The Pioneer Woman Cooks A Year of Holidays

I’m a huge Ree Drummond fan, I just love her! All her cookbooks are good, and although I’m planning to post about Dinnertime, her newest (fabulous) cookbook soon, the one I’m posting about today is her one from a couple of years ago.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks A Year of Holidays by Ree Drummond, William Morrow 2013. Ree says there is nothing more delicious than a holiday. It’s true too! This could be down to many factors, taking time to plan and anticipate special meals, having a little more time to prep and cook, perhaps spreading the workload of the cooking amongst family and friends attending a holiday gathering.  I know when I recall holidays past it family and food that I remember most! I hope that isn’t just me!

Ree covers 12 holiday occasions from New Years Day to New Years Eve. Some are ones I am very familiar with like Mothers’ Day, Easter and Christmas. Others are new to me like The Big Game and Cinco de Mayo. Although the book is set out in chapters for each holiday, at the back there is a list of dishes by type, so it is easy to pick out a main course or dessert if it isn’t a holiday time.

I’ve cooked quite a number of dishes from this book. And although I have some pictures of sweet things, I have also cooked many dishes that I don’t have pictures of.  The four that are standouts and I make again and again are Turkey tetrazzini (unbelievably delicious, great with chicken too), potato skins, scalloped potatoes with ham (mmmm) and  Mummy dogs. Though I must mention cranberry sauce, orange smoothies, BBQ cocktail wieners, yoghurt-brown sugar and berry parfaits, broccoli-cheese soup, devilled eggs, perfect egg salad, straight up pico de gallo, perfect potato salad (though I keep my potatoes in chunks), cheddar chive biscuits, Chocolate mint shooters, lemon crème pie shooters and peach cobbler. Whew! And I’ve still got lots I’d like to try! It’s a great book.

Of the three sweet things that I do have pictures of, the cake is particularly swoon worthy.

Chocolate Strawberry Cake

When I make this one I halve the recipe, the whole thing would be great for a big party, but I have a small family and tend to therefore have smaller gatherings,  a one tier cake is still a thing of great beauty.  A brownie like fudgy base spread with chocolate hazelnut spread which is topped with sweet vanilla cream then topped with strawberries. Oh my! Amazing. Recipelink here.

Spreads

Super easy to make, my daughter loves these. Recipe link here.

Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

A Chocolatey cookie, dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with crushed peppermint candy canes. Sweet!  The only change I would make to this recipe is to fully coat the tops of the biscuits in chocolate and candy cane sprinkles as I like to have both in each bite.  Recipe link here.

 Just one more of that cake, in cake you needed a closer look!