Chicken Spaghetti

I made something that resembled Chicken Spaghetti tonight but I didn't follow Pioneer Woman's recipe exactly.  I did everything the same as her...

No I didn't...

Not at all.

What I did was this:

I boiled my Chicken Breasts, with my noodles (which were half spaghetti and half linguine, because that's what I had), my diced onion, diced bell pepper, and I diced two ribs of celery. 

I started the chicken first then diced the veggies, and once all that was added in I put the noodles in.  I wanted to just use one pot and have it all cooked at the same time.  Had I put the noodles and chicken in together the noodles would have been over cooked and there is nothing I hate more than mushy noodles.

That was the only difference...really it was.

The only thing that could have been added is a can of rotel, but I didn't have any in my pantry.  I know, what Texas woman doesn't have rotel handy. 

Even though, I didn't follow her recipe completely I am still using this post as my Chicken Spaghetti remake.

*I'm not going to rate it because I feel that's not really fair to her dish.  You can try it and tell me about it if you'd like, I was too lazy to try it exactly like she said.  I only wanted one dirty dish.*

Monster Cookies

I made Pioneer Woman's Monster Cookies today, and they weren't all that and a bag of chocolate chips.  I am not a fan of chocolate chip cookies and with the M&M's and the milk chocolate morsels I used that was all I could taste.  If I were to do it over again, I would replace the chocolate morsels with more peanut butter and the oats with the rice krispies.   

Taste-3.5 (I'm sure they would be a 5 if you like chocolate chip cookies)
Difficulty- 3 (lots of ingredients)

*This one is really biased, sorry!

Pasta Carbonara

I made this Pasta Carbonara of Pioneer Woman's on Monday night.  The only difference I made was that I used wheat noodles.  I know it may seem ridiculous when I'm using a pound of bacon to use wheat noodles, but when I'm at the grocery store, my eyes don't even see the white flour noodles for some reason.  It's like they aren't even there.  Anyway, it was extremely rich in bacon grease flavor...beware.  I would get all pumped up, take about five bites and have to back off for about thirty minutes.  I had about five bites Tuesday for lunch and put Tony Chachere's on it, oh my, it was divine. 

Taste- 3.5 (just because the bacon flavor could be overwhelming for some)
Difficulty- 3 (just because I'm a fan of one pot dishes)

Taco Dump Soup

This is not a Pioneer Woman remake...

I make this Taco Dump Soup when it's cold outside because it's a twist to my usual vegetable soup.  It's so easy and all you literally do is dump everything in after the meat and onion is cooked, and of course I use ground turkey. 

Hope you like it.

Queso

I made Pioneer Woman's Revved up Queso last night and it was good.  It's a hunk, a hunk of processed cheese.  Anyway, it's super easy.  I'm assuming she posted this recipe for the non southerners that read her blog?  If you are from the south, you know what good queso tastes like and you probably add sausage and rotel every time.  The only other thing added is an onion and a jalapeno.  I didn't add the jalapeno and it was good, I imagine that the jalapeno would make it taste better.  So for the rating...

Taste- 4.5 (what's not to love about sausage and melted cheese on a tortilla chip)
Difficulty- 2

Sorry this is so short.  I am going to attempt a soup of hers some time this weekend.  There is one ingredient that I can't find for some reason.  Hopefully I can find it or maybe I will have to use a substitute??

Food to Come

Tomorrow I will be making a queso of Pioneer Womans.  But, to be honest, we have had chili two nights this week.  On Monday night, I didn't even eat dinner and Lance had a sandwich.  Boring week.  Anyway, I'll have more to come this week, I promise.

Chicken, Tortillas, and Guacamole

Last night I made Tequila Lime Chicken, Tortillas, Pico De Gallo, and Guacamole.

I was most dreading the tortillas because PW even admits on the recipe page that it takes time and you'll get frustrated.  Surprisingly enough, they were sooooo EASY.  I followed the recipe using Crisco instead of lard like she says you can do.  Believe me, they were greasy enough.  I do not have a heavy duty mixer so I "cut" things together with a fork.  It works just as well.  I also let the dough sit for about two hours instead of one, just because I had to shower and go get the boys from school.  Once I formed the dough into little balls, I also let those sit for about two hours.  The trick is rolling them out very thin and not freaking out about the shape of them.

Taste- 4.5 (so much better than store bought)
Difficulty- 2 (even though it may take time, it was easy)

I made the pico de gallo while the kids were at school also.  This link also has the guacamole on it.  They were both super easy and very good.  I put a little bit of pepper in my guacamole though.  I, of course, think everything requires loads of salt...but that just me.  You can put less, if you don't want to be bloated.  But that's no fun.

Taste- 3.5 (maybe I just wasn't feeling it because Lance brought home queso and salsa from our favorite Mexican food place)
Difficulty-2.5 (there is a lot of chopping to do and I hate chopping tomatoes)

Lastly, I made Tequila Lime Chicken and it was pretty tasty.  The marinade is super easy.  You just throw all the ingredients into a blender and let it go.  I didn't let the chicken soak in the marinade as long as I'd like, poor planning was to blame.  The taste was still good and you can't tell me that grilling a piece of meat isn't by far the best way to cook it.

Taste- 3.5
Difficulty- 2 (you have to pound the chicken out...only reason it's not a 1)

Hope y'all try these out.  Maybe I'll cook something this weekend worth sharing?

Grilled Pork Roast

So, today I thawed out a small pork roast and decided I was going to make my grits and also some green beans.  When I was taking the roast out of the package I noticed they had cooking directions on them.  I generally just put it in the oven for a while in a roasting dish, but they also had instructions for grilling.  I don't know why I've never done it before but it was awesome.  I heated up the grill and kept it on a medium heat, somewhere around 300-350 the whole time.  I only turned the roast about four times.  I would leave it for fifteen minutes and then turn it over, so each side got 30 minutes.  One hour total.  I'm not sure I'll go back to the oven roasting again.

Tomorrow, I tackle homemade tortillas.  I'll put all the links up Friday and let you know how it went! 

Shrimp Pasta in a Foil Package

Tonight I made Shrimp Pasta in a Foil Package.  Trust me, it looked just like the picture.  I actually took one, then couldn't find my "hookup thing" for my camera, so I'm just waving the white flag and posting without a picture.

Really, I looked a long time.  A Long TIME!

So, the food...It was really good.  Not exactly your 40 degree weather type of meal but it would be great during the summer with a good glass of Chardonnay.  I used whole grain pasta for lots of fiber.  We don't shy away from fiber in this house.  Other than that one change, I didn't change anything but the portion.  I cut the entire recipe in half.  PW must be cooking for an army.  Or she only cooks every other day?  Maybe they love leftovers?  Who knows.

I always think the best things to go with a pasta dish is a Caesar salad and garlic bread.  That's exactly what we had and this meal really was good.  Although, I'm not sure I'll come across a recipe of hers that isn't.

I'm not going to re-post (is that's a word) any recipes because hers have pictures (step-by-step) and go into much better detail than I ever could.  I will rate them on a scale of 1-5 or "tastiness" (another made up word I think) and 1-5 for difficulty.

Taste:1-Being "Yuck" &  5- Being "oh my I think I'm in Heaven this is so good" 

Difficulty: 1-Being "Luke could cook this." &  5-Being "Uh, may swear off cooking altogether because this was so hard."

Taste- 3.5
Difficulty- 1

Look what my husband found...my camera hookup thingy.  This was the pic I took before I put it in the oven!

There I Go, All Crazy and Stuff

Alright, so I'm back from our Thanksgiving trip to the ranch and I've officially decided that I've gone CRAZY.  What was I thinking trying to be a copy cook??  I've been searching Pioneer Woman's cooking section of her website for a perfect dish to start off with.  She only has about 4 million recipes to choose from, so I'm going to start with her favorites.  If they call for beef, I'm going to use it, because I don't want to steer you wrong. 

I do have one request...If you would like to know how something is going to turn out, or would just like to know the difficulty level of something (because, let's be honest, she makes it all look easy) let me know what dish you are curious about and I'll make it and review it for you first.  That way I won't always have to pick myself.

 Naturally, I'm probably going to choose the dishes that I'd like to eat first.  I'm anticipating this LITTLE endeavor is going to take me at least a year.  I promise to do my best to keep up with at least two or three recipes a week.  I really want to do her justice, so these recipes, I will be following to the teaspoon!


**I am not endorsing Pioneer Woman and I'm pretty sure she has absolutely never heard of me or my little bitty 'ol blog.  I just think she is the coolest thing since sliced bread and it seems that a lot of other people are catching on to the 'P Dub' craze. 

I'll have my first post up tomorrow night or Tuesday night about a yummy looking seafood, pasta dish for dinner.