A week with the Pioneer Woman: Day 3

A week with the Pioneer Woman: Day 3 of 7 A Year of Holidays

By the time her third cookbook A Year of Holidays hit bookstore shelves (and fortunately for me, Costco warehouse tables) in 2013, Ree Drummond had published quite a few additional books, including three children's books about Charlie and another titled Black Heels to Tractor Wheels -- A Love Story. Since I'm doing a full week's worth of reviews about The Pioneer Woman, I'd like to point out here, approaching mid-week, that I'm really not stalking her. True, I'm a 40 something suburban dad who'd love to live on the ranch, and I did in fact road trip to visit the ranch house and Mercantile. But I've only read her cookbooks. And I've not seen any episodes of her Food Network TV Show. That means I'm not a stalker or full-time fangirl, right?  That disclaimer being said, I can't deny that I'm totally in love with her cookbooks. 
As the title suggests, recipes in this cookbook are sorted by holidays, starting with New Year's Day and extending to New Year's Eve. This cookbook was significantly bigger than the first two, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl from 2009 and 2012's Food From My Frontier. Of the five cookbooks she's released thus far, I find I use this one the least. It's not that the recipes are unappealing or inappropriate for the occasions. Instead, in my mind I think of this as a seasonal cookbook -- one only to be pulled out for certain holidays, and only then. Of course that's ridiculous, because the loaded cornbread (p. 20 - 21) from the New Year's Day Dinner section could be used at any point in the year. Perhaps it's a branding issue with me; if it's in the book as a new year's recipe, I only look at those recipes around that time of the year. Or, given my schedule, I'll think about the new year's recipes around January 20th -- too long after the New Year's celebrations to matter, too long before Valentine's to make plans.
There is a section titled "The Big Game," clearly a reference to the Super Bowl party spread. Have you ever noticed the ads in late January and early February that all say "Big Game" and are clearly careful not to say Super Bowl? Apparently you can't say Super Bowl without licensing it. I did just now because I live on the edge. Well, that, and I'm not selling a cookbook, beer, or cars. Anyway -- there are a few tasty recipes I have made in my kitchen. Buffalo Chicken Bites (p. 28 - 30), potato skins (p. 36 -39), eight layer dip (p. 42 -44) are recipes I've made in early April when my "big game" rolls around -- opening day for baseball. Turns out I'm really quite indifferent to the Super Bowl, outside of cooking a big spread to eat!
For Valentine's Day, there are red velvet pancakes (p. 50 - 53), chocolate covered cherry smoothie (p. 56 - 57), and five recipes for "treats for your sweets" (p 58 - 73). Other holidays with plenty of recipes are Easter (cheddar chive biscuits? Oh, yes -- p. 106 - 107), Cinco de Mayo (I love the Chipotle Salsa on p. 138 - 139 and homemade tortillas on p. 143-145), Mother's Day and Father's Day, the Fourth of July (check out the spicy butter grilled corn, p. 206-207 and key lime pie, a favorite, p. 214 - 215). Halloween finds petrifying pumpkin pancakes (p. 223 - 225) and caramel apples that don't require bags of shrink-wrapped tiny caramels (p. 230 - 231).
Thanksgiving, America's biggest eating day, gets its fair share of recipes between pages 240 and 299, followed by Christmas (p. 300 - 349) and back to New Year's Eve to close the book.
Flipping through this cookbook again for this week's blog posts I've found quite a few recipes that I'm looking forward to using again -- now that I've rediscovered them tucked away in the holiday cookbook!