Huevos Hyacinth (Pioneer Woman)

**Another installment in my cooking my way (s l o w l y) through Pioneer Woman's cookbook.**

I made this recipe a few weeks ago for a breakfast for myself. (Huevos is Spanish for Eggs. I knew that, but I did check with my friend Google Translate.)  (Hyacinth in the title refers to a friend of Ree's, the Pioneer Woman, who made up the recipe.)

Anyway....

It's very simple: layer ham or turkey, a sliced tomato or salsa, crack an egg over that and add some grated cheese, then bake.

You may notice that you can't see any tomato or salsa in the photo. That would be because I didn't have any tomatoes and the salsa just didn't sound good that particular morning. I woke up that day with a nasty headache that just would not go away.

Overall, it was very good. I would make this for company. I'd have to do a few changes, though. The salsa or tomato would make a good addition. Also, I used a pretty thick slice of ham that left the bottom of the dish quite watery. A thinner slice of ham or turkey would likely work better.

Sour Cream Pancakes (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from Megan AND me for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.** 

When Megan (daughter) and Zach (her hubs) were here a few weeks ago Megan and I made Pioneer Woman's Sour Cream Pancakes. For Breakfast. Yes. You read that right. I actually helped make breakfast! It was great fun to work together with Megan. (I miss that girl very much.)

Anyway....

Back to the project. Here is Megan "approving" of the ingredients we assembled. :) (That would be sugar, flour, vanilla extract, salt, baking soda, sour cream, and eggs)

We mixed together the dry ingredients with the sour cream. It was very thick at this point.

Next, the wet ingredients were mixed together and then added to the dry ingredients.

Here they are sizzling away on my very old griddle. We melted some butter first to grease the pan and to make it extra yummy, of course.

Oh, and I thought I'd throw in a picture of Megan and Zach's dog, Charley, watching the action outside. I think he just liked to have different things to look at. :) He didn't help with the pancakes, nor did he eat any. He just wandered around the table to see if any one would share. :)

Back to breakfast.... Here's the finished product along with some bacon. We all liked the pancakes. They had a bit of a different texture than "normal" pancakes. Megan says that that the texture was smooth and a little more dense since the recipe didn't contain oil or baking powder like most pancakes. (She's a pancake expert since it was a simple, quick supper for her last year during her first year of marriage and first year of Pharmacy school.)

(Have any of you tried baking bacon in the oven instead of frying it on the stove top? I did for that morning and it was quite simple. And I think it cut down on the lingering bacon smell afterwards.)

Maple Pecan Scones (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from Megan for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.**

Let's start out this post by explaining a little bit of my pickiness about scones. I think it comes from working at a coffee shop in high school that had the best scones. I have no idea what it is that makes them so perfect. I can't stand an overly crumbly scone. Or one that tastes just like a cookie. Or one that has virtually no taste at all. Needless to say, when I embarked on the adventure of making these scones I was excited but ready to be disappointed.

Here's the ingredients:
I used 1% milk instead of whole milk for our health's sake.

Dry ingredients:
Cut in the butter. I always get excited when I get to cut the butter into something because that usually means the final product will be full of buttery goodness. Yum!
Cream and Egg
Everything mixed together ready for formation into scones. Ree said not to worry if your mixture is very crumbly. But I felt like mine was a little too crumbly because I ran into some issues later on.
Form the pile of crumbs into a dough with your hands and then roll it out.

The process of taking the cut scones off of the cutting board and transferring them to the baking sheet was ridiculous to say the least. Most of them crumbled all over the place. I was worried at this point. But I took some time and reformed the scones with my hands after they were on the baking sheet. That worked really well. Next time, though, I need to figure out a way to make them less crumbly at this point because I wasted way too much dough. Probably 1.5 scones worth.

Here's the aftermath:
Now the best part. The icing. This icing is especially delicious because it has maple flavoring and a splash of coffee in it.

Wonderfully golden (but not overdone) scones!
The finished product:

I decided to do a little experiment. I love warm scones so I assumed these would be best straight out of the oven. The one I ate straight out of the oven was too crumbly for my taste. It needed to have more integrity in the dough. The recipe technically says to wait until they're completely cool, put icing on, and then eat. Surprisingly, the cooled scone was much better. I think the ingredients were able to bond together more and form a less crumbly scone. Perfect amount of sweetness in the scone and the icing.

Seriously delicious. I will make these again for sure.

French Breakfast Puffs (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from me for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.** 

Saturday afternoon I made some breakfast food. Afternoon is the best time to make breakfast food, in my opinion. Why? Because it's not morning.
These French Breakfast Puffs are really simple to make. You do the basic mix the dry ingredients together and then the wet ingredients, then combine. Easy stuff. My mom taught me this when I was 9 or so. The muffins have a bit of nutmeg in them for some yummy flavor.

I like to use my ice cream/cookie scoop to fill the cups in the muffin pan. So quick and easy!

The muffins are baked until slightly golden brown. I took this picture to show my awesome tool I use for get muffins out of pan. I won it years (decades?) ago at a Tupperware party. If I remember correctly, its intended use is for potting plants. I remember the forked end was supposed to be used to aerate the soil or something like that. I have always used it when I bake muffins. It works great!

The next steps are what make these delectable... The warm muffins are dipped, yes dipped in melted butter and then dredged through cinnamon sugar. Oh my. Yummy!

Ree, The Pioneer Woman, says these freeze well and are just as yummy warmed up in the microwave. I have some in the freezer and will test that out.

Egg-In-A-Hole (Pioneer Woman)

**My daughter, daughter-in-law and I are cooking our way through Pioneer Woman's cookbook and writing about it here. Today's entry is from my daughter-in-law, Amanda.**

This is a really yummy and easy breakfast recipe! Since I made it six months ago (oops), I've made it for my husband several times again because it's a good hearty recipe for when you don't want cereal.

Here's the huge amount of ingredients:

First, cut a hole in the bread. Use a biscuit cutter if you're sophisticated, but if not, use a knife and cut a wonky hole.

Pretty!

Butter and cast-iron are a beautiful thing. Toast the bread and crack the egg in the middle. Or, put the egg in a hole! So clever.

Yums!

Potato Salad Memories

This afternoon I made Potato Salad. Not really earth shattering news. Not even Facebook Status worthy. (Although I considered it.)

There are a few things I won't order in restaurants because they aren't like my mom made, namely Coleslaw and Potato Salad. My mom made Coleslaw with Italian Salad Dressing. I like that so much better than the sweet creamy dressing on most Coleslaws that are sold in restaurants. And Potato Salad? I try to model mine after my aunt Johnnye's. My mom would make it and my dad would always say it wasn't quite like Aunt Johnnye's. (Tsk, tsk, Dad! Don't you know that the 1st rule of husbands? Don't compare your wife's cooking to someone else's.)

So anyway... this afternoon I made Potato Salad. When I make Potato Salad, I am flooded with memories. I realize that is strange. (But hey, if you heard me telling my hubby what I dreamed about last night and what I was fretting about at 5:30 this morning, you wouldn't be quite so surprised at how my mind works.)

Since I try to make Potato Salad like my aunt Johnnye's, of course I think of her. She passed away 4 1/2 years ago, although Alzheimer's took her long before that. Aunt Johnnye didn't have a recipe for her Potato Salad, so I have to guess at what she put in her's.

I also think of Charlotte's Web. Remember that wonderful children's classic book by E.B. White? I loved that book when I was little. I read it multiple times. I remember that the little girl in the book fed Wilbur the Pig potato skins. So when I peel the potatoes, I think of that wonderful book.

Another memory that comes back to me when I make Potato Salad is...

(I wonder if I'm setting the record for how many times the words Potato Salad are written in a blog post.)

Where was I? Oh yeah, memories and Potato Salad...

I think of when I was in 4H when I was a kid. Why? Because Aunt Johnneye's version has hard cooked eggs in it, of course! Back in 1973 or so I gave a short demonstration about How To Cook Hard Cooked Eggs at a 4H meeting. I have the little speech written up on a piece of paper stuck in an old cookbook. I refer to that whenever I make hard cooked eggs.

Every single time I boil potatoes, it boils overs and makes a stinky, burnt mess. (Anyone else do that?)

At last, but not least, I think of my grandma. One of the main reasons I decided to make Potato Salad is because I wanted the water from boiling the potatoes. My sisters and I are trying to recreate the yeast rolls that our grandma used to make. No one has the recipe (if she even used one). My dad seems to think that she used potato water in the rolls his mother made. So now I have four cups of potato water to experiment with. (I'll let you know how they turn out.)

The Potato Salad? It turned out very good. And it was yummy with the brat, grilled asparagus and watermelon. :)

What do you make that triggers memories for you?

Buttermilk Biscuits (Pioneer Woman)

It's Megan again!
I made these delicious biscuits for a weekend lunch along with some sausage gravy that my husband whipped up.

I've always loved the biscuits my Mom often made for us when we were growing up so I was anxious to learn how these compare (and I think she is too). This particular recipe included both shortening and butter. I cut the cold butter into smaller pieces to make the blending quicker. In the end, the thing I liked most about the biscuits were the tiny chunks of butter in the final product... really makes for a "melt in your mouth" kind of biscuit.

Helpful hint! If you don't own a circular biscuit/cookie cutter, just use a glass! It worked wonders. Now I just want to save a few bucks and always use a glass.


The verdict? My Mom's are better, but that's just my personal taste (or maybe I haven't mastered this recipe quite yet). I like the fluffiness of my Mom's biscuits over the flaky-melt-in-your-mouth-ness of these.

Basic Breakfast Potatoes (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from me for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.**

Basic Breakfast Potatoes. There is only one problem with me fixing a breakfast food. I am not a morning person.
 (Which comes as no shock to anyone who has known me for any length of time or who has read this blog for any length of time.)
(By the way, I heard a news story a few weeks ago about what makes someone a morning person or a night person. They said that it's just the physical make up of a person. That it's largely in the genes. Here's the link to the story.)

Let's see, where was I?

Breakfast Potatoes. Oh yeah.

This is a very simple recipe using just a few ingredients. It's a good way to use a left-over baked potato or two. Dice the baked potato and some onion.

Anyone like how I matched the bowl to the cutting board??

Using olive oil and some bacon fat for flavor, saute the onion, add the potatoes and fry it all up in a pan. They key is to let it sit so the potatoes get nice and crispy.

In case you are wondering, I made these for supper along with some scramble eggs with mushroom and broccoli. It was all very yummy!

If you have any leftover they are great to use in breakfast burritos. (I think there is a post coming sometime about Pioneer Woman's recipe for that.)

Iny's Prune Cake With Buttermilk Icing (Pioneer Woman)

Here's another recap of one of Pioneer Woman's recipes from her book The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

This recipe caused great anxiety for me. Well, maybe not so much anxiety as sneakiness. Are those close to the same things? Maybe not.

When Megan and Amanda (daughter and daughter-in-law) and I sat around on New Year's Eve splitting up the recipes in Pioneer Woman's cookbook and came to this one, we all paused. No one said the name of the recipe. We all looked at each other, and I said I would make it and be sneaky about it. You see, none of our guys like prunes.

I bought the prunes more than a week before I made the cake. And hid them in the cupboard. I read through the recipe and laughed at Ree's commentary. Evidently her husband has issues with prunes. She says she has made this cake for him multiple times and never told him what is in it.

Late in the afternoon I started the deed.

Too late in the afternoon, because not 10 minutes into starting, hubby called to say he was coming home. Ahhh!!

He is a good sport, because I asked him to not look at the recipe and not ask what was in the Coffee Cake **cough cough**  and he didn't. What a guy.

The pile of ingredients:

(Yes, I like Tupperware.) (See those 3 eggs sitting there? I forgot I intended to make half of the recipe and went ahead and broke open three eggs, realized my mistake and proceeded to remove 1 1/2 eggs from the bowl. Now I have 1 1/2 eggs in the fridge [yes, in Tupperware] waiting to be used for something.)

 So if you were thinking that Prune Cake meant a cake with big hunks of prunes, nope, you were wrong... you boil them to soften them up so they can be mashed and blend into the cake almost undetected. They help make the cake very moist.

The cake itself has yummy spices in it like cinnamon, nutmeg and ground allspice. (I am amazed that I did not have any ground allspice and had to actually buy it. If you saw all the spices I have in a drawer [in Tupperware, of course], you would be surprised too.)

This is the beginning boiling stage of the Buttermilk Icing. It is supposed to be cooked until it has a light caramel color. And, oh boy, is it GOOD!

Ta Da!! The finished product! The icing melts down into the hot cake and just makes it scrumptious. It kinda reminded me of a spice cake. After he tasted it, Hubby said he liked it and then asked if it had carrots in it or brussel sprouts. (He doesn't like vegetables in cake) The really good news is he didn't gag after I revealed the secret!

(Can you see my new tablecloth in the very upper left corner of the picture? I used a birthday gift card to buy that and I love it!)

Hot Artichoke Dip (Pioneer Woman)

**Another great addition from Megan for our Cooking Through PW Cooks Adventure.**

This was a delicious late night snack for my husband and I! Here are the ingredients:

The recipe called for canned artichokes, but I chose to use a real one.

I love to use our pepper grinder on the coarsest setting because it seems to add more flavor. The artichoke was steamed in an inch of water for about 15 minutes. Next, I scraped the meat from the "leaves". Not necessarily as easy as it seems.... After all the work of using a fresh and mediocre artichoke, I decided this recipe may be better with the canned artichokes as it originally called for.
Everything except some of the artichoke was creamed together in a food processor (mine was a touch too small) and then some larger chunks of the artichoke were mixed in to give the dip some texture. I definitely enjoyed the the texture. The recipe said to add cayenne pepper "to taste". Honestly, I have no idea how much I added. Nonetheless, I'd add more next time for kicks.

This is before it was baked:
It had a nice golden color to it after it was baked.

We ate it with this baguette, but it would be equally as yummy with tortilla chips or crackers.
Zach (my husband) makes a similar dip that contains sour cream instead of mayonnaise. Both of us agreed we prefer the tang of sour cream to the mayonnaise, but I think it's a personal taste.
Overall = YUM.

Katie's Roasted Corn Salad (Pioneer Woman)

Hi! I'm Megan, the third contributer to the "Pioneer Woman" blog.

I actually made the Roasted Corn Salad a couple weeks ago for dinner. But I've had a few distractions in the past two weeks that prevented me from getting this written. One being this adorable little guy:

His name is Charley and my husband and I brought him home just two weeks ago. So while the Roasted Corn Salad was extremely simple to make, it took me significantly longer than I expected since I had to keep one eye on him at all times.

Here's the vegetable ingredients:

As I was picking these out at the grocery store, I was dreaming about picking all of these delicious vegetables straight from the garden. If you want to try this recipe I would highly recommend doing it during the summertime. Although, even in the wintertime it was amazing.

I used our cast iron grill pan to cook the corn, squash, onions and pepper. The recipe said to just cook them on the stove for approximately eight minutes, but I found that they weren't fully cooked, so I popped them in the oven on broil for a few minutes. That did the trick!

The next step was to mix up the delicious dressing!
Here are the ingredients:

Ree suggested to chop up the basil by cutting into the chiffonade (aka tightly rolled leaves). It gives you nice thin strips of basil. I've been cutting my basil this way for a while, but now I know the name! :)

The finished product was delicious. My brother even said he didn't really notice the squash and tomatoes (he's not a fan of those). We served it with tortilla chips and tacos, but I can imagine that it would be wonderful with steak or chicken.

COMING SOON: Hot artichoke dip. Yummmm.