Maddening, Soothing Shrimp Pasta

Over the past couple of weeks I've plugged away at my Pioneer Woman recipes and tried a few more.  I must say they are quite good.  I can see why she is pretty much a millionaire now.  

The first was Penne alla Betsy--named for her sister's famous shrimp pasta dish.   I made this on a Friday night after our home school co-op group.  We needed some cozy comfort food as we settled in for a rainy weekend and this fit the bill.  Penne alla Betsy calls for a pound of uncooked shrimp with tails on, etc.  I've no idea why those tails were so important because we had to remove them--almost immediately.  And furthermore, she asks us to cook the shrimp!  Next time I would most definitely buy the already cooked shrimp and shave a whole buncha time off of the prep. I don't want to know how much of the deveining they miss either.   But Pioneer Woman likes to do things the hard way for some reason.   Since I'm trying to follow her recipes the way she intended, I bought the raw and spent a good portion of my life peeling and deveining.    If you are impatient this is probably not the job for you--it is tedious work.  If you are easily grossed out, this is definitely not the job for you.  The good news is that if you are the type of person who finds peeling sunburns (or other such mom things) therapeutic, than it's not so bad--maybe even soothing.

The rest of the dish called for garlic, onions, butter, tomato sauce, cream and of course, penne pasta with a handful of parsley and a bit of basil tossed in.  The final product was just what I was hoping.   It was creamy, savory and satisfying.  I give it 5 out of 5 stars--especially if you cut down on the shrimp hassle.  I would definitely make it again.  Served up with garlic bread and a nice salad, it could pass for a fancy-shmancy meal and a nice change from more cliche' pasta dishes.

Peach Crisp & Pot Pie

This week I tried PW's Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce and Chicken Pot Pie which, in turn, required me to try Perfect Pie Crust.

I will begin with the Peach Crisp.  I made it for our Bible Study on Wednesday so I doubled it.  That is probably going to be the downside of me cooking these recipes.  I will double or 1.5 them and they won't be exactly what she intended.   Some of my peaches were nice and ripe and some were hard as a rock, but with a little extra sugar sprinkled over them and plenty of cooking time, they turned out just fine.  But with that many peaches, it generated quite a bit of juice which in effect, transformed my "crisp" into more of a cobbler.  It was yummy though--even with the lemon juice giving it a bit of a lemony flavor.  (I don't care for lemon, but I still liked this.)  I baked it the evening before, so I decided to give it quite a bit more heat time right before Bible Study.  That seemed to help thicken the juice quite a bit, but I would still call it more "cobbler" than "crisp".

But the real story here, Folks, is not the crisp.  It's most definitely the Maple Cream Sauce!  I have never concocted such decadence before.  I had to substitute FAKE maple syrup for the real that it called for--not quite ready for a second mortgage on this house--but it still was wonderful!   I did add a splash of maple flavoring to make up for my cheap syrup and maybe that helped?  Anyway, that stuff was amazing!  It made everyone forget the crisplessness of the crisp.  I am now dreaming up multiple uses for it.  It could be added to coffee to create caffeinated amazingness or some chocolate desert to cause an over-the-top effect.  Summer and I added some to our hot chocolate this afternoon.  Yum!!

On Saturday I made the Chicken Pot Pie.  I must confess, that like homemade mac n cheese, I'd never made it before.  I'm generally not a fan and I don't make things I don't like--it's that whole "I'm in charge of the kitchen" thing so I'll make what I like.  But PW claimed that it was Hall of Fame material.  And...it IS in the book, and I am trying to cook everything in there soooo...

Once again, I doubled it--one for us to eat and one to freeze.  It was surprisingly fun to make.  It was just what this tired out cook needed to restore some kitchen fun.  I love, love the smell and sounds of onions sizzling in butter--it makes me feel alive!  I used a Costco roast chicken instead of boiling my own--can you blame me?  It was fabulous!   The gravy was so yummy I knew the pie would be edible.

The biggest disaster occurred when I was putting the top crust on.  I had rolled it out, folded it in quarters for the transfer and then set it aside to stir or season or something.  When I went to unfold it on top, it was stuck together and wanted to rip apart.  I then proceeded to drop it into the gravy filling and got it all sloppy and ruined.  But I rinsed it in cold water and added some more flour and rolled it out again.  It went on fine and turned out mostly normal.

The finished product was very well received--especially by my boys who had tried KFC's chicken pie and proclaimed mine at LEAST equal to.  I know.  But they really raved about KFC's at the time and begged to order it again. (Not going to happen because they charge waaay too much for those with a family of 7 ordering, but now I get why.  It takes some work!  And I'm sure the colonel's workers make them from scratch.)   Anyway, my men LOVED it.  My girls said they liked it too but I suspect they have my genes in the matter.  I liked it too, but meat pies aren't my thing generally.  (It could have something to do with a certain childhood incident involving a TV meat pie dinner and resulting illness.)  I think this was totally worth the work though.  And like I said, it injected some fun back into my cooking.  We are all excited to have the spare in the freezer.
  
There you have it. I'm not sure how this project is going to work with my one other personal goal of losing 15 lbs (actually, I'm pretty sure.)

This Is For Fun (and a couple of you who know how to flatter.)

Alright, a couple of my friends have convinced me to blog my reviews of Pioneer Woman Cooking.   A little flattery goes a long way and now you're stuck with me.  (Actually, you are quite free to ignore me and that would be just fine with someone who quite frequently wakes up in the middle of the night with "WHY did I post that??"  regrets.) This is mostly for me--it's fun.

I must first state that I in NO way consider myself an "expert" or an authority on cooking or the culinary arts.  I DO admit to loving food and try to only make stuff that I personally find tasty--one of the best parts of being in charge of the kitchen.   This has led to eternal chubbiness--one of the worst parts of being in charge of the kitchen--aside from clean-up.     I am not original in any sense.  I pretty much make what I've tried from treasuries  of those more talented than me.  I will eventually tweak them to include more bacon or garlic or cheese, but that is as creative as I seem to get.
 
Well, this past year--summer, in particular--has seemed to suck the life out of my cooking repertoire   I don't know if it's the homeschooling, or perpetual moving or what, but my menus were lacking variety, excitement and awesomeness.  A few weeks ago, I picked up my copy of Pioneer Woman Cooks and remembered.  I had purchased it right before the big move broke loose, with the intention of mimicking the Julie & Julia idea of cooking through a whole collection of recipes.  And now, with the chaos behind me and a place to call home, I would very much like to follow through.  I set very few personal goals.  I'm not one to achieve.  I'm more about surviving.  But I would like to do this.  I don't have time for hobbies, but this one is practical and very gratifying and the whole family can participate in the reward.

Sooo, even if no one ever reads these, I will have some fun and we will eat some food that's new to us.  I'm having so much fun already.  I should set personal goals more often!