‘The Pioneer Woman’ Articles at Sweetnicks

Recipe: Bacon Crackers {Appetizer}

November 7, 2013 · Narrative

A crispy little easy-to-make bacon appetizer that will have you begging for more.

A few weeks ago, I met someone that had just moved here from Alabama for his job. Although he grew up in New Jersey, his wife didn’t and knew not a soul.

So, of course, I thought, “we must have a party to introduce her around!”

And then I thought … bacon.

Because that’s pretty much how my mind works.

For years now, I have been meaning to have a repeat of our All Things Bacon party that we had back in ’09, but just haven’t gotten around to it (distracted by Bright Shiny Things Syndrome), so I knew that this was the perfect theme for our get-together.

I invited a bunch of the friendliest faces I know in the neighborhood and everyone brought a dish (or three) that had bacon as an ingredient.

That afternoon, I cooked up four pounds of bacon.

Which means the house and the neighborhood smelled amazing.

For days.

And bacon leftovers?

Yes, please.

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Recipe: Chocolate Sheet Cake from The Pioneer Woman

March 13, 2012 · Narrative

Awhile back, Mystic’s daughter came over to help me out in the kitchen. I had a long list of things to make, and she likes to cook and is a willing sous chef for the right price. She asked if she could bring a friend with her.

“I always learn more from cooking with you than we do in Home Ec class, and she wants to learn too.”

That statement was both flattering and shocking.

Shocking because I’m not a chef. By any stretch of the imagination. I use cups instead of rolling pins. Measure liquid and mass in the same types of measuring cups (ask Joanne, I’m a work in progress). Cut tomatoes in a completely different manner than my Mom does. And do way more through intuition and winging it than any right way of doing things.

Which is to say that I have my own way. I’m ok with that.

It mostly works for me. And while it may not always be the correct way, I do have my own little cache of tips and tricks that Taylor (and now her friend) pick up on.

It’s all good.

When we made this giant Chocolate Sheet Cake two weeks ago, days later Taylor was asking when we could make it again. High praise from someone who is a work in progress in terms of palate expanding.

This new-to-me recipe is from The Pioneer Woman. As I’ve mentioned before, I have a love/hate relationship with her recipes. I’ve made tons of them, and most have been meh. I think I have two that went into our semi-regular rotation. The rest have been average and left us wanting more.

This chocolate sheet cake? An utter success. We were having company for dinner. The kind that trade a good meal and a six-pack of Bud for installing a new toilet. My kind of people. I made the cake the night before, crossing one thing off the menu in under 45 minutes. Super simple to make. The cake on its own is ordinary. The frosting on top? Extraordinary. And in another surprise turn of events, my girlfriend brought another Pioneer Woman dessert recipe, which is also a hit. Go figure. And that’s a story for another day, like when I make it myself so I can take proper pictures of it. Because I may or may not have eaten all the pieces she left without getting a good picture.

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Project 365 – The Final Frontier

December 31, 2010 · Narrative

So I started Project 365 on January 1, 2010. A picture every day, depicting something in our life. I didn’t count any of the photographs that were included in the nearly-daily posts during the year. I wanted them separate, as a bit of an additional challenge. I also put all the weekend photos in one Sunday night blast, and didn’t count any of those as my daily photo requirement.

All that to say … that even after the 14 pictures that I’m sharing from today, I am now at #353. But in theory only. Because if I went back and counted the weekend photos, I would well have exceeded the challenge. So that’s going to have to do.

Here we are, the last day of 2010. This year has certainly been an interesting one, filled with highs and lows, challenges and surprises, happy moments and sadness. Goals met. Goals not met. But we made it. And with all my blessings, truly I cannot complain. Although I have been known to say I think I’ve had enough challenges this year thankyouverymuch, and perhaps maybe it could be someone else’s turn next year…?

I have parted ways with some friends, and rekindled relationships with old and dear ones. I have re-evaluated. Taken stock. Cleaned house in every sense of the word and lived to tell about it. We’re on the threshold of 2011 and I’m insanely curious to see what it holds in store for me. For you. For all of us. A lot can happen in a day. A week. A year! There is magic ahead. Love. Life. It’s a clean slate for all, to start fresh, start over or just continue where you left off. The choice is yours… and it begins … NOW. Welcome 2011!

Project 365
December 31, 2010, Photos #340-353
It takes longer to pry the kids away from the 3-D tv display at Costco than it does to just pick up the photos I ordered.

Both kids got seriously shorn today, with one ending up in tears. I love a hairdresser that makes house calls. Best discovery ever.

A quick bite to eat with the kids. Well, me. Because my kids wouldn’t eat their lunch. Shocking.

Thank you, FireMom, for reminding me of the wonder that is eBay. This little one arrived today – love it. But Hallmark, can we have a word? When you want to charge $9.95 for an ornament, would it seriously kill the budget to attach A LITTLE PIECE OF STRING OR RIBBON TO IT for hanging purposes? I mean, c’mon!…

Got Leftover Cranberries? Make Nantucket Cranberry Pie

December 7, 2010 · Narrative

I won’t lie. I still have leftover cranberries from Thanksgiving. Even after I made another batch of Cranberry Conserve. And Cranberry Almond Bars. And Cranberry Broccoli Salad. It seems those giant bags of cranberries from Costco are way more giant than I give them credit for. So you know I was more than a little stoked when I saw this recipe for Nantucket Cranberry Pie on The Pioneer Woman’s website, adapted from a Laurie Colwin recipe.

I was planning to write about something else today, saving the pie for later in the week, but after my Mom tasted it and said she did everything but lick the plate, I figure I should share it right away. You know, in case you are also left with cranberries from the giant bag you bought at Costco.

And, um, yeah, if you have any awesome cranberry recipes you’d like to share, I’m all ears, because, believe it or not, I still have a cup or so of cranberries left. Whatcha got for me?

Project 365
December 7, 2010, Photos #248-256
Meg had a post the other day about “keeping it real,” and I thought it was a great reminder. Sometimes when visiting blogs, everything can look perfect … adorable kids, homecooked meals nightly, a from-the-pages-of-a-catalog decorated home, a big dose of Keeping Up with the Jones’, but the reality is, we all have dirty dishes. We just assume you know. This is what it looked like when I left the house this morning. We were on the verge of running late because someone had a meltdown about an outfit. On a day like today, a burglar could break into the house and think “oh shoot, someone beat me to it.” It was just the kitchen that looked this bad, but I hated dashing out on it just as much as I hated coming home to it.

And the other side of the kitchen? Piles of clean laundry that are waiting for the Magic Laundry Fairies to cart upstairs and put away. Real life, peeps.

“Mom, Eli is my best dog ever.” Had to get a picture when she said that. Too cute. (Of course, this was 4 hours after her grubby little tear-stained face left the house. Reality check and all.)

Breakfast. Whole grain deli flat, peanut butter, sliced banana, drizzle of honey. Fiber, protein, good carbs, slight sweetness, perfect.

Love this. A friend stopped over tonight to drop off a thank you gift in the form of two new additions to our kitchen food and drink tree.

“Mom, I’m a good helper.” Sometimes yes, sometimes not so much. This week, they are studying the letter H in school, and a cookie topped with a Hershey Kiss seemed like a perfect treat for her to bring in. A new recipe from the folks at Hershey, but truth be told, I’m not a fan. To the point that I’m debating about tossing them and making something else tomorrow.

Sometimes cute just isn’t enough.

Remember the Family Circus cartoons in the Sunday paper? The mom would find a huge mess and all the kids would yell “not me,” and there was a drawing of a little ghost figure wearing a shirt that said “not me” on it. That was us today. The Not Me Ghost visited our kitchen and accidentally spilled half a box of Wheat Thins on the floor and scurried away before being caught.

Emeril’s Chicken Patty Pockets with Pico de Gallo and Guacamole

April 15, 2010 · Narrative

My Facebook status tonight said something like, “Tonight I cooked with jalapeno peppers for the first and last time. omfg.” Every time I make a recipe that calls for jalapeno peppers, I automatically skip them. Spicy things just usually aren’t my thing, and even more so when it’s a meal I’m sharing with the kids. Today I decided to throw caution to the window and not skip over the jalapeno peppers. Trust me, that won’t happen again. And honestly, I didn’t even COOK with them. I just chopped them up. I carefully scooped out all the seeds, since that’s where most of the heat lies. The problem is that I, of course, rubbed my eyes shortly thereafter. I’m the kind of person that takes a pan out of the oven, and then not a mere 10 minutes later, I forget that it came out of the oven and grab it with my hands. Clearly short-term memory deficits are not my friend in the kitchen, so to protect me from future jalapeno pepper incidents, I’m going to just go back to skipping them. Moving on…

Usually on gym nights, I like to keep dinner simple and it’s a fend-for-yourself night or leftovers, but I feel like I haven’t cooked much this week (um, because I haven’t), so when I saw this recipe for Emeril’s Chicken Patty Pockets, I threw the set bedtime out the window and made a full dinner when we got back home. The recipe comes from a recent issue of Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine, and is crazy simple to make. The recipe calls for putting the patties into a pita pocket and then filling it with lettuce, tomato and cucumber, along with a Minted Yogurt Sauce. But then I saw a recipe for Pico de Gallo and Guacamole from The Pioneer Woman and decided to change things up a bit. I served the patties on the plate, topped with the Pico de Gallo and the Minted Yogurt Sauce on the side. The Pico de Gallo was where I got into trouble with the jalapeno peppers.

The chicken patties were a nice diversion from a red meat patty, and with the abundance of fresh vegetables, it was a meal I could feel good about serving, make quickly and one that would be kid-friendly to boot. Madeline is particularly crazy for tomatoes, and as soon as she saw me slicing and chopping them up, she clamored for a few pieces. She actually ended up eating a whole tomato before I even got dinner on the table. Nick was a little suspicious of a chicken burger, but actually ended up going back for a second. We were both a little suspicious about the Minted Yogurt Sauce. I ended up liking it (and I’m usually not a fan of mint in savory recipes) and he didn’t.

So when time is short, but you still want to deliver a homemade meal full of flavor and vegetable goodness, this meal is a great place to start. But if you’re like me, nix the jalapeno peppers. Just sayin’.

Project 365
April 15, 2010, Photo #78

I have this photo collage in the kitchen that I’ve been working on for the past two months or so. Originally I wanted to make it in the shape of a heart, and while I could get the heart shape of it right (and it is not as easy as it sounds), I couldn’t get it to fit the space I had picked out for it. So it slowly evolved and now takes up residence on our two pantry doors. I catch the kids going over and looking at the pictures often, pointing out different ones to friends, or just looking up smiling. That’s definitely one reason that I put it up. It’s fun to look back at the different pictures and remember the memories associated with each shot. Instead of getting put into a photo album (and believe me, we have many), it’s nice to have a daily visual of what’s important. I know people quickly scan and look to see if The Ex is up there, two have actually mentioned it. Of course he is. I think it’s important for the kids to see happy pictures from when we were all together. And that’s what these doors are all about. Happy pictures. Happy times. Happy memories.

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The Pioneer Woman’s Macaroni and Cheese

April 8, 2010 · Narrative

There is a reason there are a million and one recipes for macaroni and cheese. Total.comfort. food. Anything that can warm you from the inside out is worth putting into your rotation. Just sayin’. Of course all the cheesy goodness comes with a price. It might mean an extra Zumba class at the gym or another 30 minutes on the treadmill, but surely the ends justifies the means, right?

When it comes to macaroni and cheese, Nick tends to be a blue box kind of kid. He will eat a few bites of the other homemade versions that I make, but he really prefers Kraft or Velveeta. He’s entitled. Madeline will eat any kind. That is, when she stops long enough to actually put food in her mouth. When I saw The Pioneer Woman had her own version of macaroni and cheese, I added it to my to-try list. I made this one back in February after one of the umpteen times that we got hit with a crazy amount of snow. Can you tell I’m a bit behind in sharing recipes with you?

Even while taking pictures of the kids in the snow and doing laundry, the macaroni and cheese was simple to make and uses basic ingredients you just might have on hand. The taste? This is a good standard mac and cheese recipe. Not OMG, but basic goodness. And the real test? Nick came back for seconds. Winner winner, mac and cheese dinner.

Project 365
April 8, 2010 Photo #75

“Do you want the Dora seat?” No. “The Princess one?” No. “How about Elmo?” No, Mommy. Clearly she was getting exasperated with me. “Which one do you want?” Go Diego! Diego it was. We have successfully entered Day Four of Diaper-Free, Accident Free Territory. Whoo-hoo. I used the same boot camp method I came up with when training Nick (was it really that long ago?!) and though Madeline is much younger than he was, it worked like a charm. Really should patent the O’Malley Method. ;) Forget Go Diego … go Maddie!

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Chocolate Espresso Bars

March 18, 2010 · Narrative

The problem with visiting food blogs … is that when I’m done with my rounds, I have another set of recipes to add to my to-try pile. The same holds true, of course, for watching Food Network and reading cooking magazines. Of course that doesn’t stop me, but sometimes, the clippings, well, they threaten to take over. Case in point: a few weeks ago, I headed to The Pioneer Woman‘s semi-new cooking forum, Tasty Kitchen. A co-worker wanted me to make a recipe from there and I had misplaced my copy. Once there, I lost all track of time and some forty-five minutes later, another ten recipes to make, I found what I was looking for. One of the recipes I printed out was this one for Chocolate Espresso Bars. You might remember seeing the picture in a Weekend Photos in Review post recently. Technically, on The Tasty Kitchen, they are called Coffee Toffee Bars. I wasn’t getting the “toffee” part, and renamed them in my head right away.

The recipe is crazysimple and the hint of coffee in the dough gives you a nice little java fix from the get-go. The bars cut super-neat, and they smell amazing while they’re baking. I bet you even have the ingredients on hand already, making it a fun sweet treat to whip up on the spot when you need to satisfy a craving or have last-minute guests pop in.

Project 365
March 18, 2010, Photo #66

I am not a big flip-flop fan. Never have been, though I’m working on it. Madeline, on the other hand, has got that area covered. And then some. Every morning, when I get her ready, I put on her socks and shoes. Once we get downstairs, I head to the kitchen to get her morning milk, and she has, within minutes, taken off her socks and shoes and put on Nick‘s flip-flops. There are constantly little socks left in her wake around the first floor, and very often hidden wherever she feels like stashing them. I missed a class last week because not only had she hidden her socks, but her shoes too. So maddening sometimes, it’s a darn good thing she’s so cute.

A year ago today … a tasty weeknight meal courtesy of Sausage Stromboli.
Three years ago today … big, fat delicious chocolate chip cookies.
Four years ago today … a field trip to a local foodie haunt.
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February 2010 Recipe Round-Up

March 1, 2010 · Narrative, Project 365

Cheesy Hash Brown Chili. Good, but not repeatable. Next!
David Garrard’s Buffalo Chicken Dip. The favorite of the month, and even made twice in one week. Reviewed here.
Mocha Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies. Good. Nice hit from the caffeine. Interesting sandy texture on the outside of the cookie. Review coming soon.
Deep Woods Salad Dressing. This recipe came from Serena, Food and Stories. Easy and packed with flavor. I served it on a salad at Madeline’s birthday party. Review and recipe coming soon.
Sour Cream White Cupcakes. This one is from the new Cupcake Doctor cookbook. I tried one without the frosting and nearly threw away the whole batch. Luckily, once it had frosting on it, all was right with the world.
Roast Ham with Marmalade Mess Marinade. This is another one from Serena, Food and Stories. Loved it.
Chocolate Chip Dream Bars. These are OMG good. If you haven’t made this one yet, you’re missing out. Favorite #2 of the month.
Veggie Bites. How to make good vegetables bad for you. Review coming soon.
Hershey Kiss Good Fortunes. A fun sweet treat. Review here.
Tuna Cakes. Easy and you likely have the ingredients on hand. A few days later, I warmed one up, and put it in between pumpernickel bread with melted cheddar and spicy mustard. So good.
Roasted Mushrooms and Asparagus. Super simple. Loved this. Review coming soon.
Go Green Stew for Eli. Nick and Madeline made a stew for Eli. He inhaled it so fast, we’re thinking he liked it, but we stopped short of taste-testing it ourselves. He was definitely looking for more the next day.
German Chocolate Cupcake. The failure of the month. You won’t be hearing about this one.
Peanut Butter and Honey Cookies. Favorite #3 for the month. You won’t think they’re anything special. Until you make them. Bet you can’t eat just one….
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Comfort Meatballs from The Pioneer Woman

December 7, 2009 · Narrative

These days, it seems like you can’t open a magazine without seeing The Pioneer Woman‘s smiling face on its glossy pages. Ree Drummond’s journey over the past few years has been nothing short of awe-inspiring. A city girl turned country, she started blogging a few years ago about life on the ranch with her Marlboro Man and four punks. Flash forward to now, and she’s in magazine after magazines, including a recent issue of People Magazine Country, First magazine, Southern Living and now the “regular” People magazine. The woman is everywhere! And with good reason. With a loyal following flocking to her site daily, they are rewarded with gorgeous pictures, tales of family and good old fashioned home cooking. And lest I forget her brand spanking new cookbook, she’s definitely made it.

A recent issue of People magazine gave a top-notch review to Ree’s cookbook, and included her recipe for Comfort Meatballs. I ripped it out, knowing that meatballs are a perfectly kid-friendly item in our house, but to be quite honest, I have had a love/hate relationship with Ree’s recipes in the past. I’ve made a few of them before. They haven’t been bad, but they haven’t wowed me either. Just ok. Maybe it’s just me. They just lacked that final punch of flavor. Perhaps it’s just a question of adjusting the seasoning. Given how insanely popular she and her site continues to be, and those mouth-watering pictures certainly don’t hurt, I do keep going back for more. Even if I never had a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark recipe from her site, the pictures of life at the ranch and Ree’s self-deprecating sense of humor would always bring me back.

Anyway, these meatballs. Oh these meatballs. The addition of oats as the binder was a new twist for me. Usually I use bread crumbs or bread as the binder. Sneaking in a little extra fiber into our diet was definitely a bonus. Trust me, although Nick will eat an Oatmeal Raisin Cookie with the best of them, he ain’t asking for a bowl of warm oatmeal any time soon, so getting some extra fiber into a savory dish is a good thing indeed.

I usually don’t toss my meatballs in flour first. I just roll and go. As the meatballs browned off in the pan and I transferred them to the baking dish, I had one. Quality control and all that. Oh man. Good. Tender. A touch moist. Interestingly enough, not packed with flavor. But it was the tenderness that got me. And the slightly crispy coating the flour gave the outside of the meatball. I had ~~eight~~ a few while I was making the rest of the batch. Madeline came in and asked for one. She came back for more. Smart kid. Maybe this recipe was the one to turn it around for me.

When it came to the sauce, I hesitated. It’s not a tomato sauce in the least with its cup of ketchup in it. I’m more of a traditionalist when it comes to meatballs. Plain or with sauce. I loved the meatballs so much that I hesitated to put something on top of it. Something that might not work. Or that I might not like. I should have trusted my instincts.

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