Team Ree! (the fanaticism continues)
Friday, November 19, 2010 at 6:30AM So, yesterday, I talked about the Pioneer Woman's macaroni and cheese. I ate it all week like a preparation. Like pre-gaming, but without the liquor. (I do have a baby to keep an eye on, after all.) But I knew I needed to have a Pioneer Woman-centric table of food for watching Throwdown. (Well, tray tables of food since we don't have a coffee table in our new living room. You know, coffee table corners = baby eye poke-out.)
So for dinner I made PW's Corn Chowder with Chilies. It came out a little thinner than I would've liked (even though I added extra cornmeal) and I'm wondering if it's because I used half and half instead of heavy whipping cream. (I'm sorry but I just can't bring myself to add heavy cream to anything - especially a cup and a half of it. I cringe at using anything above 1% milk. I'm so sorry, Ree; I know I'm a disappointment sometimes.) The soup was still incredibly tasty, though, just more like soup than chowder.
UNTIL I asked the hubby to heat it up for me on the stove before I got home (I actually made it the night before). I assumed he'd keep an eye on it while it warmed. He put a lid on it and let it fend for itself. When I got home, it was boiling. Oops. BUT, it helped the consistency! The soup thickened up perfectly. Hurrah for fortuitous culinary missteps!
Oh, but a recipe note: she says to use approximately 5 ears of corn for 4 cups of kernels. I used 8 ears and that yielded just a little over four cups. Maybe I had underachieving corn? I also didn't find canned chipotle peppers so I added 1/4 tsp of ground chipotle pepper instead and the heat was just right for me. I also used 3 slices of turkey bacon instead of 2 slices of regular bacon because that's simply what I was in the mood for. Next time I'd use 4 or 5 slices. (And, because the turkey bacon doesn't render much fat, I added some olive oil to the pot when cooking the onions.)
To top the soup, I made PW's Cheddar Puffs. I hadn't ever made these before, so I made a test batch the night before. Let me just say, I actually moved my bedtime back so I could stay up a bit later and eat a few more, even though my head was nodding with tiredness. I even ate a few for breakfast the next morning. They are so indescribably good - and they're made with two ingredients that I utterly can't stand on their own: Dijon mustard and cream cheese. Yech. Hate both of those items - except when they're incorporated in something else (cream cheese frosting, cheesecake). On these cheddar puffs, though, they're magic. I actually made a double batch.
Then, for the actual viewing of Throwdown, I made P-Dub's Mexican Layer Dip (also known as 7 Layer Dip in many circles). This gave me the opportunity to make another recipe from PW's cookbook: her guacamole (and, of course, her pico de gallo, which I have made several times before and love).
Confession: I've always hated this dip because it has one of my food nemeses in it - sour cream. I cannot stand sour cream (unless, like cream cheese, it's incorporated into something else). So when I read PW's note that her friend sometimes mixes her sour cream with cream cheese, I wondered if my hatred for them would cancel out if they were mixed together?? I had to know!
I also used to hate guacamole - and then my friend Mike made some from scratch one day and forced me to try it (I have learned to like many many foods because Mike forced me to try them) - and it was delicious! No one told me this was what guacamole was supposed to taste like! Since then I like it, but only when it's freshly made.
So I shredded cheese (sharp cheddar and Colby Jack), whipped up the pico de gallo and guacamole, and had the hubby mix half a cup of sour cream with half a cup of softened cream cheese (it was gagging me to mix them together). I heated up the refried beans with a few dashes of Chipotle flavored hot sauce, mixed in the green chilies and then was ready to assemble!
I have to admit, though, that mine will never be 7 Layer Dip - because I will always skip the layer of olives. Olives = yech. And that's not changing. Although, I could add a bonus level of cheese... hmmm...
Anyway, so it was dip assembly time and I got to it. Beans, check. Sharp cheddar, check. Sour cream/cream cheese mixture, check (yech?). Guac, check. (Guac and I are such good friends now that we're on a one syllable basis.) Colby Jack, check. Olives, no. Pico, check. Time to serve and dig in!
The tastiness result? YUM! I liked it! It's a dip with a white cream product in it that I actually like! I cannot wait to make this again.
And then? Then I squee'd many times over during Throwdown. "Look, it's Marlboro Man! Oh! It's her kids! Oh my god, it's Charlie! Eee! Look at the ranch! Look at the Lodge!! Oh, Ree is so pretty! Look, you can see how tall she is! She's so tall! She's just so tall and gorgeous!"
It was ridiculous. I am so remarkably happy I had Danielle to share this with and a very tolerant hubby who is amused and entertained by my big girl crush on Ree. (It helps that he loved the corn chowder and ate several bowls of it two days in a row.)
I flipped through the cookbook last night and I'm doing pretty well getting through the recipes. Next up from the cookbook will be the lasagna and the pie crust (which I'm going to use for her pecan pie) for Thanksgiving. I cannot wait to make these (and taste them!)
Pioneer Woman, cooking, food, television in food, television 
Reader Comments (3)
So what happened in the Throwdown?! I don't have cable, so it's been killing me that I couldn't see this!
Oh no! It might pop up on Hulu in a few days; they seem to put the show on there.
Ree won!!!! I always wonder if the hometown person tends to win because the judges can always tell whose dish is whose, but based on the criteria, she totally deserved to win. Her dinner was really basic and down-home (of course) and traditional. And Bobby didn't make mashed potatoes! You can't have Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes.
I'm waiting for PW's behind-the-scenes post. The show was set up like she challenged him instead of the usual him challenging her. I wonder if that's how it really happened. And I wonder if the show reached out to her or if she and her PR people reached out to the show. I don't know if she'd tell us that, though.
Sometimes I'm glad that, even though Candy and I may seem to, we don't actually have a psychic connect. That's mainly because right now I think she may still be internally squeeing in her sleep about PW winning on Throwdown. LOL