection of her basic Ranch. The secret is fresh garlic. Or is it fresh dill? Maybe the chives? Perhaps it’s the parsley… No, it’s the cayenne and Worcestershire sauce! Whatever it is, the combination she created is better than just about any restaurant I’ve been to, and easily making it at home with relatively common ingredients fills my soul with happiness. The fact that a head of iceberg lettuce costs under a buck doesn’t hurt either!