A Week with the Pioneer Woman: Day 1

A week with the Pioneer Woman: Day 1 of 7
The Pioneer Woman Cooks by Ree Drummond
This week, I'm posting comments about each of The Pioneer Woman's five cookbooks. On day six,  I'll break the streak of daily book posts to post some pics of my road trip to Powhuska, Oklahoma, home to the new(ish) Pioneer Woman Cafe and Mercantile. On Day 7,  I'll post some pictures from my visit to the ranch house where Ree films her Food Network Show. True confession, though: I've never actually watched the show!  But I've enjoyed her cookbooks immensely, and today's post is about the book where I first learned about her, The Pioneer Woman Cooks.
How is it possible that it's been nearly ten years since the first book was published? In 2009, Harper Collins published The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I walked past a stack of them at Costco, and having a fascination with cookbooks in general, I picked one up and started flipping through it. 
What struck me right away was the combination of story, photography, and recipes, and the clear, distinctive voice she brings to the book. I was born and raised in the Midwest, and only a few pages in I was hooked. This was a cookbook about my home, full of recipes about the food in which we find comfort, and full of photos and stories glorifying the hard work on a ranch. I'd never seen anything quite like it, and made an impulse decision to buy a copy. 
In the book's opening pages, we get the story about Ree meeting her "Marlboro Man" on a trip home to Oklahoma between a move between L.A. and Chicago, a little bit about the ranch, and the big cast of characters in her life: her kids, the ranch horses, the cattle, the dogs. What's fun now, flipping through the cookbooks for these blogs, is to see Drummond's children so young in the photographs. Looking at all five cookbooks -- published over the course of nine years, the Drummond kids grow before your eyes. Honestly, though, it's taken me this long to really notice because I've been paying more attention to the pictures of the food and the ranch.
What appealed to me right away about The Pioneer Woman Cooks was the combination of pictures and stories about ranch life in Oklahoma alongside approachable family food.  These are recipes that are designed for busy working families, using ingredients that are easily found in most suburban or rural grocery stores. I put this first cookbook on my shelf next to much more high-brow, complicated cookbooks. Guess which one kept getting used more and more often? Yep. The Pioneer Woman's.
The very first recipe, BBQ jalapeño poppers (p. 14/15), is a variation on a bar favorite. Pico de Gallo  (p. 16/17) and Guacamole (p. 20/21) are next, then potato skins (p. 22 - 24). All of them personal favorites, and these are quality versions of each. And we're just 25 pages in at this point.
Another incredibly appealing feature of Drummond's cookbooks is the step-by-step instruction  accompanied by a photograph at each step. Cinnamon rolls (p. 36-39) and breakfast potatoes (p. 48-50) are  breakfast recipes I've used frequently enough from this cookbook that I no longer refer to them.
I'm blogging late at night, flipping through the pages, and I'm getting so hungry looking through these scrumptious recipes! The cube steak sandwiches (p. 88-90), onion strings (p. 92 - 93), and spicy pulled pork (p. 94 - 95) are all favorites. Dinner recipes I've made and enjoyed include Chicken-Fried Steak (p. 142 - 145), creamy mashed potatoes (p. 146 -148), and braised beef brisket (p. 160 -162). Desserts out of this cookbook that I often make are creme brûlée (p. 208-209), the chocolate sheet cake (p. 218-220), and mocha brownies (p. 221 - 223).
Other recipes for fried chicken, pot roast, macaroni and cheese, and so many more left me thinking, in 2009, that this was an the best, all-encompassing Midwestern comfort food cookbook I'd come across. To my delight, she published a sequel in 2012. I'll write about that one tomorrow!