Welcome back PW!

Actually what I really mean is, welcome back to 'cooking with The Pioneer Woman' :-)  I hope you'll join me each week as I continue my way through Ree's wonderful cook book and trying her delicious recipes. 

And of course you can watch along with Ree on Saturday mornings on her new show on FoodNetwork. It airs at 11.30am/10.30c. I saw the first episode last weekend when Ree made her yummy chicken fried steak. I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I will have to make it soon as it's hubby's favorite too. 

This week I chose Maple Pecan Scones from Ree's book. But I'm actually calling mine Praline Pecan Scones. . . I'll explain why in a minute ;-)

Making scones is pretty simple, you start off with dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Then cut in 2 sticks of cold butter until you have crumbles.  Add in some chopped pecans, and then to that you add 3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream and one egg! Ree certainly can give Paula Deen a run for her money when it comes to butter and cream (and in other recipes, Mayo), that's for sure! You can tell these scones are going to be decadent, can't you?

Once everything is combined, roll the dough to a 10" circle and cut in to 8. Wow, all that butter and cream and I'm only getting 8 scones? I don't even want to think how many calories are in each one!!

Bake at 350 for about 22-26 minutes. Now, here's where I messed up! I set my timer but forgot to hit start - then I popped over to Cheryl's to see if she had any maple extract for the icing. She didn't have any, but she did have some Praline Liqueur! So I used that, hence the reason my scones are called Praline Pecan. But when I got back, probably after 10 minutes, I wasn't sure exactly how much longer to bake the scones, because the timer hadn't actually started. Ree did say not to let the sides get brown, so I had to just guess, and to be honest, I think I could have left them for at least 3 or 4 more minutes. They weren't undercooked, but I just still felt like they could have had longer in the oven.

Once they have totally cooled you whip up a batch of icing (I only used about half the recipe because I didn't have a full 1lb of confectioners sugar, and even then I had too much of it, so I would suggest you not do the whole recipe for the icing, you really don't need it). I sprinkled nuts on some (which was optional) and left the others plain. 

Verdict: These got great reviews from EVERYONE :-)  I tried one myself (actually only half, didn't want to ruin my low carb weekend) and took some next door to Cheryl. Her Dad tried one and said it was 'heaven', and her teenage son tried one and gave me two thumbs up. Jason also thought they were delicious. Kristen. . . . well, she doesn't like nuts so didn't care for the scone, but she sure enjoyed cleaning out the icing bowl!!!

So, if you want to impress your guests this weekend, serve them a batch of these scones. If you don't have the cookbook, check out THIS recipe for Vanilla Bean Scones on Ree's website, I'm sure they will be just as delicious. 

Our Weekend

Hi guys, I'm happy to see that most of our friends on the East coast got through Hurricane Irene with not much damage and just a short power outage. Glad everyone is safe.

We had a great weekend (despite the horrible heat of over 110 degrees!!) and I actually took my camera out with me (so I'd have something to blog about this morning) ;-)  First off, let me share something I made on Friday  - for the past couple of weeks I've been watching my carb intake. I've actually been trying to stick to the Atkins diet and limit my carbs to just 20 per day. I was doing ok, but then last week we had book club night and of course I just couldn't not taste all the wonderful food we brought. I had a couple of days eating whatever I wanted and suffered the consequences with a 2 1/2lb gain on the scales by last Monday morning! SO, I jumped right back on low carb again the next day, and I started browsing Pinterest for some recipes - I also made a 'low carb' board :-)  One of the recipes I found was this one,

It looked like a loaded baked potato chowder, but it said low carb so I knew it couldn't be potatoes. It is actually a Creamy Cauliflower soup with Bacon, Cheddar and Chives. If you click the picture above it will take you to the recipe.  So I tried it, and here's mine . . .

It was super thick and super creamy, really rather decadent tasting and I could only have a small cup full. But I really liked it. Jason tried it the next day and even he said it was good (considering it was cauliflower!). I like the 'pretend mashed potatoes' that you make with cauliflower so I knew I'd like this. Even Kristen said it was nice, although she didn't ask for a bowl, just had a spoonful of mine!

On Sunday we went out for brunch. A rare occasion for us, usually I make brunch at home on the weekends with eggs and bacon and homemade waffles. It was rather nice having it all made for me this weekend. We went to IHOP, Kiki's favorite for breakfast cos she loves the smiley face pancakes!

I was being really good and stuck to my low carb, and had the sampler platter . . . 

I asked for some toast instead of the pancakes and allowed myself one slice of wholewheat (to dip in my yummy eggs) :-)  Jason, (who said he's going to start low carb today with me!!!!!) had what I'd call a 'last supper'! Huge glass of orange juice AND his favorite Chicken Fried Steak, along with gravy, eggs, hash browns, and pancakes! What can I say?!!

After we ate, we took a drive through the old neighborhood we used to live in. It's a gated community with beautiful hill country views. (for those of you who don't know, we moved from there about 5 years ago because we thought we were going to move to Denver with Jason's job. We rented for 6mths after we sold our house, then decided we didn't want to leave TX, so we bought the house we are in now, in what I call a 'normal' neighborhood where Kristen can ride her bike and play outside with friends).

Our old 'hood' has had a new section added to it which we really had never seen. There are some gorgeous homes in it, all well over half a million $ - and yes I did manage to snap a picture.

Yesterday I also made a recipe from PW's cookbook. I'm going to share that with you all tomorrow. Did any of you see her new show on Saturday? What did you think? And what did you do this weekend?

Book Club Friday

Hi everyone, I thought I'd join in with Heather again this week for Book Club Friday. I'm still reading Harry Potter, and loving it!  I finished the third book last week and we watched the 3rd movie - The Prisoner of Azkaban, last weekend too. It was a little more scary for Kristen, poor thing didn't even want to go to the bathroom on her own after she'd watched it. Not sure she'll want to watch any more after this one until she's a bit older? 

So, this week I'm reading book #4 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.It's over 700 PAGES!!!!

 Harry Potter is midway through his training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup. He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. But unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal - even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.

700 pages? Wow, I can't remember when I read such a long book!  This one is a little more slow going for me, not that it's not good, it's just that I'm not getting much time to read this week except for half an hour at bedtime. I want to read through it quickly, so I can watch the movie too, but it might take me a couple of weeks at this rate. Still, I'm enjoying them. I feel like I can't even think about reading any other kind of fiction til I get all these books finished with? But who knows, I may take a break and read others in between.

This week has gone really quick. Kristen seems to be having a good first week at school. She brings homework home for the first time today, and they have until next Friday to complete it. I'm curious to know what kind of homework she gets as a 5th grader. Homework in the past has always seemed pretty simple and basic, it hardly seems worth doing at all!

I'm going to try and make a PW recipe this weekend too, and I think I might try to start sharing them on Monday morning. I figure the weekend is a good time to make them, because if we can't manage to eat them all (or don't want to eat them all because of the calorie content!, we can always share it with the neighbors) ;-) Still leaning towards the scones, but I need cream and maple extract in first. 

Have a great weekend. I'll be back Monday.

100 Days to . . . . .(fill in the blank)

did you guess 'Christmas' ?  OK, it's not actually 100 days to Christmas just yet, but on September 16th it will be!!  And I can't wait to start the countdown :-) 

Last year I signed up at the 100daystochristmas blog to get daily emails with helpful tips and challenges to get you through the Holiday season. And not just Christmas, there are several holidays and special occasions between September and Christmas, including of course, Halloween and Thanksgiving - there's also Columbus Day, Hanukkah and Veterans Day.  This past week I visited the blog (early as usual) and was thrilled to see that an EBook would be available this year for just $4.99. They also now have a Facebook page too, so I headed over there to 'like' them. I was even happier to see on their page that they wanted 50 bloggers to review a copy of the ebook, so of course I signed up :-)

Now, you might wonder why you need to purchase an ebook when you get all the information for free if you sign up for daily emails, but that's just it - you get them 'daily'. Jennifer realized that some readers might want to have all the steps laid out in front of them so they could 'read ahead'. Yup, I'm definitely one of those people. Half the fun leading up to Christmas is planning ahead, so this is very much my kind of read. In fact it's perfect 'bed time' reading for me.

Each day gives you a challenge, anything from setting a Christmas budget, to getting out your Fall decor and decorating your house. I love that each day has a title too:

94 days to Christmas: Shop-from-home-day. Window shop (online, or in the catalogs) in your jammies - gotta love that!

89 days to Chrismas - Christmas card consideration.  I love this one, I seem to get less and less cards each year, but still send the same amount out? I'll be reviewing my list this year!!

Now of course, I won't be doing every challenge, but I will be reading it, several times over I'm sure. Another great feature of the ebook is lots of helpful links to calendars, charts and lists that you can print out and use from ListPlanIt.

100 Days to Christmas Ebook is availabe in 3 formats, Kindle, Nook or PDF, from August 25th for $4.99

To see a sample page from the book click on over to the website  HERE

Don't forget to check out their Facebook Page too.

100 + days  . . . . and counting!  :-)

My guilty pleasure!

OK, so I know I'm not the only one hooked on this right now!  Some of you have been doing it for months ;-)

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, well all I have to say is "helloooo, where have you been?". Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where you can organize and share all the wonderful things you love on the web. It's taken me a little while to really start playing with this. I created an account months ago and to be honest never really used it, didn't know why I would want to use it and just didn't feel like it was something that would interest me. . . . OH HOW WRONG I WAS!!  

Now that I have actually started, I just can't stop pinning - if you're hooked also, you totally know what I mean right.  So, you can check out my boards by clicking the link over on the left., or the Pinterest button above. So far I've created boards like Fall and Christmas, Shih Tzus,  Wine, Tablescapes, Recipes, and my favorite 'My Style', and so many more. It is SO addicting!

I love searching for ideas for 'my style', look at this fun Autumn theme one . . . gorgeous!

Not only do I love looking for 'my style' pins, I decided I would try to create my own. Susan used Polyvore.com to create my Inspiration board for the dining room. It's pretty easy (and free) to use, so I created a style I liked . . . here's my first try,

 LOVE IT!

Then I decided to do a winter look, my inspiration being UGGS, those deliciously soft comfortable boots that are on my wishlist ;-) This is what I came up with . . . .

 And finally, I had to try something for Kristen - what else but with Wolves . . .

Too cute!  That's all I've done so far. Check out my boards for more fun and fabulous photos. And 'follow me' so I can follow you.  Happy Pinning!

Linking up with The Vintage Apple for Pinteresting Wednesday.

PW Fans - did you know . . .

Ree's new Foodnetwork show airs this Saturday, August 27th at 11.30am (could be earlier or later depending where you live). You can click HERE to see a sneek peak.

You may remember that I started 'cooking my way through' Ree's cookbook back in early 2010. I would post a new recipe that I had tried to my cooking blog, aptly named 'The Cooking Den'. Then a few months later my friend Melanie wanted to join in with me. We decided to each take turns picking a recipe to try and I started posting about it here on my daily diary. You can see a link over to the left showing all posts about PW. I also had intentions of reposting the recipes to my cooking blog but I got a bit behind with doing that. Half way through summer I think I stopped cooking from the book, it was just too hot and I think Melanie had gone on vacation so we just didn't do it each week after that.

Now that Fall is on it's way (I hope!) I am getting the urge to start cooking again, from my PW cookbook :-)  And I am so excited about her show too. From the preview it looks like her first recipe will be chicken fried steak, one of her hubbie's favorites. That is definitely one of my hubby's favorites too, but I think he'd prefer to just go out and order it rather than me cook it! Of course I'm not a bad cook, but I must admit that the few (and I mean VERY few) times I've tried to cook this I never seem to have great success. I followed a Paula Deen recipe once and the batter just seemed to fall off when I turned the steak over.

I've been trying to update my cooking blog with the recipes I've made so far from Ree's book. Some recipes I've actually tried and didn't even get around to blogging about! I will try to update those soon too. I did make the Jalapeno Poppers on New Years Eve and managed to get one quick picture before they were gobbled up. They were SO good, and I don't even like jalapenos!

I've also made her beans and corn bread. . .

Hopefully soon I can make a blog post about these recipes, and others that I've tried, and add them to my cooking blog. My aim is to start making something each weekend from Ree's cookbook. If anyone wants to join in by all means do so. You can get recipes off her site if you don't have her book. We don't have to cook the same things, I'm not even sure what I'll pick for this weekend, I'm leaning toward some scones because I have all the ingredients in, but nothing is set in stone!

Rumor has it that Ree has another cookbook coming out too, I just haven't heard when.  Are you a PW fan?

It's Here!!

First day back to school today, and here's my sweet little Fifth Grader!

We had no problem getting up at 6.30am this morning and quickly slipped back in to our morning routine . . . waffles for breakfast, then up stairs to get ready, put on new clothes and shoes, carry new 'Justin Bieber' backpack, and take photos before we drive to school! I think it's going to be a great year! 

The question now is, "what will I do all day, every day?" ;-) Ha! no worries there, I've always found plenty to fill my day til 3.30pm when Kiki gets home. Today I need to go to Target and return the chair slip covers I got. There's nothing wrong with them, but I ordered one from Walmart at the same time too to see if it was just as good a quality. I wasn't expecting it to be because the slip covers on Walmart's site were $8 cheaper than the Target ones. Guess what? They are the EXACT SAME slip covers!!! Same brand, same quality, SO, I'm taking Target's back (which were $17.99 each) and ordering more from Walmart (which were only $10.99 each) - it obviously pays to shop around!  

Still on the dining room subject, I actually received the chandelier last week that Susan had suggested on my Inspiration Board. BUT, I'm returning it :-(  I was shocked when I got it and saw that the candle sconces on it were not at equal distance apart! There's only 3 candles on it, this is the chandelier,

Now, don't those candles look like they are equal distance apart? Symmetrical?  Two candles were at one end, only 6" apart, and the third candle was about 10" away from those two? It just didn't look right at all to me. I called the company and the lady said from the pictures she could see (and she said she's looking at a LOT of them!) it looks like two candles are closer to each other?!!!  Errrr, Hello! It might be helpful to put those other pictures on your website!! This is the only photo on there, and if I'd seen that the candles were not equal, I would not have ordered this. Shame really, because I really loved the crystal on it. So, now I have to ship it back. It cost $30 for shipping to me, and probably will cost $20 to return, so I've spent $50 with nothing to show for it - I'm totally BUMMED :-(

I won't be ordering any more big items on line that's for sure. I'll have to look around the stores and see if I can find something similar. 

Well, I'm jumping off here, going to get ready to head out to Target. Hope you all have a great day.

A few last days. . .

Hi everyone, I'm still here! I had intentions of posting more this week but here we are Thursday already and I haven't done anything since Sunday night!!  This week seems to be a little crazier than usual, today even more so. It was piano lesson this morning (for Kristen) and we got finished there I headed to Walmart, thought they might have some sneakers we could pick up for school, but they didn't have much of a selection. We'll have to head out again tomorrow to hunt for some!

We're just home and having lunch. Later this afternoon we can head up to the school for 'meet the teacher' night, and to take up our school supplies. After that I'm headed straight out to book club. Our meeting is a little different this month, we didn't read a book but we're having a fun movie night instead. We picked something most of us had already seen (so we can still chat too without missing what the movie is about) - Mama Mia, starring Meryl Streep :-)  We're having a pot luck too so it should be a lot of fun.

I'm also busy this week knitting baby hats for a local photographer! I've teamed up with someone that will use my hats as baby photo props and in exchange for the hats I can use her photos on my Etsy store to sell more. I'm excited about it as the professional photos I've seen on Etsy really do help sell the hats - and goodness knows my photographs leave a lot to be desired!!! For instance, here's a little pear hat I knit ready to sell for the Fall . . .  (I took the photo, lighting is terrible!)

and here's one I found on Etsy with a professional photo. . . .

HUGE difference right! So, that's what's keeping me busy this week. I'll be back in a few days and hopefully next week once school starts I'll have even more time to get organized on here and post more.

Made a start - need your opinion!

Well, I've made a start on my dining room re-do! Remember the Inspiration board Susan did for me . . .

and remember my dining room . . . .

The first thing I wanted to do was repaint the black buffet and put it back on the other wall (where the picture is). I ordered some Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (which seems to be all the rage in blogland right now) and is perfect for me, because it requires no sanding or priming! Color is Old White.  The lovely Debbie from DebbieDoos answered a ton of my questions on how to paint this and more importantly how to wax. Thanks Debbie, I couldn't av done it without ya ;-) So here is the buffet now . . . .

and here it is against the actual wall it will stay on . . .

My original thought was to leave the top black, so it stands out more against the cream wall. But I'm not totally convinced. This is where you can help - would you paint the top to match the rest, or leave it black? Here's a better picture of the top  . . . 

Other things for the room include:

Chandelier - ordered, on back order

Chair slip covers - ordered, being shipped this week

Curtains - need to get a curtain pole first then try curtains I already have from Ikea and buy some faux silk ones from Target to try. I'll be asking your opinions again when I get them ;-)

Orchid - bought from Target (you can see it on the buffet)

Mirror - still looking for one

Bench - not getting one yet, but will keep my eye out for something at a yard sale that I can re-do!

Lamp - using one I have, and will add burlap to the shade this week

Picture - swapped the one I had, for one that was in my bedroom, darker shade so it stands out more on the wall.

Tray - using one I have, just not sure what to put on it yet!

Burlap runner - yes, got this one from Etsy.com - love it.

Rug - not yet, I'd prefer to get one when I get wood floors (one day!)

Here's the before again . . .

and here's the after . . . .

It was hard getting pictures today because the sun was streaming through the blinds. I'll be taking more photos as I finish off the room.  Do let me know what you think about the buffet. . . black top, or cream?

Oh, and I forgot to mention, I managed to get those ugly handles off the buffet so I'll be going to look for new ones tomorrow!

Linking up with  Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday.

Book Club Friday

I did it! I read the second Harry Potter book last week after watching the first movie (again) but this time with Kristen. She kept saying she didn't want to watch it, but she sat all the way through it and later admitted she really liked it. That is the reason I picked up the 2nd book last week, and I read it in just 3 days.

 

 So, this week for Book Club Friday, I'm reading book # 3, The Prisoner of Azkaban. Oh, and for the record, we watched the second movie (as soon as I'd finished reading the book) earlier this week!  I am loving the books. I forgot how great a read the first one was, how I couldn't put it down. And the second book was exactly the same, even though I had seen that movie a few years before - still a fantastic read.  I loved watching the second movie straight afterwards too, seeing little differences here and there, but again, still a great movie to watch. I've seen only the first 3 movies of Harry Potter, so after this 3rd book and re-watching the movie, everything will be a new experience for me! 

 

What can I say about this book? Most of you will probably have read it by now (more than once perhaps) but for those who haven't, well I'd have to say, "what are you waiting for?". These books are SO good, the three main characters so endearing. I don't know what else they all get up to in the coming books, but one thing I do know, I've got some good reads ahead of me ;-)

 

Next week is our last full week of Summer vacation! The kids here return to school on Monday, August 22nd. I'm always amazed at how quickly each season of the year passes. Not that we're moving in to a new season yet here in TX, it is still so very hot. Not one day in the 10 day forecast is below 103. We're all just praying for rain right now - surely it must come soon!

Sweet Bliss!

A few weeks ago I tried this delightful bottle of wine. Bet you can't guess why I picked it! Just kidding, of course you can guess I picked it because of it's cute label. I LOVED IT as soon as I saw it. What's not to love about a white chocolate dipped strawberry on the label.

I'm not a huge fan of overly sweet wines, although when it comes to white wine I do prefer a sweeter one than a dryer one. I much prefer a Riesling to a Chardonnay for instance, but some of them can be too sweet. I thought this pink wine would be overly sweet too, but my local grocery store was handing out samples one Saturday afternoon and when I tried it I was rather surprised. It was lovely and fruit,y sweet but not too sweet and really quite refreshing.  I took a picture of the back of the label . . .

The best word to describe this wine is YUMMMM. Aromas of fresh strawberry jump from the glass and harmonize with flavors ranging from white peach to watermelon. This wine is unbelievable delicious with bbq chicken and it's positively indulgent when paired with red velvet cake, strawberry shortcake or gelato. After all, everyone deserves a little Sweet Bliss.

Doesn't that just make you wanna go out and buy a bottle ;-)  I googled the wine and found they have a really sweet website too. Check it out HERE (or click the picture below)

They also have a sweet white wine . . . I just love this label too (although I haven't tried the white yet)

and a sweet red (I also have to try), chocolate dipped cherry, YUM!

I've been watching my 'diet' this week, trying out something new (I'll talk about that in another post) so I won't be drinking wine this weekend. I'm watching my carbs, so instead of wine I'll be trying a gin and 'diet' tonic :-)

CHEERS!