Conquering the Kitchen

As I mentioned a long time ago on the blog, I started reading The Pioneer Woman website solely for the “Black Heels to Tractor Wheels” section. These blog posts tell the story of how Ree (The PW) met, dated and eventually married her husband (The Marlboro Man). I’m not one for over-the-top sappy love stories but the story of The PW and Marlboro Man was truly entertaining and fun to read.

After I had read the entire saga of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels (over several days) I started browsing around her site at other categories. She is most known for her recipes but I stayed away from this section for as long as possible since it was the least useful or interesting to me -- the microwave is the most important kitchen appliance in my life, after all.

When I finally gave in and started looking through some recipes I was surprised to find myself much less intimidated than I usually am when I read words like mix, blend, and oven. Along with written instructions the PW takes a picture of each recipe step so that you can tell if your meal is looking right before it’s too late to do anything about it and you’re stuck with bread dough all over in the inside of your oven (for example of course).

I received the Pioneer Woman Cookbook for Christmas last year and promptly made a New Year’s Resolution to cook “more”. I left it at a nebulous amount of cooking, but knew that if I turned the oven on twice in 2010 it would be once more than I did in 2009.

I’m happy to report that thanks to the PW cookbook I have in fact cooked more this year than last and each time with successful results. I highly recommend 'The Pioneer Woman Cooks' cookbook (or at least the 4 recipes I have made from it) to anyone with a healthy fear of real cooking. If I can do it, I promise you can do it!

I had the privilege of meeting the PW for 5 minutes at a book signing in May…more to come on that tomorrow!