The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Ree Drummond and are I friends in a way only the internet can make possible. From our Twitter correspondence and blog interactions we know a few specific details about each other’s lives but have only met face-to-face on one occasion at a Barnes & Noble. The internet is weird and wonderful.

I’ve painted her hound Charlie, her cow Daisy and her four children. All of those paintings now live in Oklahoma with Ree and her family and maybe someday I will get a chance to visit the ranch and see them. That is, if I can overcome my strong will to never leave my house for more than eight hours, and get a new prescription for Ativan for the flight.

Last week, Ree sent me an advance copy of her new cookbook, Food From My Frontier. She must’ve heard my husband’s plaintive cries for more substantial winter meals and red meat. My family, they tire of soup and grilled cheese.

Today, because my friends  Kathleen and Lindsey heartily recommended them, my lovely assistant and I made Chicken Tacos and Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies.

For the cookies, I had to drive all over town looking for malted milk powder and eventually decided to use Classic Malt Ovaltine because it was all I could find.

The kids didn’t seem to mind.

In the cookbook, Ree warns that the chicken tacos  are messy to make and she isn’t kidding. However, they were well worth the fuss.

They even look pretty on my $1.99 Corelle dinnerware. I traded in my lovely, heavy-duty stoneware a couple years ago after a disastrous dishwashing incident that resulted in a panicked trip to the emergency room and seven stitches. I now have nerve damage in my thumb, a jagged scar on my wrist that always raises eyebrows and I can’t lift heavy things with my left hand. The trade off? I never have to do dishes again. It was kind of worth it.