Category Archives: Cooking

Chicken Fried Steak – the Pioneer Woman Way

We Okies are very proud of Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman. Go check out her fabulous blog. She also has a cookbook. It is not very low fat but it is good. Just ask Bobby Flay who got his butt kicked in his good natured Thanksgiving dinner throwdown with Ms. Drummond (see link at bottom of post.)

My dad, Gramps, visited us over Thanksgiving. His favorite dish is chicken fried steak. So Sweetie decided that she was going to make Gramps an Okie style CFS dinner with all the trimmings.

So we got the cookbook out.

Sweetie got her game face on. Notice the glass of wine she didn’t quite hide. I really don’t think that PW would disapprove. Hey coking has to be fun.

Sweetie started with her own dishes. Mashed potatoes and purple hull peas.

I even got recruited.

I’m usually in charge of anything involving cast iron.

Sweetie took over though on the gravy. Lots of whisking involved there.

Ya gotta get the gravy right. Sweetie did a great job.

The end result. Its like, cmon Yogi, lets eat!! Gramps looks pretty happy with the result.

“Pioneer Woman Takes Down Bobby Flay + Her Recipe” and related posts (manicmommies.com)

Easter Weekend Happenings

Whirlwind Easter Weekend. Saturday SuperPizzaBoy and I were by ourselves most of the day. I had taxes to do but the weather was too nice, plus I had a brand spanking new Garmin Nuvi 500 crossover GPSr that needed a workout, so we went Geocaching! Found two, one in east Tulsa took an hour to hike to and then find. SPB got a little tired of that one.

First two ticks of the season. One for him, and one for me. So we are tied!!!!

Then Sweetie and Nana made it up from Antlers with Nana’s two kittys. Meet Gypsy (calico) and Piwacket (“Wackycat”). They are spending their time getting acclimated to Nana’s new house in Broken Arrow. Gypsy was nervous and moved into Piwacket’s crate, Wacky wasn’t too happy about that. Move in is later this week! Got to meet one of Nana’s new neighbors also.

Sunday night dinner, Yogi cooked his specialty fried chicken. Hadn’t cooked it in about 15 years. It took me a little to get the hang of it again but everybody said it was pretty good. Sweetie says that I can cook it for Mother’s day. I think I will!!

The drumstick on the left tasted better than it looks.

Then a cut throat game of Farkle. A very fun game with 6 dice that I got as a birthday present. Its fun. But I never win!!! What’s up!!

Oh yeah, and I finished the taxes.

Talking Turkey

I’ve been hearing about a new gadget. An electric smoker with electronic temperature control and timer. It was insulated so that the food was stay hot and you could add wood chips from outside. You could smoke at relatively low temperaturs for a long time.

You can get them at Academy, Sam’s and Bass Pro. I told Sweetie about my new obsession and she gave me the wifely, “uh uh”. So then some time passes and they go on sale at Academy. I tell her about it and she says well maybe you will get one for Christmas. I said well actually I would like to just go buy it. So, my loving devoted wife says “OK.” Whew so I go get it.

Today I got to try it out. I smoked a pork loin for dinner today and a turkey breast for Thanksgiving Dinner. I used apple cider and pecan for the smoking.

The pork loin was delicious. I hope that the turkey works.

A gadget I can cook with!

The turkey after about 9 hours.