The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays Cookbook Review

Update! Congratulations to Mary Louise who said...

Love this site! Thanks for giving your readers an opportunity to win Ree's cookbook.

Mary Louise please contact me by email at mary@deepsouthdish.com as soon as possible and provide your full name and mailing address so I can get Ree's new book out to you. I know that you will love it!

By now, surely everybody has heard of Ree Drummond, self-proclaimed accidental country girl, award-winning blogger at www.thepioneerwoman.com, Food Network personality, and bestselling author of cookbooks, children's books and even her memoir, a romance novel of her courtship with Marlboro Man. I have all of Ree's cookbooks, but hands down, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays, available today on Amazon and store shelves everywhere, is my favorite one yet.

"There's food, glorious food in this cookbook,
and you won't run out of yummy things to make."

A tender biscuit stuffed with smoked honey ham and shredded cheese.

Ham and Cheese Biscuits

These are great breakfast or brunch biscuits served alongside some fluffy eggs or even as a base for an egg sandwich. I like to use a sweeter honey ham for these, but any good smoked ham works fine too. With the self rising flour, ham and cheese, I don't usually add any additional salt, so do keep that in mind if you're tempted to add some.

Make mini biscuits for that next party and serve with some good pepper jelly - yum y'all!

All You Frightfully Fun Halloween Handbook Review

UPDATE! Congratulations to Tammy Ward who said...

"I love dressing up and taking my grandsons trick or treating."

Tammy, shoot me an email as soon as possible with your mailing address at mary@deepsouthdish.com and I'll get this handbook out to you right away. Congratulations!!

Wow y'all, can you believe October is winding down already? Course, it takes awhile for those temperatures to start dropping down here in my part of the Deep South, but we're even seeing some chill down here this week finally, and the end of October means Halloween fun!

Fried brown sugar and cinnamon dough, filled with chopped apples and finished with a maple glaze.

Maple Glazed Drop Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are delicious little bites of puffy fried, brown sugar and cinnamon dough, filled with chunks of apple. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I like to finish them with a powdered sugar glaze infused with just a touch of maple extract just because I do love how it tastes with apple. That's, of course, completely optional, as they are plenty good with a basic glaze or even just a simple dusting of plain powdered sugar, if you prefer.

Southern Living No Taste Like Home Cookbook

As a food blogger, I have had the privilege of reviewing quite a few Southern Living cookbooks {affil link} and while they have all been fantastic books, I think this is my most favorite one to date.

Organized geographically, Southern Living No Taste Like Home: A Celebration of Regional Southern Cooking and Hometown Flavor {affil link} by renowned food writer Kelly Alexander, is like a culinary travelogue across more than twenty of the South's tastiest hometowns. "All hometown food is special, of course," she writes, "but I daresay Southern hometown food is extraordinary." Based on my website visitors, I'd have to agree.

Classic macaroni and tomatoes pairs up with spicy andouille for a little Cajun kick.

Macaroni and Tomatoes with Andouille

Macaroni and tomatoes is a depression era dish that so many folks still have fond memories of.

In its purest form, it's simply lightly stewed fresh garden tomatoes or home canned tomatoes, and pasta, usually elbow macaroni, stirred in, maybe a little butter, and salt and pepper.

That's about it.

Cajun Cabbage Stew - a stew of ground pork or beef, andouille sausage, cabbage, the trinity of onions, bell pepper and celery, potatoes and carrots, in a chicken or beef broth base with Rotel tomatoes.

Cajun Cabbage Stew

There isn't anything Earth shattering about this stew. It's just a good ole belly filling stew for cabbage lovers like me, and in fact, if you add in a little bit more broth in the second stage of cooking, you'll have a perfectly acceptable cabbage soup. I've used a variety of meats - andouille, ground beef, ground pork, Italian sausage, chorizo and even leftover brisket, but I like the ground beef and andouille combo the best.