Pioneer Woman: Bagel and Cream Cheese Baked French Toast

As host of the book club meeting where I prepared Dorie's vanilla cake, I also served Pioneer Woman's Bagel and Cream Cheese Baked French Toast (from the New Year's Day section of A Year of Holidays). This recipe was perfect for morning-time company, because the bagels, cream cheese, and grated cheddar are supposed to soak in the cayenne and mustard egg goodness overnight. There's also supposed to be chives in there, but I had none.

This was delicious and filling. My friend's mom who was visiting her and came to book club asked for the recipe. I had to use Thomas' bagels, which are an affront to everything this Brooklynite holds dear, but they worked okay here. My husband would have killed me if I baked my homemade bagels and then ripped them apart and used them in this manner.

Leftovers reheated pretty well

I'm certain that this breakfast would be amazing with fresh bagels--but preferably ones purchased from a shop. I am certain that I'll be trying this again when I move back to the states.

Conclusion: Liked it.

Catching Up with Pioneer Woman

I haven't cooked from A Year of Holidays in a while, primarily because most of the recipes don't click with my post-holidays detox. However, I do have a few to catch up on.

One day before Christmas, I brought Eight-Layer Dip to a friend's house (pg 43, from the The Big Game section. I like that Ree counts the Super Bowl as a holiday. Ha!) The entire event provided me with a perfect example of my current refrain of "I'M OVER NAPLES!"

My friend lives on a main drag in Pozzuoli (birthplace of Sophia Loren). We foolishly scheduled a date at 1:00 on a Sunday. I can never find parking in Pozzuoli on Sundays, because all the Italians (and I mean ALL of them) go out to lunch, unless they're going to Mama's. I drove three rounds of the area, which took my 45 minutes because of car and pedestrian traffic, and found a spot in a lot just when I was about to give up. In the lot I normally park in, you don't have to pay on Sundays. I couldn't determine if I had to pay based upon the sign in this lot. It said it was free on "festivi and pre-festivi." So that's on holidays. And pre-holidays??? I don't know. I assume that means the day before a holiday? I pretty much decided that I did have to pay, even though no one else was. I carefully formed a question in my head and asked a man who was in the lot, and after quite a bit of me not knowing what he was saying, he did gesture to the ticket machine and say "bigliette", which means "ticket." I took that to mean that I did need a ticket.

I, of course, had no change, because in most lots, you don't have to pay on Sundays. I went to the restaurant next door and asked if they could break my 20. No. I went across the street and bought a bottle of water. The cashier gave me the look of death, exhaled disgustedly, and gave me my change. They're very territorial regarding their coins here, to the point where I've had people refuse to sell things to me if I try to pay with a bill. And yet, the ATMs distribute 50s. And around and around we go...

Back to the ticket machine. Balancing my 8 layer dip on my knee, I bought my ticket for a few hours. The man I'd spoken with earlier walked up to me. I finally figured out he was saying that he was going to watch my car and make sure it wasn't broken in to. That's a thing, here. You really have no choice in the matter. If you don't pay them a few euro, they'll break your windows next time they see your car. Yay, Italy! Standard procedure is that you pay them when you return to your car and see that it's safe and sound. This guy was demanding money from me up front. I was like, "Dude, I just used all my change to get my ticket," except I don't know how to say that, so I just kept saying, "Bigliette!" like an idiot. Also, like an idiot, I still had the 15 euro in bills that the cashier had given me clutched in my hand (which was also gripping my long, heavy Pyrex tray).

Dude plucked a 5 euro bill out of my hand and walked away. Simultaneously, I realize that my legs were wet. I looked down. The tomatoes had watered down the sour cream, and the entire front of my body was splattered with white water. Jacket, legs, and shoes were soaked. I stormed down Via Napoli, cursing Naples under my breath long after I reached my friend's house. It was two months ago, and I still get pissed off when I think about it.

For what it's worth, my car was unharmed when I returned to it.

The dip was tasty, but the memory of it will always be wrapped up in residual aggravation. We ate 3/4 of a tray while watching The Bourne Identity. That's a lot of refried beans for two girls.

Conclusion: Liked it, but I might need therapy before I can make it again. 

Friends invited us over for dinner shortly before Christmas. I made Spreads (pg 312 of the Christmas section) because they looked quick and easy, and don't involve nuts, which one of her sons is allergic to. It's a basic shortbread type cookie that is spread out on a baking sheet. Right before they're ready, sprinkle chocolate chips on top and bake for another minute. These are supposed to get melty, and then you spread them out so they ice the cookies.

These are the best looking ones, and they're not that great. Most were a wreck.

Yeah. Umm. This didn't work. At all. Maybe my chocolate chips were old or something, but they didn't become spreadable. They were grainy and solid. I kept leaving them in longer and longer, hoping that they'd start to melt. Didn't happen. All I accomplished was overcooking the cookie dough, which, frankly, wasn't particularly delicious.

They looked horrendous, and tasted pretty bad, too. I couldn't bring them to dinner. I had to make a quick cake (Nigella's olive oil chocolate cake) to replace them. The cake was delicious.

Conclusion: Hated them.

For dinner one night, I made Grilled Chicken Skewers (pg 358, the New Years Eve section). This is basically chicken satay. I forgot how much I love chicken satay. This sauce was sweeter than I prefer, but it definitely satisfied the satay craving. I'd cut back on the honey next time. I was sure Charlie would like this. Nope.

Conclusion: Liked it.

Pioneer Woman: Turkey Tetrazzini

I landed on Turkey Tetrazzini, one of Ree's suggestions for your Thanksgiving leftovers, because I had a little bit of turkey left. I bought a rotisserie chicken to supplement it. Good thing I did, because when I opened the bag of turkey, it didn't smell quite right. We'd been working on it for over a week, so I guess it hit its boundary. Tossed it and used the chicken. Crisis averted.

Butter and garlic and mushrooms and wine, cream cheese and olives and bacon and cheese, all mixed with pasta. While I cooked, I'd periodically hear Matt yell, "That smells SO good," from the living room, where he was watching Rudolph with Charlie. He was right. It did smell so good.

I tasted it before I popped it in the oven, and started to laugh. It tasted like my Grandma's "tuna slop", only with chicken instead of tuna, and with ingredients I can pronounce and identify. I don't say that as a criticism. I love Tuna Slop. I much prefer to make a version that doesn't involve Velveeta or a can of cream of mushroom soup, if I can help it, though. I also added finely chopped broccoli, just to give it a bit more veg.

This is worth making, whether you have leftover turkey or not. It was cozy and comforting and delicious. Even Charlie ate it! He picked all the peas out, but I expected that, as he has never in his life eaten a pea. He ate the chicken, mushrooms, and broccoli without seeming to notice them, though. Woohoo!

This makes a massive amount of food. Once again, I forgot that Ree says it serves 12. I probably could have cut the recipe in half. We'll finish up the leftovers for dinner tonight. I'm not sick of it yet, though Matt may be, because he's also been bringing portions to work for lunch. I'll give him a breather before I make it again. 

Conclusion: Liked it.

Thanksgiving with Pioneer Woman

I've made a bunch of recipes from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays. Most of them are from the Thanksgiving section, but not all of them are.

First up, Drop Biscuits (pg 346, the Christmas section). I brought these over to a friend's house a few week's ago. She made soup and mulled wine. I made biscuits and dessert. I've had a hit-or-miss relationship with biscuits in the past. I always blame my failures on my Yankee-dom. These Drop Biscuits are simple to make (put the ingredients in the food processor. Whir. Scoop spoonfuls on to a baking sheet. Bake.) and turned out to be delicious. I need to make biscuits more often.

Conclusion: Loved them.

Matt and I haven't been overly impressed with our Thanksgiving stuffing for the past few years, so we decided to mix it up this year and use Ree's Basic Thanksgiving Dressing (pg 258). This uses three types of bread: cornbread, Italian bread, and ciabatta, and a host of standard stuffing flavors: celery, onion, parsley, thyme, rosemary, and basil. She uses dried herbs. In the future, I'd like to try it with fresh herbs. I think this was a good starting point. I felt it needed a bit more flavor, but I'm not totally sure what to do to it. I liked that the cornbread practically turned to breadcrumbs and coated all the other breads. There was a lot of different texture.

Conclusion: Liked it, but it needs some fiddling. We didn't salt it enough this time. Needs more oomph.

For the dressing, I made Ree's recipe for Skillet Cornbread (pg 268). This was easy to make, and it worked fine in the dressing, but I don't like it on its own. The cornbread is VERY salty and gritty. This may be why Matt undersalted the dressing--I warned him that the cornbread was salty. I like sweet, wet cornbread. This was the opposite. Different strokes for different folks.

Conclusion: Disliked, but it worked fine for the dressing.

I almost forgot about the Giblet Gravy. Matt is the Bird-meister, so he made the gravy. I was uninvolved, so I have no input regarding the process. All I can say is that it was deeeeeeelicious. I can never be without it again.

Conclusion: Loved it. 

I'm roasting a chicken tonight to use up our leftover dressing. For a side, I decided to try Ree's Cranberry Sauce (pg 256). This was a last-minute decision, and so I don't have the orange zest and juice that I'm supposed to. I threw in a splash of mandarinetto instead. Figured it couldn't hurt. I normally make a basic cranberry sauce with sugar, orange zest, and juice. The difference here is that, instead of sugar, Ree uses a cup of maple syrup.

I'm torn about what to think. I love the smokey maple flavor that the syrup gives to the sauce, but it's too sweet. It's possible that the orange zest and juice might have cut the sweetness a bit. I'm not sure. I may continue to play with this, cutting back on the amount of syrup used until the balance tips over a bit in favor of cranberry tartness. It's cranberry sauce. I want to taste the cranberry!

Conclusion: Liked it, but it needs tweaking.

A Year of Holidays: Broccoli-Cheese Soup

This is going to be a quick one. My friend from home is currently sitting on a runway in Paris, and I have to leave in a while to pick her up from the airport here in Napoli. HOORAY! In the two + years that I've lived here, this is only my second visitor who is not directly responsible for birthing either me or my husband. My friends are slackers.

So, I'm busting out this little post, because I'll forget about it in the next week, otherwise.

Pioneer Woman's Broccoli-Cheese Soup tastes exactly as broccoli cheese soup should. I replaced her 2 cups of half-and-half with 2 additional cups of milk (plus the 4 that's already called for), and didn't miss it for one second.

I did wish that I'd served this in a bread bowl, as she instructs, or at least had some bread with it, because I was very hungry by the time I went to bed. Like I said, though, the flavor and texture were perfect.

Charlie took his one taste and acted like I'd made him eat a spoonful of liquid waste. Very dramatic. Silly doesn't know what he's missing.

Conclusion: Loved it.

And so, I will now move on from the Halloween section. (This soup is suggested as pre-trick-or-treat fuel.)

A Year of Holidays: Popcorn Balls

I don't know what it is about Ree Drummond's presentation, but I want to make everything in this book. Everything. Even things that I'm pretty sure I'd pass right over in a different cookbook, like Popcorn Balls (pg 232), which are in the Halloween section, but, like the pancakes, could easily be tweaked for any holiday, season, or mood. They look so damn festive and kid-friendly, dyed yellow, with cheerful nubbins of candy corn and peanuts jutting out, that I couldn't resist.

I'd originally planned to make these for Halloween, because we were having pre-trick-or-treat dinner with friends and their two kids, and I felt strongly that the kids  needed to have Popcorn Balls in their lives.

I didn't get my act together in time to make them, even though they aren't complicated. You basically give popcorn the Rice Krispie Treat treatment, by coating them in melted buttery marshmallow. Can't be bad.

I thought the same kids would be at my friend's housewarming party this afternoon, so I brought the treats there, instead. Unfortunately for the young'uns, they were sick and stayed home. Fortunately for my group of pretending-to-be-adult friends, that meant more for us. Charlie, for some reason, was uninterested. I don't know how a kid can look at these festive balls of glory and say, "Nah," but that is what he did.

Like I said. More for us.

Everyone really, really liked them. There was some raving going on. I was absolutely  not expecting these to be such a hit with the grown-ups. It either proves that we're young at heart, or that we like big balls. Take your pick.

I have one complaint with the process. First you mix the popcorn into the melted marshmallow, and then you stir the candy in. This is harder than it sounds. Because the pot is still hot, the candy sinks to the bottom and then melts/adheres to the pot, and does not incorporate into the popcorn easily. Even though it would create another dish, I think there needs to be a step where you dump the marshmallowed popcorn into a cool bowl, and carry on from there.

Conclusion: Liked it. It was a surprise hit among the big kids.

Beef Fajitas and Homemade Tortillas

I've gone fajita crazy. I cooked The Pioneer Woman's Beef Fajitas and Homemade Tortillas (pg 141 and 143 of A Year of Holidays) last week, and have been craving them again ever since. The ingredients are already on my grocery list to make again for dinner this week.

The meat sits in an easy-to-throw-together marinade of Worcestershire, garlic, lime juice, sugar, olive oil, and spices for several hours, then gets grilled. The veg (multi-colored peppers, onions, and mushrooms) are simply cooked in olive oil and butter. I was originally skeptical that there was no seasoning for the vegetables, but it turned out that the meat marinade provided plenty of flavor.

I didn't get as many tortillas out of my "walnut-sized" balls of dough as I was supposed to, and the tortillas, which I flattened in my tortilla press, were too small to wrap the food up like a fajita, but they tasted delicious and were a nice, soft, bendy texture. Next time, I'll know not to halve the recipe. The tortillas, used like tacos, disintegrated under the weight and wetness of the food, but as long as you're not a neat-freak, the deliciousness will compensate for the mess. If you have a problem with messes, you probably shouldn't be eating fajitas in the first place.

I inhaled these so fast that I didn't even think to snap a picture. Whoops.

Conclusion: Loved both recipes. I want more, right now. I may experiment with the ratio of corn to white flour in the tortillas, because I do prefer a cornier flavor, but that's just a matter of taste.

Let's Get This "Long Term" Ball Rolling

I recently asked Charlie to pick a recipe out of C is for Cooking. He went with Ernie's Fruity Frozen Fun Pops. I like the idea of these a lot more than either one of us enjoyed the outcome.

Blitz banana, canned crushed pineapple, plain yogurt, and a little sugar in the blender. Fill an ice cube tray with the mixture. Put them in the freezer, and when they're half frozen, stab them with straws.

These were annoying to eat, because the second they get a little melty, they fall off the straw and make slow-eating 4 year olds scream. Also, the straws that I used weren't sturdy enough to support the weight of the cube, so they bent. Refer back to the screaming 4 year old.

My biggest problem with this, though, was that the texture of the cube was unpleasant to eat. There weren't fruit chunks, but there was a lot of fiber from the pineapple, so you almost had to chew it. Not ideal.

Charlie barely ate his first one, and never wanted another. I felt the same way.

Conclusion: Dislike.

My first two forays into Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays have been delightful.

First up: Sticky Cherry Cake, from her Valentine's Day section. This cake uses canned cherries in the batter, and then the syrup from the can is cooked down with sugar and butter, and poured on top of the cooked cake.

Holy moly. This thing was rich, sweet, and delicious. The chewy, caramelized edges were the best part. For me, a little went a long way, and my family didn't eat much of it on the day I made it. However, our friends and their kids came for dinner the next day. We demolished the rest of the cake. One of the kids may have licked the pan clean.

Conclusion: Loved it. Sometimes you need something this decadently sweet.

The Chipotle Chicken Chili from the section for "The Big Game" is, hands-down, the best chicken chili I've had. I think that the element that sets it apart from other recipes I've tried is that, in the last few minutes, you add a mixture of beer and masa harina. This provides that nice, earthy, corn flavor, and also thickens the chili beautifully. I'm also a huge fan of the flavor that chipotle peppers in adobo give to any recipe, so this wins points for using them.

I realize this looks like a pile of cheese, with no chili.

Conclusion: I loved it. Matt loved it. Charlie ate an English Muffin.

Wrapping Up, and Up Next

In my heart, I'm not really done with My Calabria. Not even remotely. I've loved six recipes, liked five, and hated one. There was only one in-between take-it-or-leave-it recipe. Pretty strong statistics. There are many more intriguing recipes in this book, but I'm trying to limit my carbs right now, which doesn't really jive well with Italian food. There are plenty of fish and meat recipes left in this book, but I can't crack it open without trancing out, staring at a picture of mussel risotto, or daydreaming about her special doughnuts, made at Christmas, or her family's everyday loaf of bread, or, of course, the pasta.

 No doubt about it, My Calabria is a keeper. It's beautiful to read, and the food knocked it out of the park most of the time. I mentioned in specific posts that I was impressed with the precision with which these recipes correctly claimed that x amount of stuff would produce y number of finished product (meatballs, etc). I trust this book. 

Frankly, focusing attention on any one book isn't really working for me right now. I need diversity in order to keep myself interested in my food plan.

I have non-food-related reasons for hitting the pause button, too. Charlie's home from school, and keeping me busy. Plus, I've enrolled in a photography course, and want to focus more of my free time on that (not that I've been especially consistent at spending my free time on this blog, but that's besides the point. Leave me to my delusions of all the time I'll save!)

So, I'll declare a new book once my head is in the right space for it.

I do, however, want to name another Long Term Project: The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays. I enjoy The Pioneer Woman as a character. Her children's book, Charlie the Ranch Dog, is a long-running favorite with my Charlie (and with me, too.) Her food always looks delicious and cozy, and her photos are beautiful. I like that she lets us in to see her life at the ranch, and that she's so unabashedly herself, quirks, flaws, and all. I own two of her cookbooks.

I've cooked a grand total of one recipe so far.

Why yes, I would like another biscuit. Thanks, Ree!

See, the thing is, Ree cooks for cowboys. Hard-working, horse-riding, manual labor type of cowboys. They can eat whatever they want and stay rail-thin. If I cooked from her book semi-regularly, I'd puff up like a Thanksgiving Day balloon. There is no moderation in these recipes. Not that that's a bad thing. Butter and sugar make food taste good.

My conscience would never allow me to focus on one of her books, as I do not burn calories like a cowboy.

With its purpose being cooking for holidays throughout the year, A Year of Holidays makes sense as a long-term project. I hope Ree's food tastes as good as it looks. I sure wish I made her hot cross buns last Easter, instead of Nigella's. They're on the agenda for this spring.