I have a confession to make

My name is Susan, and I am addicted to the Pioneer Woman.

When that will change to "recovering addict" is not on the foreseeable horizon.

I don't know how I missed her for all these years. Surely if you had known about her, you would have told me, right?

My discovery of her happened because my boys play tennis on Saturday morning. It's not a direct correlation, but I often use that time to watch a little uninterrupted Food Network. And it turns out she started her show on one of those Saturday mornings that I tuned in. And I was hooked.

Since then, I have periodically checked her blog - thepioneerwoman.com - and tried a few recipes but I would classify my obsession as mild.

Until now.

A week or two ago, I stumbled on a story on the sidebar of her blog that honestly could have caused me to wet my pants had I had a semi-full bladder. I read it and re-read it and every time, I laughed out loud. You can check it out - go back a few posts on my blog and you'll see a very short post. But this post spoke to me because a) I LOVE anybody with a self-deprecating sense of humor and b) I could see this whole scene play out in my head and could imagine the horror of it all.

Who was this woman?

Since then, I've become addicted. Seriously addicted. As in, could we plan a summer vacation to Oklahoma and find her ranch and just show up on her doorstep? I think she'd invite me for an iced coffee and I could help her cook dinner for the Marlboro Man, aka her husband, and all her kids.

Since then, I downloaded her book and read it in what seemed like minutes. And I laughed out loud at parts of it. I've also subscribed to get all her blog posts as they come out. I have only subscribed to two other blogs and those are of dear friends with new babies and I need/must see the developments of those sweet babies as soon as they are made. The Pioneer Woman competes with babies. She might be winning in the popularity contest.

Just kidding. I love those babies and will always be more interested in them than her.

I think.

Anyhoo, I cannot get enough of this woman. I'm off to make some of her fried rice for dinner tonight. I do, after all, have to feed my own Marlboro Man....

Teaching Mac to Cook

As many of you know, the Giginator, aka my mother, was a home economics teacher for 20-something years. As part of her teaching responsibilities, she taught what must have been 1000s of Berkeley County middle schoolers how to cook. Let me just tell you right now: after two consecutive nights of Mac insisting he help me cook, I am pretty convinced I would have to be heavily medicated on happy pills to teach children how to cook day in and day out.

The mess.

The extra time it takes.

The incessant questioning of "how much longer till it's ready?"

And did I mention the mess?

Last night we made really quite a delicious baked orzo dish (Mac cooked the bacon, sautéed the onions, chopped the basil and measured out the liquids) and tonight we baked homemade biscuits of which Mac has already eaten 2 and declared delicious (Mac measured the flour, whisked the dry ingredients together, mixed the liquid in, kneaded and cut out the biscuits).

Sweet Lord, grant me patience to continue these lessons.

And sweet Lord, put a bug in Mac's Bubby's ear to teach him some cooking when she comes to see us next week. He will have off two full weeks for Spring Break and that would provide lots of quality cooking time.

And also sweet Lord, put a bug in the Giginator's ear to follow up on these lessons when Mac goes home this summer ahead of Jimmy and me. There could be 3 weeks of good bonding time over a hot stove.

I may not need the extra patience after all if I can get these grandmothers on board....

NYR 10-19-11 - cooking ahead

This past weekend when I was home alone, I planned ahead and cooked various things to eat this week and also to freeze. You know us working girls have to be organized like that, because if we're not, it might be PB&Js for everybody. Or maybe that's just this working girl who feels like things, like a well-balanced dinner for the family, could seriously fall through the cracks after a long day at the office. Sigh.

I was so happy to not have to plan much in the way of dinner this week. For that small favor, I am truly thankful.

NYR 10-4-11 - Italian cooking class

Today I took an Italian cooking class taught by a friend who is from Rome. We cooked (or really she cooked) and we ate the fruits of her labor.

Oh. my.

I give you the meal from start to finish:

Bruschetta (or what was left of it) for a little teaser during the class


Pasta alla Carbonara


Pollo alla Romana


Fragole con Mousse di Ricotta for dessert!

For a fabulous day of good friends and fabulous food, I am truly thankful.

NYR 10-3-11 - game changer

If you live at any altitude higher than 3000 feet, you must buy this cookbook.

Pie in the Sky Successful Baking at High Altitudes: 100 Cakes, Pies, Cookies, Breads, and Pastries Home-tested for Baking at Sea Level, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000, and 10,000 feet (and Anywhere in Between) - by Susan Gold Purdy

I am serious. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

Buy this book.

NOW.

(You really shouldn't even be reading more right now if you live above 3000 feet. You should be on amazon.com or heading to your local Barnes & Noble to buy this book. Did I mention I was serious about this?)

I am telling you that it is a game changer in high-altitude baking. (Or at least the two recipes I have tried - oatmeal cookies and a 1-2-3-4 cake - turned out perfectly, which makes it a game changer for me!)

The author has tested and re-tested 100 recipes at different altitudes and has tweaked them so that they work anywhere from 3000 feet to 10,000 feet. It's like a huge science fair project that took her all over the country. She's even made it easy with columns for 3000, 5000, 7000, and 10,000 feet. The guesswork is totally gone because she tells you exactly what ingredients, what temperature, baking time, etc that you need to use at your particular altitude.

I read this book from cover to cover like a novel because it was so interesting. Bogota is approximately 8500 feet, and I needed to find out how to adapt when you fall between the 7000 and 10,000 feet columns. The author said that if you were above 8500 feet, you should go with the 10,000 feet column, and if you were between 7000-8500 feet, you need to stick with 7000 feet. When you're at "approximately 8500 feet", what does that mean? So I brought up our GPS, turned it on and stuck it out the window to pick up the satellite. Turns out our apartment is at 8564 feet, which I thought was really close enough to 8500 to stick with the 7000 feet column. And everything, okay the two things I've tried, turned out sooooo well.

For (hopefully) worry-free, stress-free baking at altitude, I am so truly grateful.

NYR 9-20-11: The Pioneer Woman, part 2

In my earlier post, I forgot to mention that I watched TPW on Food Network on Saturday morning, which is how I got turned on to her. She has a new show so you can see her in action instead of just reading her in action!

For Jimmy's breakfast today, I made him TPW's husband's favorite breakfast from childhood: egg-in-a-hole. For the full recipe, which is quite simply the fastest, quickest way EVER to make an egg breakfast (but you have to like a runny yolk), go here.

Jimmy is now a TPW convert, based on this single culinary experience.

I also hear from my Canadian contingent (that would be a single person and I'm not sure if contingent can mean a delegation of one??) that TPW has a great iced coffee recipe, which you can read here. The really awesome thing about this recipe is that you can make a humongous batch of coffee concentrate, keep it in your fridge and use it to make an iced coffee whenever you feel the urge. I like a girl who plans ahead.

For the successful introduction of TPW into our lives and for the egg-in-a-hole breakfast, I am truly thankful.

NYR 6-28-11 - a chef is born

The other day Mac and I made a list of everything we wanted to do during his summer vacation. One of the things I added to the list (which was copied from a friend) was for Mac and me to plan and cook one meal a week together. Even though my mom was a home ec teacher and taught me how to cook, I have zero patience with Mac in the kitchen because a mess always ensues and I hate messes. But I decided he needs to start learning and there's no time like the present.

Mac's first planned meal was spaghetti (no surprise for anybody who knows him well) and salad. I'd thought we'd make the spaghetti sauce from scratch but we were sidetracked by an unexpected trip to the doctor's office for strep throat this morning. So instead we took the easy way out and bought a jar of Prego at the commissary.

When I make spaghetti sauce and put onions in it, Mac will detect nearly every single piece of chopped onion in his sauce and put it to the side of his plate. So when I asked him if wanted to add onion to the ground beef, he characteristically said no. When I told him that was fine but that would mean there wasn't anything to chop, he changed his mind and said we needed to add onions because that "adds so much flavor to the sauce".

So he chopped half an onion for the sauce and half an onion for the trash can (it was just for practice), browned the ground beef, drained off the fat, and added the jarred sauce. He also cut up carrots and cucumbers for the salad and helped me wash the lettuce and broccoli as well.

He also wanted to set the table, complete with glasses that matched the placemats. He even wanted to put a water pitcher on the table so we had to pull out the one that matches the glasses from Mexico we were using. He thought something was still missing from our tablescape so we had to cut off some flowers in another arrangement and put them on the table. It was very, very sweet and he was very, very proud of himself.

Not proud enough to cook every night, though. When I told him how much fun I'd had with him, I asked if he didn't want to cook with me every night of the week. He told me in no uncertain terms that one night a week would be sufficient.

For finding that I really didn't need any great reserve of patience to cook a great meal with my boy, I am truly thankful.