No food picture. Just a plug for this awesome new cookbook, about which I was so dorkishly excited I pre-ordered from Amazon months ago.A couple of years ago, I was on the hunt for a recipe for Texas sheet cake. Google brought me to the Pioneer Woman, and I've been enjoying her blog and recipes ever since.
My father-in-law celebrated his 77th birthday last weekend, and I offered to make lunch. I wanted to make something simple, classic, comforting - and I had a hunch that I would find something to fit the bill within these pages.
Chuck roast on sale? Ding ding ding! Pot roast! What better to please an old-school frugal Yankee, known for his excellent pot roast? Except that this would be a (shhh) western recipe. My in-laws have grown to expect that I will throw in a little west-of-the-Mississippi attitude whenever possible.
And without going into too much detail - pot roast, after all, is the essence of simplicity, and I do want to you to run out and grab this book, or put it on your list for Santa - I can tell you that the Yankee loved his birthday pot roast. We all did. The Pioneer Woman Cooks, by Ree Drummond, is full of stick-to-your-ribs, man-pleasing recipes (the stuff they actually want to eat, as opposed to stuff you make them eat), gorgeous photography, and the musings of a self-described "accidental country girl."
Pick yourself up a copy. As Ree herself might say, it's the right thing to do.




