My Month with Ree- Day 1

I say that like like we are best friends:)

I first heard about Ree Drummond from an article in my Southern Living magazine a few years back (it seems like a few years ago but since kiddos, I have lost all track of time so who knows how many years it has been). I thought she was as cute as could be and I loved the expression she had on her face while she was eating her breaded pudding. While she did look like she really enjoyed the pudding, more so, I think the fact that she looked genuinely HAPPY struck me. You could see it in her eyes. Her soul was happy. I decided right then, we would be best friends.



Well as with everything in my life, nothing happened. Not because she turned my friendship down, but because life got the best of me. I more than likely put the article down, did some laundry, made some dinner, and hopefully cuddled on the couch with someone. Not necessarily forgetting about her, but just not having a chance to learn more. Until one day....when i was binge organizing. I was going through all my old magazines, pulling and filing all the articles I found interesting or that I would "try" one day. And there Ree was, smiling back at me on my closet floor. I popped up, well probably slowly and crackly stood up, and went to the computer and googled this Pioneer Woman. This is when I decided we HAD to be best friends.

Low and behold, she was in love with a cowboy! It was fate. If you have ever visited her site, you know that in the corner it says "from black high heels, to tractor wheels", love that journey. Now I know Cody is no hardcore cowboy. His backside does look mean in a pair of wranglers, and he grew up farming, and we do farm wheat on our little bit of land. BUT now the farm is a part of his life, not his life. However, falling in love with him was probably similar to Ree's story. I had many a dates where I drove... past the tree to a wheat field, then two more miles past an empty silo, til I got to a different tree row. At this point I get a tip to check those trees because he trimmed that tree row last summer...you get the idea, but the story of our love story is to be blogged about another time though. This is about Ree's and my friendship. So as i read more about her, I realized that I was way behind on the Pioneer Woman phenomenon. She had everything on her site, and everything intrigued me. Now in all truthfulness, I am not as crazed as it appears. And I know this may shock you as well, but in all honesty, Ree doesn't know I exist. I am confident though that if we ever did meet, we would hit it off and become friends, probably leading to best friendship. Now, I do check the site a couple times a week, but if I don't get on there everyday, guess what? Oh well. I am still able to sleep, clearly still able to eat, and still truckin' away. We have a give-and-take relationship like that. Anyway, Cody and I recently purchased a new standing freezer for the garage. We already had two big deep freezers full of beef, pig, and chicken, deer, fish, and every other frozen thing known to man, but you could never see what to make, except for the options on top. So with this new freezer, it was all nicely organized and I knew what I had......a lot of! And that was stew meat. So Cody gave me the job of basing this months meals off of eating down the stuff we had lots of. So, who do you go to when you need help, a friend you say. Correct, I went to my best friend.

So here we are. I am spending a month with Ree (well 31 days). Making something new from her collection each day. I know this is similar to that julie & julia story, but since Ree and I are friends, and she she clearly tells me in her recipes to "go for it," "try it," "layer that on,", I feel like she is encouraging me, happy for me, which I heard in that story Julia was not overly excited about Julie's year with her. Who knows. Again, this isn't about Julie and Julia, it's about Ree and me:) Anyway, I have always loved cooking, and I cook all the time. I hear that I am good at it, and I thoroughly enjoy sitting down with my family every night at dinner. I just wanted to try something different. And I think I enjoy her so much because most of the stuff we actually have in our home!! And it's cowboy food, Perfect for my country boy and my growing "lil cowboy". So Day 1, I had stew meat to get rid of. I made "Beef Stew with beer and paprika". It was fun and better yet, it was TASTY!! Either we were really hungry, or I did something wrong, but it was all gone. Some of the comments on the page spoke of great leftovers...well that didn't happen;( The kiddos loved it and our family grade on it was an "A+". I can't wait for the rest of the month! Thanks friend!

Beef stew with beer and paprika

served with homemade rustic white bread

grade- A+