The Beginning

This blog is the child of some inspiration I had during a post on my last blog. I absolutely love to cook. I cook for my husband every night, as some of you might find find shocking while others also cook for their families or just themselves every evening. Regardless, there are many chefs these days that produce the most delicious looking food and their "easy" and "simple" recipes are usually quite the challenge.

Therefore, I for this first post, I will conduct a review of two of the Pioneer woman's recipes. I am actually a BIG fan of hers, and her recipes never lack.......work, but in her case the food is usually WELL WORTH any effort it took to make the meal!

As a part of my "review" I will rate the meal on Taste, Difficulty, Amount of ingredients (because the amount of ingredients involved correlates with the amount of money you will spend buying the ingredients), How much it smells up a house (which, I'm all about having a good smelling house), How many times we can eat on the meal, how messy your kitchen is afterwards AND just an overall score of would I make it again.
Yes it alot of scoring but it will go quickly. Each will be scored 1-10 , 10 is the best.

"Beef with Pepper"
I first cooked her Beef Stir-Fry (with rice noodles, not rice)
found here:



Taste: 6 for me 7 for my husband. I'm a bit picky about Chinese style food and this was just a one note taste and that was just "OK" to me.

Difficulty: 81/2 The words "honey will you...." came out of my mouth possibly 10 times while making this...which an average meal usually has me asking my husband for his help just once (usually to drain pasta and etc. ITS JUST SO HEAVY!)

Ingredient Amount: I rate it a 9- it had me chasing around the grocery store looking for "chile paste" --what in the world is chile paste?! I finally found it....

Smelly House: 10 no 11.5 ---it was bad yall, i mean real bad. My house smelled for DAYS- PLURAL!!!

Number of Meals Produced: twice.....the day of and the next day...I was just DONE after that.

Kitchen mess: 10 - all i can say is YIKES.

Overall score: 4 we wont be making this dish again. Between the ok taste and the smelly house...I just refuse to do it again.

But dont get me wrong- I LOOOVE the Pioneer Woman!


VS.


Penne a la Betsy
found here:




Taste: 9 I was thinking about eating it all day the next day as well!

Difficulty: 6.5 I Pioneer woman is never an "easy" cook- but usually is well worth the effort!

Ingredient Amount: I rate it a 6, not bad

Smelly House: 6- nothing my Scentsy's couldnt handle! Plus this gave off a delicious smell!

Number of Meals Produced: twice for dinner, then my husband has taken it to for lunch once- he likes it enough to eat it 3 times!

Kitchen mess: 6 i gave it a 6 only because when you make the sauce, watch out because it will slosh everywhere if you stir it too fast...other wise- it wasnt bad!

Overall Score: 8.5 We WILL be having this dish again!!!!

Like the old TV show suggests: "You take the good and then you take the bad, you take them both and then you have "The Facts of Life." ;)
~Kate