Channeling My Inner Pioneer Woman

I began following Ree Drummond's Pioneer Woman blog over a year ago at Ashley's urging.  She had discovered the blog and was always telling me to go read certain posts.  Pioneer Woman was a city girl before she met her Marlboro Man across a smoky bar.  They married and are raising a family along with cattle ranching and now Ree has become this super blogger and much more!  In other words, she is my hero!  My role model!

 

 Ree Drummond--The Pioneer Woman

For Christmas, Allan gave me PW's cookbook!  It is a great read even if you never make a single dish!

But, I have cooked several things so far and will definitely be trying more recipes.  

The first thing I made was the Black-eyed Pea dip on New Year's Day.  This recipe isn't actually in the book, but was featured on her website.

 This was so good!  You would never know it was black-eyed peas.  It went great along with little smokies.  I expect great financial success in 2011-all because of eating my peas on New Year's Day!

Next, I tried the Comfort Meatballs.  This was a great meal-meatballs, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans and sweet tea!

This dish took a little more time to prepare but it was DEFINITELY worth it.  It made enough meatballs that we had leftovers the next night.

Chicken Spaghetti was the next recipe I tried.  It was DELISH!  The recipe made FOUR casserole dishes!!  I gave one dish to my parents and then we froze the other two for future meals (ate one already last Friday).  I will be making it again but I may cut it down a bit, but still would like to have one extra casserole dish for later.

Chicken Spaghetti and my mom's homemade bread-great combo!

Tonight I made a breakfast supper-scrambled eggs, bacon, and Pecan Pie Muffins!  These muffins are on Pioneer Woman's website and you must, must, must try them...tonight.  I'm serious.  Grab the five ingredients it calls for and get to baking.  In 20 min, you will be in heaven!

Mine were extra sweet because they were heart shaped!

Anyway, so many recipes and so little time to try them all.  But, I'm gonna give it my best shot!

Now, I think I need a date with this guy: