The Pioneer Woman vs Reality

Things I am not going to do in this post are as follows. I am not going to talk about the Pioneer Woman’s aka Ree Drummond’s personality even though it irritates me more than Rachel Ray, which is saying something. I will not be discussing any aspect of her life only her recipes, even though many unsavory reports abound. And finally, I will try to assume that people who like the Pioneer Woman have a valid reason for doing so, although that may kill me.

I first was made aware of the Pioneer Woman a few years ago. Since food blogs are always a good idea in my eyes I took a look. Now there are others parts to her website other than food but since none of them held any interest for me I only perused the cooking section. I left her webpage around 5 minutes later feeling rather nonplussed. Her recipes just seemed so…basic. So…boring. Ok, I thought, nothing to hold my interest, she’ll probably fizzle out in a short amount of time.

Cut to the present day. PW is bigger than ever. Book tours, a movie in the works, a food network show, and hordes of devoted followers, including many of my friends. Baffled I looked at some of her newer recipes thinking I had perhaps missed something, perhaps she had developed into a chef in those few years and had really started to do actual cooking. Once again I found nothing of interest, I delved deeper, and it was then I started to get irritated. I used Google relentlessly, reading articles and blog that were for and against PW. Many of her detractors focused on parts of her life that held no interest for me. I cared about one thing only. Bad food.

I began my foray into Pioneer Woman cooking by perusing her website. I read through her recipes for the past few months to get a feel for her style of cooking. PW generally posts a recipe around every three days. Thirty recipes later my eyes were tired and my head throbbed. There could be no possible way that anybody thought this was amazing food. Yet each recipe had over one-hundred mostly positive comments, some upwards of six-hundred rave reviews. Was I that off in my culinary tastes? Was I the only person in America not to get PW’s awesomeness? (Since there is a website called thepioneerwomansux.com, obviously not!) I however do not like to assume that people are food dumb, so I closely read the glowing reviews. All this footwork over the past few days led me to some solid conclusions.

The Pioneer Woman is most definitely not a chef, not even a cook. As the author of a very popular blog and a self proclaimed cook one would suppose that PW would be offering recipes to her public that she herself had some hand in creating. Or at the very least perhaps taking classic dishes and putting a twist on them. Instead she appears to be content to copy and paste recipes that any person with Google could find. I did Google all of the recipes I looked at and found identical versions on other recipe sites such as allrecipes.com. Well I do not have an issue with her presenting genuinely good recipes to her followers; PW often tries to pass them off as family recipes or barely acknowledges the person she took them from. Good cookbooks such as Nigella Lawsons, How to Be a Domestic Goddess, are very upfront about where they first had a recipe and what changes they made to the dish. An example of this would be her “Grilled Chicken Salad with Feta, Fresh Corn, and Blueberries”. Now PW says she had this salad at a dinner party and then just had to make it, that this is her own version. She never tells us however what was different about the original version and what changes she made, in fact she barely credits “Katie the Caterer” in her post. This is just sloppy cooking, by all means change a recipe but tell us why, that is the only right thing to do. Especially when you have over one-hundred seventy-seven comments praising you for your creativity and for “kicking it up a notch in your gifted way”. Actually PW didn’t do squat, it is “Katie the Caterer” who deserves their accolades since PW can’t quite seem to say how she changed the recipe from the original.

To make it all the more infuriating when PW does rip off recipes to post they’re generally bad ones, or so basic as to be pointless. In April she posted a recipe for a Club Sandwich…you have got to be kidding me. As usual the recipe posted seemed merely a backdrop for her to tell a cute childhood story about herself. Also on her website is her recipe for BBQ sauce that she featured. It was one of the most basic I had ever read. As a building block for something maybe it could work, but you would have to go about ten steps beyond where she stopped to make a truly good recipe. But the recipe that ticked me off the most was the “Pig Cake” recipe that PW posted in January 2011. The list of ingredients includes yellow cake mix, margarine, cool whip, vanilla pudding mix, crushed pineapple, and mandarin oranges. Regarding the use of margarine PW said “Not butter…margarine. It brings out the flavor of the cake mix.” How do I begin to count the number of things wrong with that statement? If I could somehow ensure that this recipe would never be made I would! The worst part is that PW could have taken this recipe, “a potluck staple” and transformed it by making real yellow cake batter, using butter, actual whipping cream, and making authentic vanilla pudding. Instead she chooses laziness and to promote unhealthy chemical laden food.

Now that I think about it there is a recipe of hers that tops the “Pig Cake”. The “Milky Way Cake”, posted May 23^rd, 2011. The recipe contains eleven Milky Way Bars and three sticks of margarine, which PW tries to pretend is cute by saying it is “vintage” (kill me now). Each serving contains 839 calories, 41 grams of fat, 113 grams of carbs. Yes please serve your family that for dinner, after all the Pioneer Woman does and she is perfect!

Moving along I looked at other clearly common recipes such as “Shrimp Scampi” and “Risotto Primavera”. I then decided to look at one of PW’s most beloved recipes, her “Best Lasagna Ever”. This recipe has been on her site since 2007 and since she credits no one for this recipe I assume that she came up with it all her own. This lasagna contains ground beef and breakfast sausage, sliced mozzarella and powdered parmesan, dried herbs, and cottage cheese. It’s assembled like any basic lasagna and cooked the same way. Now I have had lasagna nearly identical to this one and it was decent. But why not try to elevate the recipe? PW says that part of the greatness about this lasagna is that the ingredients are easy to find almost anywhere. Guess what? You can find ricotta cheese almost anywhere and that is better than cottage cheese. Also widely available is real shredded parmesan, fresh mozzarella and sweet hot Italian sausage, not to mention fresh basil and parsley. By just changing a few items the lasagna would become a masterpiece and the recipe made no more difficult. But I have noticed in PW’s recipes and in the comment section a rather odd and ugly class war going on. Commenter’s who dare to suggest how a dish might be improved by a substitution are beaten down by others as snobs. Gourmet is used as a negative word, NO ONE MUST DARE TO ELEVATE THEIR COOKING ABOVE THE PIONEER WOMANS!!!!!!!

So please, if you would like to sift through ten-thousand pictures and read self absorbed blather before you get to a mediocre recipe go right ahead. I’ll just be in my kitchen, looking through ACTUAL chef’s cookbooks and improvising some gourmet meals. Bon Appétit.

Coconut Cream Cake

This is a cake recipe I make all the time. I like it because it is not overly sweet, and it uses coconut milk in the recipe. I make cupcakes with it quite frequently. I got it from Fine Cooking Magazine. I do change the frosting recipe which I will note below.

For the cake
8 oz. (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened; more for the pans
13-1/2 oz. (3 cups) unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, well shaken and at room temperature
1 Tbs. pure vanilla extract
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup sour cream, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, at room temperature

For the filling 

2 cups heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbs. unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes, toasted
1 oz. (2 Tbs.) unsalted butter, softened
1 Tbs. pure vanilla extract
Pinch kosher salt

For the meringue
3 cups granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups egg whites (about 10 large), preferably pasteurized, at room temperature

---

Make the cake
Position racks in the bottom and top thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 350°F.
Butter three 9x2-inch round cake pans and line each with a parchment round. Butter the parchment.
In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a 1-cup liquid measure, mix the coconut milk with the vanilla.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add about one-third of the flour mixture and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add half of the coconut milk and mix until incorporated. Continue adding the flour mixture and coconut milk, alternating the two and ending with the flour. Add the sour cream and mix until incorporated. Pour the batter into a large bowl.
In a clean mixer bowl and using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a spatula, gently stir a large spoonful of the whites into the batter to loosen it, and then fold the remaining egg whites gently into the batter.
Divide the cake batter evenly among the prepared cake pans. Level the batter with a spatula. Set two pans on the top rack and the third on the lower rack. Stagger the pans on the oven racks so that no pan is directly over another. Bake, swapping and rotating the pans’ positions after 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of each cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes total. Cool on racks for 10 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the racks, remove the parchment, and cool completely.

Make the filling
In a medium bowl, whisk 11/2 cups of the cream and the egg yolks.
Combine the sugar and flour in a medium saucepan. Add the cream mixture and cook, whisking, over medium heat until smooth, 2 minutes. Bring to a simmer and cook, whisking, until thickened to a pudding consistency, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the coconut, butter, vanilla, and salt and let cool to room temperature.
With an electric hand mixer, whip the remaining 1/2 cup cream to soft peaks. With a spatula, gently fold the whipped cream into the filling.

Assemble the cake
Put a cake layer on a flat serving platter or a cake stand lined with strips of waxed paper to keep it clean while icing. Top the layer with half of the filling, spreading it evenly with an offset spatula almost to the cake’s edge. Repeat with a second cake layer and the remaining filling. Top with the last cake layer.

Make the meringue (My frosting is below)

Put the sugar and egg whites in the metal bowl of a stand mixer (make sure it’s clean) and set over a pot of simmering water. Whisk constantly until the sugar melts completely, 3 to 4 minutes. Rub a small amount between your fingers to make sure all of the sugar grains have melted.

Transfer the bowl to the mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, and whisk at low speed until the mixture becomes completely opaque and begins to thicken, about 4 minutes. Raise the speed to medium and beat until thickened to soft peaks that barely hold their shape and flop over when the beater is lifted, 5 to 7 minutes. Finally, raise the speed to high and beat until glossy and thickened to medium-firm peaks that stand up stiffly but curl slightly at the tip when the beater is lifted, about 4 minutes more.

Using an offset spatula, apply the meringue thickly over the entire cake—don’t worry about spreading it smoothly or you’ll overwork the meringue (you may not need all of it). Then, repeatedly poke your fingertips into the meringue, pulling it into spikes all over the cake. Remove the waxed paper strips. 

Using a kitchen torch, brown the meringue by holding the torch 2 to 3 inches from the meringue and waving the flame over the cake until it’s browned all over.

I do not usually make the meringue frosting, it is time consuming and if you do not have a kitchen torch basically impossible. Instead I usually whip up whipping cream (1 pint works) and pour in melted, slightly cooled, white chocolate (about 6 oz) while it is whipping. I then frost the outside of the cake and top it with toasted coconut. When I make cupcakes I either use whip cream frosting or make a cream cheese frosting which I pipe on and top with toasted coconut.

Make ahead: You can bake, cool, wrap, and store the cake layers at room temperature for up to 1 day or freeze for up to 1 month. You can refrigerate the assembled cake (without the meringue topping) for up to 4 hours before decorating it. Wait to make the meringue until you’re ready to finish the cake.

This is the Fine Cooking photo of what the cake should look like with meringue.

                  

This is my more modest version with whip cream frosting, and the cupcake version.

Abbs

Carrot Bisque Recipe

This recipe come from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, who has written a large number of vegan cookbooks of which I own several.

I guess a few words about vegan cooking is needed since most people I know either think vegan cooking is "yucky" or start off on a diatribe about how people who don't eat meat are stupid....blah blah blah. I eat vegan fairly frequently. This is mainly because vegan recipes are often times far more interesting than their meat-eating equivalent (Just to make sure we are all on the same page about what being a vegan entails, it means no animal products. So no meat, or dairy). I find that even vegetarian recipes frequently seem to get by on a white sauce loaded with cheese, which I obviously have no problem with hello cauliflower gratin, but I think you can get lazy. The solution to get people to eat a vegetable should not be to pour massive amounts of cheese sauce on it. So, enter vegan cooking. Don't get me wrong there are just as many terrible vegan cookbooks as good ones, so be careful. When I cook vegan I usually prefer not to tell people they are eating vegan food until they are complimenting me on what they just ate. I then spring it upon them, and hopefully shatter any preconceptions they might have about veganism. I also hear the comment, "I just can't get full unless I have meat at a meal, because it's not a real meal unless you have meat". Well meat does provide important nutrition for your body you can get protein other ways and not eating meat at a few meals a week will not kill you. I think of it more like caffeine addiction. You are used to coffee/soda every day, therefore when you do not have it you FREAK OUT. However if you starting cutting back on coffee/soda after a while your body excepts that and you do not need it every day. Just a gradual weaning off process, one that can save you some money because meat is expensive!

Ok ok I will get to the recipe, here you go. As always any notes of mine are italicized.

Carrot Bisque
Serves 8

3 lbs carrots, peeled and diced into around 1/2 inch pieces
1 large onions, chopped
2 TB peanut oil (vegetable oil will do)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 TB curry powder
1/2 tsp salt (I say always use Kosher salt)
A few dashes fresh black pepper
3 cup vegetable broth, or 1 boullion cube dissolved in 3 cups water
1 (13 oz) can coconut milk
1 TB maple syrup

In a stockpot over medium-low heat, cook the carrots and onions in the peanut oil for 7 to 10 minutes; cover and stir occasionally. You want the onions to brown but not to burn. Add the garlic, curry, salt, and pepper; saute for 1 more minute. Add the 3 cups of broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the carrots are tender.
Add the coconut milk and bring to a low boil. Turn the heat off. Use a handheld blender to puree half of the soup; if you don't have one puree half the soup in a blender and add it back to the pot. (I use my food processor, if you do use a blender please wait until the soup cools down slightly or the lid will pop off. Also sometimes I puree the entire soup, it just depends how I feel) After pureeing add the maple syrup and stir. Serve hot.

Abbs