Believe it or not, I am nearly halfway through the “Pioneer Woman Cooks” already! The project has gone so quickly in fact, that I have begun re-making recipes I’ve already cooked in the past, but didn’t have photographs. Pics or it didn’t happen, right?! So far I have been fortunate enough to be “forced”, for the sake of thoroughness, to prepare Ree’s fried chicken again, and the above recipe, #31: Maple Pecan Scones. Oh bother… I can say without hyperbole that these scones changed my life by introducing me to Ree Drummond’s brilliance. On one typical Sunday evening many years ago, I was watching Food Network (and probably multitasking some other project as well) when the Pioneer Woman was on the screen discussing a light, flaky scone she loved to eat with her morning coffee. By the time she got to the part about the maple glaze, I had leapt off the couch, looked up the recipe on the Food Network app, and immediately set to making them. As per usual, her recipe didn’t require a trip to the store, and didn’t even have any of those pesky instructions such as “use room temperature butter”. Who has time for that when you want a scone NOW?? Luckily scones are prepared much like pie crust, so the colder the butter, the better. Now keep in mind this was several years ago, and I had yet to undertake a Pioneer Woman cookbook project, so Ree was still an unknown quantity. For all I knew, she was lousy at writing instructions, and I was dubious when I began mixing the dough. It was so loose and powdery that I kept re-reading to make sure I hadn’t missed a wet ingredient somewhere. Nope, she said it will appear “dry and crumbly”. Check and Check. Next I portioned the wedges out how she directed, but I was too used to Starbucks petite vanilla scones, those little two-bite wonders. These things looked like a slab of pizza. I halved the wedges, and figured I could bring the excess to share at work since there was no way I’d want to finish the whole batch myself. I’d like to state for the record that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I’d never made scones before, so I learned that they don’t change much when baked. The size they go into the oven is pretty much the size they come out, so cut the pieces smaller at your own peril. You’ll probably end up eating two! Her sweet maple drizzle was quite literally the icing on the cake; sweet powdered sugar glaze tempered with a touch of salt and of course maple extract perfectly balances the most tender dang scone you’ll ever eat. I’ve made these a half dozen times at least, and I can attest that the platters I bring to work don’t make it an hour before being wiped out.
Though a dietician might argue, technically scones can reasonably be called a breakfast food. But I would just as easily classify them as dessert, much like recipe #32: Marmalade Muffins. It’s in the Breakfast section, but the brown sugar glaze that soaks the tiny cakes makes them a delicious post-meal bite. I wasn’t terribly excited to make these in the beginning because my Other Half has mentioned he doesn’t care for marmalade. Since they are a mini-muffin, I didn’t want to be stuck eating 24 of these puppies by myself. I needn’t have worried. First of all, there is no marmalade in them at all. Ree’s description of the recipe mentioned she named them due to the tiny bits of orange zest in the batter and glaze made with the freshly squeezed juice. The glaze is wonderfully thin, so you can really drench the muffins and let it sink in, resulting in a vibrant-tasting, sweet treat with a refreshing citrus punch. When my teenage daughter dragged herself from her room long enough to investigate the source of the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen, she proclaimed these a winner and demolished the whole batch within a day or two!
Steak is my love language! I could happily eat beef every day of my life and never get bored with it. For a cattle rancher’s wife, Ree didn’t feature near enough beef recipes in her first cookbook. This one was a shining star that I eagerly awaited from the moment I saw page 166, #33: Rib-Eye Steak With Whiskey Cream Sauce. I already know how to cook a steak indoors, seared in a screaming hot cast iron skillet, then broiled for just a minute or so to perfect medium rare. Steak and I go way back… What I don’t do very often is top it with anything. As much as I love rare beef, I also love whiskey and for that matter, I love cream! This couldn’t be anything but delicious. The photographs in the book didn’t quite look like mine; for some reason Ree’s sauce darkened much more, though my onions were perfectly caramelized and tender. I let it simmer for quite awhile, but it just didn’t reach the deep brown color I was going for. In fact, someone who saw it asked if it was peanut butter on my steak! Blasphemy… Luckily, looks aren’t everything, and no matter how pale it turned out, it was still whiskey cream sauce, and I would happily welcome it back onto my plate.
Remember when I said that looks aren’t everything? Keep that thought firmly in your head, because this last dish was U-G-L-Y. #34: Migas was not high on my list of recipes I couldn’t wait to try, but to be fair I didn’t hate it. Evidently the name of the dish translates to “crumbs”, and I have to agree it looks more like a pan full of what you would scrape off the grill after the breakfast rush at Village Inn. Essentially this is an egg scramble with peppers, onions and cheese, and for some reason, fried corn tortillas. Those crispy little bits of tortilla sealed the deal for me, because otherwise I think this could have been somewhat bland and mono-textured. Ok, yeah so I skipped the jalapeños, sue me! Will I make it again? Maybe not. But I might… might… order it at a restaurant. Considering this recipe looks like it should put a bag over its head, that’s a win!
Have Book, Will Cook 