The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl

Ree Drummond's cook books are impressive! First, the quality of her books is top notch - nice thick pages, beautiful photography with the step-by-step processes, maybe something I didn't need but still impressive for those that do, simple uncomplicated recipes which are easy to read and a winning personality that comes through on every page. Her recipes are down home, old school good and delicious. She cooks like my grandmother cooked - simple, uncomplicated, get the job done with delicious results. I never remember as a child having a bad meal at my grandmother's table. You think maybe we have lost something in this country when it comes to cooking? Between the media, medical profession and the food manufacturing (especially the soy growers) industry, which has influenced the first two, we have been driven like cattle down a path of very unhealthy eating for decades. Chemicals, soy additives and hormones have replaced fresh, organic and healthy foods. People have become lazy and negligent about what they eat and most of the time reach for something easy and quick. No wonder so many people are over weight and unhealthy. Remember meat producers do use a bizillion pounds of soy byproducts in cattle, pig and chicken feed annually and we eat the byproducts of that adulterated feeding habits. There is nothing wrong with butter instead of chemical laden margarine. Whole milk is good and has good fats and nutrients. Good quality lard, bacon and beef is healthy for us. Chickens raised w/o hormones and grass fed should be the norm in our diets. I believe that Ree tries most of the time to avoid adulterated foods but if on a rare occasion you wish to indulge in a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie made with Cool Whip and Oreo cookies it probably won't kill you if you maintain a healthy diet the other 99% of the time. Love many of her recipes but not all of them so one has to be their own best judge when it comes to the foods they cook and eat. Her Fettucini Alfredo is natural with nothing but cream, butter and cheese - nothing wrong there. Her soups, stews, meats, roasts, salads, pasta and most desserts are all made from natural products so what can be wrong with that - good, delicious, healthy and nutritious fare. I might avoid Cool Whip but the rest of her recipes are worth the try. Clearly her family burns a lot of calories throughout their day and therefore can consume more food including desserts than many of the rest of us sedentary folks so be mindful that maybe a dessert after every meal is not in your best interest or a plate full of mashed potatoes loaded down with cream cheese. Some of her recipes are best reserved for special occasions or once in a while. I'm a great cook but I know one thing, after many decades of avoiding making pie crusts, with many failures in the past using oils and being the embarrassment of my Grandmother, I finally was successful using her recipe for making a pie crust using BUTTER! It was delicious and a real testament to her photos, techniques and ingredients. Love her books, recipes, appreciate her warm friendly manner, the obvious closeness of her family and her willingness to share all of this with the rest of us. I'm a fan and will continue to be one as long as she sticks to what she knows best - good down home cooking!

There are many reviews here both good and bad. All I may add is that I am an avid supporter of this book. As a 69 year old mother and grandmother, who has been cooking for 60 years, my finding is that this cookbook is a visually delightful return to basic, homey, delicious cooking with a sometimes surprising and decidedly modern edge. The recipes have been family tested and I can assure that they most certainly will appeal to men and children of all ages. In modern cookbooks and cooking programs, far too little attention is being paid to recipes with universal appeal and made with ingredients readily available from American farms and backyard gardens - ingredients that are freshly grown/raised in American soil and on American ranches. These basic ingredients used wisely are superior and good for us and have sustained us for generations. They also have made us the healthiest people on earth. Carelessly prepared fast food, inactivity, and the reluctance of modern women (and men) to cook meals 'from scratch' are the elements that are wreaking havoc on the health of America's children and families not traditional American cooking. Ree Drummond's book brings us back home. Although there are some recipes in Ree's cookbook that are basic and can be found in various basic cookbooks, her variations and the stunning photographs separate her cookbook from all others. The photographic recipe presentations are as close to fool-proof as you can get for beginning cooks and are very pleasing to the eyes of those of us who have been cooking for decades. Even though familiar with many of the basic recipes, after thumbing through the pages, I couldn't wait to try Ree's versions. Reading little vignettes, interspersed throughout the book, about Ree, her husband, and her family was not a distraction but rather a pleasure and her sense of humor had me happily giggling throughout - an added delight certainly not typically found in cookbooks. We have, of late, become inundated with modern culture that tends to neglect traditional families and their values. What a refreshing treat it is to read of at least one young family who is kept busy with loving and respecting one another and living out and fostering American traditions. Ree Drummond has captured America at its best among the pages of a cookbook. Read about this dear family, admire the photographs, cook the recipes, cherish the content, and enjoy this book to its fullest - in my opinion, you won't and can't be disappointed.

I always watch Ree and the gang on TV when she's on, initially I've heard about her many years ago, how she was the first real food blogger who started the trend, and she's still one of the best that there are. Ree is not only very warm and welcoming but her food is very interesting, I love her flavors and imagination when it comes to food and tasty combinations, if I want European recipes I look to Nigella Lawson and Rachel Khoo, for American Comfort its usually Ina Garten, Alton Brown and Ree Drummond. From the very first day of owning this book I was all ready cooking from it, it's not often that I get a cookbook, get to the second recipe, stop there and literally just make it, well such was the outcome with this one, after making a spectacular Pico de Gallo salsa that my boyfriend ate up almost with the bowl itself to the amazing PW's Potato Skins which I made for his granny as she went wild for them as we all did, Ree is full of delicious foods and surprises. The flavors fresh, but best of all I like getting books form people whose palates I admire, they will give you the best tasty secrets! I have all of her cookbooks now and I use them often for inspiration, I love leafing through one on the weekend then getting up, picking up a thing or two and making a new delicious meal, she's great at food and this book is a marvelous extension of her gift when it comes to creating spectacular flavors. I love the picture layout, you will never have to guess how to cook any of this amazing stuff, Ree is a talent and I'm so happy that I get to see and taste her creations. This has wild and comfort stuff, new flavors with old ingredients and some pure comfort food, I adored the tangy Buttermilk Biscuits, luscious flaky Chicken Pot Pie, decadent Cheese Grits made with polenta and the famous Chocolate Sheet Cake, can't wait to make more stuff as I randomly try out the recipes, they are all very tasty and comforting. - Kasia S.

I can honestly say I love this cookbook and the recipes are good. I've wanted to buy her book for some time now wondering, what is all the hype about????Lol Now I know, the Pioneer Woman has written an adorable, realistic, simple, well put together cookbook. Cute stories of her home life and yummy recipes. I've made several so I could give an honest review of the recipes in this book. The cinnamon rolls we're very good for breakfast, love them! The lasagna was nice, large quantity, but tasty! And her chocolate sheet cake was soooooo moist and yummy for dessert! Some of her recipes make a lot, but I always check the quantity of the recipes I cook so not a problem. And I much prefer a cookbook on my counter top as to a tablet scrolling her blog for the recipe. I don't understand why others are rating based off of what's on her blog that's been copied to the book....isn't that the point of a cook"BOOK"?? Not a cook"blog"....lol. And to the complaints about too many pictures? Sure there are a lot, but that's how she chose to lay out her cookbook, great references through every step. I have been cooking for years, so no, I don't actually need so many photos when I cook. I actually prefer none because following a recipe and looking back and forth at photos to follow can get a bit hectic in the kitchen, but that's OK. A change up is good amongst my books. Anyways I'm so glad to own this book, I adore it! And I cannot wait to buy the rest of her cookbooks!!😍😍😍

You won't really find anything new here, though there are some newish suggestions to old standards. My husband is a country boy at heart, and our five boys LOVE the hearty, stick to your ribs fare that The Pioneer Woman dishes up. I have all her cookbooks, and break them out often when I'm in search of some crowd pleasing grub. From this particular book, I'll review these recipes: +Buttermilk Biscuits-I don't know if I did something wrong here, or if this recipe just isn't our thing, but I wasn't a huge fan of these. Mine came out VERY dense and heavy, not something we want in a biscuit. And though we ate them, the ones we make from a bisquick box are better. That being said maybe my baking soda was past it's prime-I'll give them another shot at some point. +PW Breakfast Burritos-Made with hash browns, sausage, eggs and some other yummy goodness these were a hit! My kids gobbled these up, my husband had seconds and they even went for leftovers the next morning. (I made these for dinner one night) THAT is my definition of a good recipe! +Simple, Perfect Chili-Here in Virginia we're having a rough time getting into the Spring frame of mind. Most likely it was that foot of snow Mother Nature dumped on us last week, but no matter, a good pot of chili is a cure all for the winter blues. And this one was YUMMY! Nothing different here, except for the inclusion of Masa-a type of Mexican corn flour-it added a bit of thickness that was very welcome on a cold night. A keeper! +Chocolate Sheet Cake-I got this recipe off her website a few months ago and made it one weekend just to try it out. And boy is it SWEET! I LOVE chocolate, but even I could only eat a small piece, and since it didn't have that fudgy texture and taste that brownies have, it was a bit much for me, but my younger kids loved it! All in all, there are more winners here than many cookbooks have, and even the few recipes I've made that we weren't huge fans of weren't inedible, just not good enough to replace what I already have in my arsenal. Love the pictures as well, and the funny little anecdotes in the recipe add a bit of a laugh to your food preparation! Worth the money!

I promised myself I was not going to purchase this book. I told myself it was a colossal waste of cash when I could pull up the recipes on her blog which I've been reading intermittently for years. But then I leafed through it in the bookstore and started thinking about how nice it would be to have a hard copy to cook from on my countertop instead of referring to my laptop. So I ordered it through Amazon and here I sit, reviewing a book I said I'd never buy. It is a small hardback of the variety that lies nice and flat on your countertop while cooking. You don't worry about getting nasty cracks in the book spine if you're OCD about book appearances (as I am). The pages are nice and thick so an errant hot grease spatter won't wreck the whole page. The small step by step photography is nice and helps guide the cook through each recipe with confidence. Ree's home photography is actually very good quality. I can't say my photographs of food I prepare under natural lighting can possibly ever compare to the sharp, clear photographs in this book. The sections of the book include: starters, in the morning, dinner, supper, and sweets. There are subsections on Sunday dinner and cowgirl dinner party (food appealing to ladies, roughly speaking). You will not find upscale gourmet recipes in this book. The recipes are for feeding hungry people, think hungry pack of children or ravenous husband (or girls who really like to eat, like myself). These recipes involve solid home cooking. Don't like butter? Please buy something else. Afraid of red meat? Move on. This is comfort food, not at its finest but of a comfortable, confident home cook. I always make Ree's apple dumplings for my grandmother's birthday. This year I wanted to do a little something extra so I prepared a plate of the cinnamon rolls from the book. I've been hearing people wax rhapsodic about them. The dough was a revelation. It was light and springy and supple and decadent with butter and sugar. My family raved. I was a little less enthralled with the icing and will probably substitute a more standard glaze next time so the richness of the dough shines through completely. That being said, I have two pans frozen in my deep freezer that I am daydreaming about eating. I made the lasagna next. I was raised on a version similar to PW's and have since graduated to the Barefoot Contessa's turkey sausage version. This PW lasagna includes breakfast sausage with the hamburger meat. I remained skeptical as I plopped the heavy casserole pan in front of my husband. He took a bite and requested that this become our standard lasagna. So much for the more authentic versions I've prepared over the years. I confess I ate as much of the lasagna as he did. It was great! I also made the basic enchiladas this week. They were good. I'd make them again, but we both found them a little one dimensional and added lots of extras at the table to make them shine. Two home runs out of three hits are more than adequate for this kind of home cooking. The book is essentially a hard copy of the blog, meaning lots of tidbits about the ranch and the kids. Many people love this bird's eye view of the ranch. I don't. I buy cookbooks for recipes, period. If these kind of extras excite you, you are in for a massive treat. The way PW drones on about Marlboro Man is very juvenile. In short, this cookbook is from someone who doesn't take herself too seriously and it should be read the same way. PW didn't set out to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking. She has a good time with her brood on the ranch and in the kitchen and that is what she is trying to convey to you through the book and blog. I like slightly more technical books so I'm giving it a solid four stars. I think most people would enjoying cooking through the recipes in this book.

I'm just a guy who does most of the cooking for my family. I have my staples that everyone likes, but I wanted to expand my standard recipes beyond the things I normally make for some variety. What I liked about this book is its practicality. I am not looking for exotic dishes that require spices, herbs, and utensils that I don't have. The recipes in this book are easy for normal human beings to make without having gone to culinary school. The best feature of the book is that every step, from chopping, measuring, and mixing to the final cooking steps, is all shown with a picture at each step. It is what I term "Cooking for Idiots." Everything is defined and explained as if I have never been in a kitchen before - which is perfect. (remember the part above where I said I was a guy?) I was able to prepare and make a dinner item that I never could have pulled off without the easy instructions. The recipes are down home style dishes. I can't wait to make the Chicken Spaghetti, or the lasagna, or the biscuits and gravy . . . Mmmmmm. 8/5/11 - The chicken spaghetti is truly remarkable. It has become the favorite dish of my family. I have three kids and a wife and there is no other meal that we have that everyone will agree on (there is always someone who doesn't like something). This recipe is incredible! I also have tried many of the other recipes - everything is great. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I've followed Ree's blog, like many other reviewers. I even read the reviews before buying the book. I still decided to buy it...okay, FIVE copies of it, because I know several internet-challenged people that I think will really enjoy the book (I'm NOT going to cook for the entire neighborhood anymore!)... one that's got internet, but has enjoyed my re-creations of Ree's recipes... my 18 year-old son, who will SOMEDAY move out of the house, and I want him to eat better than fake potatoes and cheap mac & cheese...and myself, because sometimes it's nice to have an honest to god copy of something instead of a print-out that'll fade and get icky if it gets splatted, or a laptop across the kitchen. That said...I didn't expect hundreds of new recipes. I didn't expect a SERIOUS cookbook with ONLY recipes. What I DID expect (and got 110% of) was Ree's twist on cooking, kidlets and life on a ranch. Personally, I LIKE the fun layout with pics of the family and farm. I LIKE the 127 pictures that accompany macaroni & cheese (okay, not 127, but PLENTY)...I REALLY like the little explanation of chaps, and I agree with Ree...yum! So I give my review of 5 out of 5 stars, because the book "is what it is"...a fun read with some REALLY good recipes. Some really simple, some a bit more involved (requiring 3 arms, preparing ahead and a whisk). Did anyone else notice that the olive cheese bread is different from the blog's recipe? LOVE LOVE LOVE it! Thanks, Ree!!!!

It's delightful to have a cook book that is not fancy and allows for real home cooked meals. I came across the Pioneer Woman (Ree Drummond) on the Food Net channel and record it daily and most of the recipes shown on TV are in the book. It's also not just a cook book, it's a book that gives you plenty of tips to make cooking easier like preparing meals and freezing them. The recipes I feel are economical which allows you to purchase the groceries without breaking the bank. One negative comment is she uses a lot of beef, and the most expensive cuts (rib eye and fillet) because she lives on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma and no doubt the beef is affordable and available at an excellent cost. I have also purchased the book called Pioneer Woman .... It is the story of how she met her husband Ladd and how she became what she is today. I really recommend these books they are GREAT. Thanks

Pour celles qui comprennent l'anglais, un vrai plaisir de cuisiner à l’américaine style western. rien à voir avec le McDO!!! Ces recettes ne sont pas pour maigrir, mais pour se faire plaisir, surtout en hiver. Jusqu'à présent toutes les recettes ont eu un vif succès! Essayez les cinnamon rolls ! vous m'en direz des nouvelles...Yummy.

Lo compre hace tiempo porque da unas recetas muy ricas. Lo único es que son para gente que tiene una actividad física alta porque tanto las medidas como los ingredientes están adaptados a su familia que trabaja en un rancho. Genial para un día especial. Salen muy ricas

I am a fan of the author's blog, which is a wonderful resource. Ree Drummond writes her blog with a huge amount of tongue-in-cheek humour and great photos that follow each step of each recipe. One could not possibly go wrong following one of her recipes. Her first cookbook is written much in the same way....with a good amount of humour, wonderful photos (the author is also the photographer), and great recipes that are a blend of country style, ethnic and other mixes. That Ms. Drummond is smitten with her ranch life, her Marlboro man and her kids is obvious, both in the cookbook and on her blog. If you are looking for a cookbook that contains only recipes, you may just be disappointed in this book. However, if you are looking to experience an adventure whilst looking for a perfect recipe, you'll love this book.

Seit mehr als einem Jahr lese ich regelmäßig den Blog von Ree alisa The Pioneer Woman. Besonders in meiner Zeit in Lateinamerika hat sie mir mit ihren Rezepten das Wasser im Mund zusammenlaufen lassen. Gestern kam das Kochbuch dann zu mir nach Hause. Es ist vollfarbig gedruckt und enthält viele Elemente, die ihren Blog so einzigartig und liebesnwert machen. Neben den Rezepten erzählt sie Geschichten über sich selbst, ihre Familie und ihre Transformation von der Stadtpflanze zum Leben auf einer Rinderfarm. Gespickt mit allerlei Fotos ihrer Kinder und Tiere ist es bereits optisch eine Wohltat. Viele Rezepte sind durch ihr eifriges Bloggen schon bekannt, aber es gibt auch ein paar neue Rezepte, die ich sofort ausprobieren wollte. Von den vorher veröffentlichten Rezepten hatte ich bereits viele ausprobiert. Ein echter Renner waren die Cinammon Rolls, auch wenn ich ein wenig mit dem Teig kämpfen musste. Von den neuen Rezepten sahen viele sehr gut aus. Das einzige, was schwierig ist, ist die Umrechnung der amerikanischen Angaben. Hier wäre es gut gewesen, wenn auch die Angabe in Gramm und Liter vorhanden wäre. Die Rezepte gehören ganz sicher nicht in die Gruppe der Low Fat-Gerichte. Butter wird beinahe überschwenglich verwendet. Mit der ein oder anderen fettsparenden Maßnahme (weniger Butter, Milch statt Sahne etc.) sind die Gerichte lecker und gesund. Dank ihres Koch-Blogs habe ich wieder richtig Spaß am Kochen. Ich würde jedem empfehlen, mal in dieses Kochbuch, das so viel mehr ist, reinzuschauen. Der einzige Minuspunkt, den ich geben würde, ist, dass verhältnismäßig viele alte und wenig neue Rezepte vorhanden sind. Da die alten aber so super lecker sind, ziehe ich keinen Stern ab.