Ree Drummond's Blog

This Saturday’s Recipes by The Pioneer Woman

This Saturday is a brand new episode of “Home Sweet Home” on Food Network. My kids are helping me shoot it, my production company in the UK is editing it together, and it’s been a great team effort! I just wanted to show you the dishes I’ll be making—it’s a fun, exciting, food-centric show! I’m making a Dutch Baby from my recent cookbook…

 

Granola that just takes a few minutes to make…

 

This amazing bread omelette, which has swept the internet in the past two months…

 

And Dalgona Coffee – I tried it, and it lives up to the hype!

The Pioneer Woman: Home Sweet Home airs this Saturday morning on Food Network at 10am/9c and I hope you enjoy!

Saturday’s Recipes! by The Pioneer Woman

As I have been documenting on Confessions, I have a new “Staying Home” episode airing on Food Network tomorrow, and I think you’re going to love the recipes! These will be featured on the show Saturday morning, and the recipes will be available on Food Network’s website!

These were a lot of fun to make with my kids…but even more fun to eat.

 

This breakfast! Oh my word. (That’s a hash brown waffle under there!)

 

Now hear this: This is the wackiest grilled sandwich you’ve ever seen. I won’t even begin to list the things inside…but it’s an impossibly tasty combination.

 

This pasta looks like basic noodles…but it’s actually sweeping the internet (for good reason.)

 

And you are going to want to make these no-bake bars! (Trust me. Please.)

Staying Home: Episode 3 airs on Food Network tomorrow (May 2) at 10 am Eastern/9 central.

Hope you enjoy, and I hope you’re all staying safe!

Tomato Soup 2.0 by The Pioneer Woman

As I have covered on Confessions, the Drummond kids and I have been making the most of our time at home by filming episodes of my Food Network show in the Lodge kitchen. Episode 2 of this “Staying Home” series airs tomorrow morning (April 25) and I wanted to share one of the recipes from the show.

 

It’s called Tomato Soup 2.0 and basically takes generic condensed tomato soup and turns it into something you’d eat in Paris. And I’m not even sure if they have tomato soup in Paris, but if they do, they’re going to want to serve this recipe from now on!

That made no sense.

 

You can see the step-by-step recipe on the show tomorrow, but here’s all you do:

1. Heat a little olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat.

2. Add a couple of spoonfuls of jarred pesto. Stir it around and cook for a minute.

3. Add 2 large cans condensed tomato soup along with 2 cans of water.

4. Add a regular can of diced tomatoes with their juice. (I used tomatoes with oregano and garlic, but plain is fine.)

5. Stir and bring to a gentle simmer.

6. Add a generous splash of SHERRY! It is transformative. If you don’t have sherry, a little splash of white wine will do. (And I actually used cooking sherry, which is sold in supermarkets next to vinegar! Crazytown.) Stir and continue to heat the soup.

7. Add dried parsley, salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Stir.

8. Add grated parmesan and stir.

 

9. Serve with garlic butter croutons and extra Parmesan on top. And guess what I used for the croutons? Frozen Garlic Texas Toast! I just cut the frozen pieces into cubes, sprinkled with grated Parmesan, and baked them according to the regular instructions on the package. They are amazing on the soup, and so crispy and delightful.

My house is full of people, everyone wants to eat all the time, and I’m into easy food these days. Canned soup and frozen garlic bread for the win!

“Staying Home: Episode 2” airs on Food Network this Saturday morning at 10am/9c…and I hope you enjoy the homemade feel of things. (I also hope you get a kick out of my accidentally setting a wooden spoon on fire…but you’ll have to tune in to see how that went. Ha.)

And I hope you’re all doing okay. Sending lots and lots of love from the ranch.

xoxo,

P-Dub

Chicken & Veggie Fall Skillet by The Pioneer Woman

I tried and tried to think of something bad to say about this recipe…but I haven’t come up with anything yet! Everything—from the seasoned roasted chicken to the tender autumnal veggies, to the luscious balsamic glaze to the crispy toast it’s served with—is just lovely. Winner, winner, chicken dinner and all that jazz. Here’s how to make it!

Start by preheating the oven to 375.

 

Next, add some cumin, salt, paprika, and chili powder in a small bowl…

 

 

Stir to mix it together. (You can have some fun with this spice mixture and spike it with whatever floats your boat. Curry powder, cayenne, the list goes on!)

 

 

Lay out the chicken thighs on a plate or sheet pan…

 

 

Then season both sides with salt and pepper and rub the spice mixture all over it.

 

 

Cut about half a butternut squarsh (I love pronouncing it like that) into chunks (or you can buy it already cut up in some supermarkets!)…

 

 

Then cut a peeled red onion into chunks…

 

 

And separate them a bit.

 

 

Brussels sprouts! I love them! Trim them and cut them in half. (And truth be told, I lop off the bottom and cut them in half first, which makes it easier to pull off the damaged outer leaves.) Or…yes. You can just buy them already trimmed and halved. What is the world coming to?

 

 

For the herbiage (not to be confused with verbiage, which, unlike herbiage, is actually a word), grab some thyme, rosemary, and sage. Simon and Garfunkel would be 75% pleased with these choices!

 

 

Pull the leaves off the thyme and rosemary, and stack it together with the sage leaves…

 

 

Then chop them pretty fine.

 

 

Time to start cookin’! Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat, then add a couple to three tablespoons olive oil. Grab the chicken with tongs…

 

 

And place it skin side down in the skillet. Babysit the chicken to make sure the skin doesn’t stick to the skillet, and brown the first side for about 4 minutes.

 

 

Turn the chicken when the skin is nice and golden, then brown the second side for about 2 minutes.

 

 

Remove the chicken to a plate and set it aside…

 

 

And pour off most of the excess grease. (You can always add some back in later if you miss it!)

 

 

Throw a bunch of garlic cloves into the skillet (if the skillet seems too hot/smoky, you can reduce the heat to medium-low.) Stir them and cook them for a couple of minutes, making sure they don’t burn.

 

 

Add the onions and herbs…

 

 

And stir them, cooking them for 2 to 3 minutes, being careful not to burn them.

 

 

Raise the heat to medium-high. Add the butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower (which I didn’t mention above, but here it is!) Sprinkle them with salt and pepper…

 

 

And stir them around for about 3 minutes, allowing them to start to cook and get color around the edges.

 

 

Splash in some red wine (or, if you prefer, chicken broth)…

 

 

Then give the veggies one more stir.

 

 

Nestle the chicken into the veggies (use tongs to make room and move some of the veggies around as needed) and put the skillet into the oven for 25 minutes.

 

 

While the chicken and veggies finish cooking in the oven, toast some good sliced bread in a skillet with lots of butter. Set them aside and tell your family it won’t be long, and that they can stop banking their forks and their heads on the dinner table. (Hypothetically speaking.)

 

 

Pull the skillet out of the oven—yum! I wrestled with whether to do 400 degrees or 375; I think at 400, the veggies might get a little more of that roasted color on the outside…but just follow your heart! Ha.

 

 

Serve up helpings of chicken, veggies, and toast (and a couple extra sage leaves)…

 

 

Then drizzle on balsamic glaze (it’s sold in squeeze bottles in supermarkets now) and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds. The balsamic glaze adds a little sweetness and acidic bite, which really wakes everything up. Delicious! And you can have fun with this: Use sweet potatoes, turnips, and other root vegetables…or you can go rogue and add bell peppers, broccoli, mushrooms, whatever you like.

Enjoy, friends!

 

Pork Rind Chicken Strips! by The Pioneer Woman

I’ve been excited to share these delightful chicken strips on my blog ever since I first made them earlier this year. They’re in my new cookbook, and if you can get past the initial weirdness of the recipe title, you will become absolutely smitten with how tasty they are.

 

 

First: About pork rinds! As I write in my cookbook, they have long been relegated to the snack/chip aisle in the grocery store, but when the low carb/Keto revolution happened, people discovered that, when ground up, they make the most magical stand-in for breadcrumbs. (It gets even more fun when you consider that pork rinds now come in lots of different flavors, like regular chips.) Pork rinds as chicken strip breading is definitely one of those “who thinks these things up?!?” scenarios—kind of like the person who decided to try putting Preparation H. under their eyes to reduce swelling. Note that I did not write that comment about Preparation H. in my cookbook. It’s a good thing I still have my wits about me in some areas!

Anyway, I encourage you to give these a try! This pork rind breading can be used to bread pretty much anything you’d normally coat in breadcrumbs: fish sticks, fried mozzarella, the list goes on. Also, it’s just really fun to say “I made pork rind chicken strips” and watch the confused fascination that appears on the listener’s face.

Here’s how to make them!

 

Cut 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts into thin strips. You can also buy a package of chicken tenders if you prefer!

 

 

Place them into a bag or bowl and pour in buttermilk…

 

 

Along with some hot sauce, salt and pepper. Easy!

 

 

Seal the bag and just smush (or stir, if it’s in a bowl) it around until the chicken is all coated. Set it aside.

 

 

Now comes the fun, pork rindy part! In a separate bag or bowl, add some pork rinds…

 

 

Then crunch/crush them until they become little crumbs! Some bigger chunks are fine.

 

 

Pour them into a bowl…

 

 

Then, in a separate bowl, add a couple of beaten eggs. That’s the breading assembly line! (So easy, isn’t it?)

 

 

To “bread” the chicken, lay one of the strips in the pork rinds…

 

 

Turn it over to coat…

 

 

Quickly dunk it in the egg…

 

 

And put it back in the crumbs to coat, pressing to make as many crumbs stick as possible.

 

 

Lay them on a sheet pan as you go. Look at how crispy and fun!

 

 

When they’re all coated, heat 1 inch of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

 

 

Working in batches of 2 or 3, lay the strips in the oil and fry for about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes on the first side…

 

 

Then flip them over and fry them for a couple of minutes on the second side, until golden and crisp. You’ll want to babysit these, moving them around with tongs to make sure they don’t burn. You can lower the heat to medium if it looks like the pork rinds are getting too brown!

 

 

Remove to a rack while you fry the rest.

 

 

Now, if you’re a normal consumer of chicken strips, you can serve them right away with ketchup and/or ranch. But I make a really nice creamy avocado sauce that kinda rocked my world: In a food processor, add avocado, mayonnaise, fresh dill, garlic, lime juice, salt, and pepper.

 

 

Whiz it around until it’s a light green masterpiece!

 

 

And there ya go, my friends. Chicken strips coated in pork rinds, what is this world coming to?

 

 

I’m not sure, either, but I’m totally along for the ride.

Enjoy, friends!

 

 

Meg and Other Matters

Meg, Alex’s lifelong friend, got married Saturday! She’s Hyacinth’s daughter, and while it’s a little surreal that she is now a married woman, she found pretty much the perfect man for her in Stephen. It’s a beautiful thing to witness when love happens and it seems so right.

 

 

Alex was her maid of honor, and it was so fun to watch her take her job so seriously. She truly celebrated Meg and Stephen, and the joy she felt all day was palpable.

 

 

Gosh, it seems like just four years ago that these two were graduating from high school. Wait. It WAS just four years ago that these two were graduation from high school! Time is flying by way too fast.

 

 

In Pawhuska news, summer has officially begun and we’re having fun welcoming visitors from all over! This is an old truck that a friend of ours restored using old Drummond Ranch vehicles. It’s shiny and fun.

 

 

I’m having fun keeping the store stocked with fun new things along with favorites we’ve had from the beginning…and we’re working on opening a new store a few doors down later this summer.

 

 

And here’s Charlie’s! Our small but passionate-about-sweets staff is doing such a great job.

 

 

And I think the kiddos are loving it.

 

 

The adults are, too!

 

 

As for me, I am enjoying having Alex and Paige home AND am in the last days of finishing my cookbook before it goes to the printer. It’s a push not unlike childbirth, and in the end I’m looking forward to healing (ha), getting my energy back (haha), and sharing my new baby, I mean cookbook with you…and I really think you are going to enjoy it. I still to this day think of all of you when I write a cookbook, because it’s so important to me that it be useful and usable. I’ll show you the cover in a few days!

I Buried the Lede

It’s been a busy time on the ranch, so I’m going to start with this peaceful image of our cows against the setting sun. I snapped this while Ladd and I were driving home from town Saturday night. He and I had just had a short and sweet date at…

 

 

Charlie’s!

Yes, our dream as a married couple has come true: We now have an ice cream shop in town so we can drive in and get an ice cream cone whenever we want. Except we’re discussing limiting ourselves to once a week because this could be dangerous. We’ll see how that goes…

 

 

Before we opened, we had murals painted on the wall.

 

 

It’s amazing what a white coat of paint and black lettering can do for a place!

 

 

This is a pic from opening day. I think these might have been our first customers…at least one of our first!

 

 

Can I just say that opening an ice cream store in our little town has been a complete pleasure??? Ice cream is the common thread that unites us all.

 

 

So is candy. I had fun picking out all of this cute stuff.

 

 

My high school friends all came to Pawhuska last week for the mini-reunion that we try to have at least every other summer. I have blogged about this through the years: After our twenty-year reunion in 2007, we all had so much fun (after not having seen one other much since high school) that we vowed to keep the connection going in the years that followed. We made good on that promise, and have gotten together almost every summer since then. It’s been a really special thing to reunite with old friends at this time of our lives: Since we started having our mini reunions in ’08, some girls have had babies, some girls have become grandmothers, some have battled cancer, some have lost spouses and parents. One of our friends lost her son. We were just barely starting to turn forty back when we reunited. Now most of us have cross over the line of fifty. We used to kick off our reunion talking about who dated whom in high school; now we talk about hot flashes. (And who dated whom in high school. Ha!)

Old friendships are very, very precious. I love these girls.

 

 

Our chefs at The Merc made some special things for us all to share. Chicken fried lobster is now on my list of five favorite dishes of all time. Um…more on this later.

 

 

I buried the lede! Alex graduated on Thursday. (This is her “friend” [haha] Mauricio, who graduated on Saturday!) So excited for both of them as they head into the real world later this summer.

 

 

After dinner that night, we all played cornhole near the hotel and (predictably) ate ice cream.

I think I have an ice cream problem on my hands.

Alex and Ice Cream and Ladd—Oh My!

Alex is graduating next week! (I really should have put a question mark on that sentence, because I truly can’t believe it.)

 

 

I’m so proud of her. And I can’t wait for her to come back home and live with me forever!

In my dreams…she actually has a job and is moving to Dallas later this summer.

(But that’s closer to me than college was!)

 

 

News from Pawhuska: We are opening a little ice cream place in town later this week. It will have cones and sundaes and fun candy, and Bryce and his friend Kevin were happy to volunteer as tribute (tasters) last week.

They’re so self sacrificing!

 

 

These are the bare bones of the ice cream place: We basically painted the brick white, had the bench built in, added pendant lights, and brought in some tables. We have a little more work to do this week (we’ll paint some fun murals on the wall) but we’re almost there!

(I’ll tell you what we’re calling it later this week.)

(It might make you cry.)

 

 

I finished all the recipes for my new cookbook, The New Frontier!

 

 

It won’t be out until October and I still have a lot of editing to do, but to have all the recipes finished and written is a great feeling.

 

 

I’m ending with this photo of Ladd and me because I sure do like him.

Happy Monday, friends!

April Come She Will

Because winter was especially long, spring burning happened a little late this year…but boy, did it happen! A consolation for not being able to start burning until April, however, is that the wind has been so favorable to burning. With the exception of a couple of days they had to abstain due to the wind being strong enough to make my face ripple in a slow-motion video (which is precisely why I do not participate in any slow-motion videos), most of the days have seen gentle breezes…ahhhh. Oklahoma, we are loving you right now!

 

 

I was at the Lodge the other day when Ladd was burning, and the fire skirted up against the north side of the house. This isn’t the first time this has happened; it goes all the way back to when Ladd and I were dating, and he and his dad and brother burned around the Lodge just before a Drummond family cookout began. I watched as the fire got closer and closer, and before I knew it, the flames were all the way under the (then old and rickety) wood deck. My mother-in-law Nan and her mom, Edna Mae, started filling stock pots in the kitchen and pouring water through the wood slats as the guys manned the fire truck and attacked it from the other direction. I joined in, filling whatever vessels I could find, running out on the deck to try to douse it. The fire ultimately went out, and we all sat down to eat.

I had only one question: “Does this happen a lot?”

Everyone laughed. (I’m still waiting for the answer.)

 

 

I posted this on Instagram and Facebook, but wanted to let you know about my partnership with Purina to create a line of all natural dog treats! I’m very proud of the treats, and I’m very proud of all my doggies, who have been rock stars during Purina’s visits to the ranch. (It helps that they love the treats!) Nice lip lick, Walter!

 

 

Our good friends’ daughter got married a couple of weeks ago. I’ve noticed that most of the selfies of Ladd and me are when we have both showered and dressed up. And showered. Ha.

 

 

Bryce went to his first prom Saturday night. He’s just a sophomore, so he still has a couple more ahead. He has a great group of friends in Pawhuska! Also, this was funny: I posted this photo on Instagram Sunday and pointed out that Bryce is the Anthony Michael Hall lookalike in the back. A keen reader pointed out that Sunday happened to be Anthony Michael Hall’s birthday! What are the chances? I feel this has some spiritual relevance somehow, given my obsession with 80’s movies.

 

 

April sunrises have been remarkable! And very pink! I’m trying to breathe them all in, despite my calendar in April, which is probably a world record for me in terms of the number of things going on in the world around me. Finishing my new cookbook, filming new Food Network shows, working on a new project for this website (I think you will like it!!), getting ready for Alex’s graduation, and various other kid, husband, animal, and family things coming over the next several weeks! It’s a busy time of year…but the sunrises will get me through.

I hope you’re all having a good spring so far, and I hope you’re breathing in the sunrises! (Or sunsets, depending on your sleep schedule!)

Birthday Girl

I have been at the Merc quite a bit over the past week, and I had the honor of meeting Glendene, who is turning 100 this week!

 

 

Glendene came (with the important women in her family) to the Merc to celebrate, and I was so excited that I happened to be there so we could share a few words (and a hug or two.)

 

 

This is what life is all about, isn’t it? Glendene has lived a full, rich, and layered life. She has witnessed changes in our world that most of us have only read about. And on her hundredth birthday, she’s surrounded by those she has nurtured and raised. She’s surrounded by love.

Happy birthday, Glendene! You deserve to celebrate!