Cooking Lessons from ‘The Pioneer Woman’ Ree Drummond
The Pioneer Woman first joined Food Network back in 2011. She has been sharing her tips and tricks for hearty, delicious family meals for more than a decade. Fans just can’t get enough of her tasty recipes and stories about life on the Drummond ranch with Ladd and her children. Here are some of the best cooking lessons you can learn from Ree Drummond.
Have fun while cooking
Drummond enjoys the process of cooking. During her show she’s often seen laughing and joking with her family. Cooking can be a chore, but Drummond knows how to keep things light and make the experience joyful.
One way Drummond keeps things fun is by experimenting with new flavors and cooking styles. During one episode of The Pioneer Woman, she prepared meals inspired by her daughter’s honeymoon in the Maldives. Some of the recipes Drummond made were grilled vegetable hand rolls, creamy lemon pasta with steak and lobster, and white chocolate pistachio truffles.
Put a new spin on old recipes
It can be tiring to repeatedly eat the same meals. Drummond has a solution for that. She sometimes updates old recipes and puts a new spin on them. During an episode of The Pioneer Woman titled “Ree-Freshed,” she demonstrated how to remake skirt steak with sweet potato fries, boozy berry upside down cake, and pesto egg toast.
Use shortcuts
The Pioneer Woman isn’t afraid to use shortcut ingredients so she can get dinner on the table as quickly as possible. She wants home cooks to know it’s OK to give yourself a break.
Some of Drummond’s favorite shortcut ingredients are canned beans, frozen bread dough, creamy condensed soups, frozen fish sticks, frozen shrimp, frozen stuffed pasta, and microwave rice and grains. Incorporating these ingredients into a meal will help you prepare meals in less time than if you made everything from scratch.
Get organized
Meal prep is easier when your kitchen is organized. Drummond recently tidied up her lodge pantry. She says it was “gross,” so she wanted to give it an update.
“If the kitchen shelves were looking a little tired before, the pantry was actually kind of gross,” says Drummond on her website.
“It had been ignored for a couple of years, and we had all sorts of bags, boxes, baskets, and cans that needed attention. There were half-eaten bags of Cheetos, crumbs, and a canister of pecans that looked like they were from 1972.”
One of her employees, Trey Wilson, managed the makeover. He used to freelance for Drummond, but he’s now a full-time staff member. She says she’s happy to have him on her team because she likes working with him.
Don’t hold back the helpings
Drummond isn’t afraid to serve large portions of her meals. She likes to add extra cheese and butter to her lunches and dinners, and extra whipped cream to her desserts. Drummond believes in adjusting recipes to your liking. If that means a larger serving, she’s OK with that.
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