The Pioneer Woman's Pot Roast

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.

TWD: Maybe Next Week...

So, instead of making the Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake with Katya of Second Dinner and the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie gang, I'm taking the week off. I'm getting my shopping list organized to tackle the rest of the November recipes, including the All in One Holiday Bundt Cake, which I've made before to great acclaim. Stay tuned!

Thanks, LW, for letting us switch things up and bake out of order this month, and thanks, Katya, for picking this cake.

Next week: Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef selected Cran-Apple Crisps on page 422.

Last week: Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte

TWD: No Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte Today

Sorry, April from Short + Rose - cutest blog ever, by the way - since chocolate and cherry is not our family's favorite flavor combination, I have to save this one for a more appreciative audience. Sigh. But wow, it does look good. Visit the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll for Cherry-Fudge Brownie Tortes to die for.

Next week: Katya of Second Dinner chose Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake on pages 269-272.

Last week: Sweet Potato Biscuits

Barefoot Contessa's Roasted Butternut Squash Salad

Have a butternut squash taking up real estate in your crisper? Make this! You won't be sorry.

Think maple-roasted squash tossed with arugula, cranberries, and walnuts in an apple cider-shallot vinaigrette.

Although this salad is pretty perfect as is, I'm fairly certain that a handful or two of crumbled bacon wouldn't hurt it one bit.

Thanks to Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet for turning me on to this one! Love, love, love it.

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad with Warm Cider Vinaigrette
Recipe from Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics (or on the Food Network site)

TWD: Sweet Potato Biscuits

This week on Tuesdays with Dorie...the Sweet Potato Biscuit battle: cut versus drop.

I was excited to try these, because 1) I had such great success with Dorie's basic biscuit recipe, and 2) I'm already thinking ahead to Thanksgiving. These little babies can be made ahead (!), which, for a Thanksgiving hostess with a lone persnickety oven, was reason enough to give them a whirl. Thank you for choosing these, Erin from Prudence Pennywise - sweet potatoes + starch + butter = happiness, in my mind. (You can see the recipe on Erin's blog.)

I rolled out one batch of sticky circles, got sick of the whole thing, and decided to make drop biscuits for the remainder.

As you can see, neither version is terribly impressive from a visual standpoint, but they did taste good. Despite the resemblance to hockey pucks, the biscuits were tender and flaky and sweet potato-ey.

Will they make an appearance on my Thanksgiving table? It's hard to say. I may be in the minority, but I actually preferred these warm - they seemed to get a little gummy when cool. My family expects a high-rising biscuit, so I'll have to stick with Dorie's originals. But I am glad I tried them!

Next week: April of Short + Rose decided on Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte (pages 284-285)

Last week: Allspice-Cinnamon Crumb Muffins

MS Cupcake Club: Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes

If you've been following me for a while, you know that I love free child labor in the kitchen. I have a four-and-a-half-year-old baking sidekick who will do any task in return for a few licks of the batter.

If one preschooler is good, then half a dozen must be better, right?

I made and froze the Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes a couple of weeks before my daughter's playgroup came over for some Columbus Day fun. I thawed and frosted them the night before, and turned the kids loose with sprinkles and picks. (I got some cool vintage-y cupcakes picks at Fancy Flours.)

By the way, Kim from What the Whisk picked these out from the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book - thank you, Kim! These were perfect for October. We're not posting recipes in this club, so if you want to make 'em, go put a few more dollars in Martha's pocket and buy the book. It won't hurt, I promise.

Now, about these cupcakes. Who was expecting cake flour? I was expecting something more pumpkin-muffiny, but these babies are delicate, and not too heavy on the pumpkin flavor. If you aren't into pumpkin, you'll love them. If you want something with a little more oomph, you might try another recipe. I did like these, and they certainly made a great base for some Halloween flair, but now I want to make pumpkin bread. And that cream cheese frosting (which we also used last month on the Zucchini Spice Cupcakes)...you just can't go wrong.

Next month: Karen from Karen's Cookies, Cakes, & More chose Candied Sweet Potato Cupcakes on page 243

Last month: Zucchini Spice Cupcakes

TWD: Allspice-Cinnamon Crumb Muffins

I'm going to get right to the point here. The Allspice Crumb Muffins (chosen by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table) are frigging awesome. (Can you tell I've been watching too many Family Guy reruns?) Definitely my favorite Dorie muffin so far - and maybe one of my top five Tuesdays with Dorie recipes. Yes, they are that good.

Moist, tender, with that little je ne sais quoi of allspice in the muffin and streusel (the streusel alone rates a huge thumbs up, by the way)...I was going to freeze some for later consumption, but I don't think that's going to happen. These muffins are not long for this world. Even though I had the common streusel leakage/spreading problem, I didn't care. The crunchy stuff that came off of my muffin tin was delicious as well. I think a trip to the freezer would solve the streusel issue, but to tell you the truth, it just didn't bother me that much.

So why am I calling them Allspice-Cinnamon Crumb Muffins? Well, a month or so ago, my real-life and blogging buddy, Mary of Popsicles and Sandy Feet, visited the Mother Ship...King Arthur Flour in Vermont. She brought me back a bag of these interesting little things:

And I had to think of a way to use them. I threw a scant half-cup of Cinnamon Flav-R-Bites (yes, that's what they're called) into the batter, and they melted into the muffins, adding just a little cinnamon edge. While they look like, um, rabbit pellets in the package, if you soak them in a liquid for about 10 minutes before baking (I put them in my melted butter/milk mixture), they soften up nicely.

Thank you, Mary - and thank you, Kayte, for picking these muffins!

Next week: Erin of Prudence Pennywise selected Sweet Potato Biscuits, page 26

Last week: Split Level Pudding

TWD: Split Level Pudding

This week the Tuesdays with Dorie crew is whipping up Split Level Pudding with Garrett from The Flavor of Vanilla. And while I wanted to pay tribute to Garrett's love of all things vanilla by sticking to the standard (I won't say "plain") vanilla custard, I was in a coffee kind of mood. So...Coffee Split Level Pudding it is.

On top of a simple chocolate ganache, you pour your pudding, hence the split level. My pudding layer was infused with instant espresso concentrate. I skipped the butter - based on my experience with other Dorie puddings, I didn't really think it needed it. Then you let it set in the fridge...

And...gaaack! Not pretty. Creamy, flavorful, but not attractive. I had some sort of strange wrinkly thing on top of my puddings. The dreaded pudding skin. (Slaps forehead.) I forgot the plastic wrap.

I decided I wasn't going to record my curdled-looking puddings for posterity. Sorry...

If I had to make these again, I'd skip the ganache layer. I firmed up quite a bit, so that I had to gouge it out of my ramekin with the spoon. That sort of killed the pudding moment for me, to tell the truth. But other than that, excellent choice, Garrett!

Next week: Allspice Crumb Muffins, as chosen by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table (pages 16-17)

Last week: Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart

TWD: Skipping the Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart

I have no doubt that the Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart would be fabulous, but I will leave it to my fellow Dorie-ites to tell you all about it. Carla of Chocolate Moosey picked it, and with a blog name like that, I think you can expect a really top-notch chocolate confection. I just couldn't pull it together this week, but I can't wait to try it.

Next week: Split Level Pudding as chosen by Garrett of The Flavor of Vanilla, pages 384-385

Last week: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

Cottage Cheese Pufflets...I was intrigued. When was the last time you used cottage cheese in a cookie? Me, never. So of course, I had to try this one.

I was once a cottage cheese fiend, but no longer. When, as a naive girl of 18, I departed Orange County, California for the cold, mysterious East Coast, I still believed that all cottage cheese tasted like Knudsen's - you know, the kind in the pink tub. My first trip to my college dining room's salad bar cured me of that misconception. "What is this stuff?" I asked a fellow first-year. "Does this taste off to you? It's all runny."

It was well into my junior year before I finally acknowledged that the dining room staff weren't trying to kill me, and that East Coast cottage cheese is very different from West Coast (runnier, with looser curds), but I couldn't figure out why. I was in a Massachusetts supermarket when I saw something called "California Style" cottage cheese on the shelf. I realized that I wasn't crazy. My preferred cottage cheese and I were reunited again.

Of course, 15 years later I go to buy cottage cheese for this recipe and I can't find my Cali style anywhere. So I'm blaming Friendship Dairies' distribution chain for my semi-failure at this recipe. I used mixed-berry jam from IKEA as the filling, and made a half-recipe of dough. The super sticky dough was very tasty, but I'm afraid these were a bit too much work for the result. My pictures were...not pretty, so I'm leaving you with a picture of my beloved pink tub instead.

Thanks, Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes - you picked something unique for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie. And based on your pictures, you managed to make yours look attractive, unlike me...

Next week: Carla of Chocolate Moosey chose the Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart, pages 355-357

Last week: Flaky Peach Turnovers