While the guys are away, Ree throws a cowgirl dinner for her friends with a menu that includes sophisticated Goat Cheese with Fresh Dill appetizers, chilled Sangria, and a Fig-Prosciutto Pizza with Arugula.
While the guys are away, Ree throws a cowgirl dinner for her friends with a menu that includes sophisticated Goat Cheese with Fresh Dill appetizers, chilled Sangria, and a Fig-Prosciutto Pizza with Arugula.
Below are the recipes used in today’s episode:
Fig-Prosciutto Pizza with Arugula: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/fig-prosciutto-pizza-with-arugula-recipe-1925521
Penne alla Vodka: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/penne-alla-vodka-recipe-2014981
Goat Cheese with Fresh Dill: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/goat-cheese-with-fresh-dill-recipe-2014967
Sangria: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/sangria-recipe-1925441
On The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond shares her comforting home cooking from her kitchen on the ranch. With direct audio from her hit Food Network TV show, you can now enjoy Ree’s company as she cooks up meals for every occasion, from last-minute family suppers to elegant celebrations.
For even more recipes head to discovery+ and stream full episodes of The Pioneer Woman on discovery+. Head to discoveryplus.com/pioneerwoman to start your 7-day free trial today. Terms apply.
Find episode transcript here: https://the-pioneer-woman.simplecast.com/episodes/cowboys-and-cowgirls
REE DRUMMOND: I'm Ree Drummond. I'm a writer, blogger, photographer, mother, and I'm an accidental country girl. I live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, and I've got a lot of mouths to feed.
My style of food is simple yet scrumptious, and all my recipes have to be approved by cowboys, hungry kids, and me. Here's what's happening. My husband gets a blind taste test to see if a pasta dish gets his seal of approval. How is it?
LADD DRUMMOND: I like it.
REE DRUMMOND: Yes. And with the guys and kids, four hours south, there's not a steak or potato in sight at my cowgirl's dinner. Who wants sangria? The girls and I are doing our own thing.
MULTIPLE: Girl power.
We're eating goat cheese with dill appetizer followed by a delicious fig and prosciutto pizza. Welcome to my frontier.
I'm sure I'm not the only woman out there who has a husband with particular tastes. I did not say picky. Here's a little glimpse into the things my husband would never eat-- anything containing wine, sushi, creme brulee, anything with goat cheese, and portobello mushroom burgers. He'd wonder where the beef was.
You know, I kind of feel like it's my duty as his wife to help broaden his horizons a little bit. So today is broaden your horizons day. I've got this category on my website filled with recipes that my husband approves of. So I thought I might have him try the penne alla vodka in a blind taste test and see how it goes.
I'm going to put the pasta on. It takes about 10 minutes, and that's about how long the sauce takes. But before I start cooking the sauce, I'm going to call my husband and see if he's in the general vicinity.
LADD DRUMMOND: Hello?
REE DRUMMOND: Hey, honey. Are you guys going to be passing by the lodge any time soon?
LADD DRUMMOND: We can if you need us to.
REE DRUMMOND: I want you to try something.
LADD DRUMMOND: Does it have something weird in it?
REE DRUMMOND: No, it doesn't have anything weird in it. I promise.
LADD DRUMMOND: All right. Well, we can probably be up there in a little bit.
REE DRUMMOND: OK. I'll just run in, and then you can run out.
LADD DRUMMOND: All right. Bye.
REE DRUMMOND: Ha-ha-ha. OK, I'm going to get started on the sauce. I already have onion and garlic sauteing in olive oil and butter. I'm going to turn up the heat just a little bit, and I'm just going to cut to the chase here, get this part over with, and I might have to hide the bottle when my husband comes in.
Pasta alla vodka starts with vodka. I'm going to add about 3/4 of a cup. OK, this needs to reduce just a little bit longer. My husband has this heightened sense of taste when it comes to wine, and he doesn't like the flavor. And he can detect the slightest bit of wine in sauces and pastas, but the vodka really has a cleaner flavor to it, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
OK. This is reduced quite a bit. I have a can of tomato puree. I buy in bulk, so I just have these huge cans in my pantry, but we only need half of it. So I'll just transfer the rest of this to another container and keep it in the fridge because I'm sure I'll need it in a day or two.
Now I'll stir this in. Let it bubble up. It's kind of become a hobby of mine to find new dishes that I can move over into the Ladd-approved category of my website, and my life, for that matter, because it just makes things so much easier when there are dishes that both of us enjoy.
OK, the tomato sauce is nice and warm. So I'm going to grab the heavy cream. I'll add about a cup of this-- a cup plus a splash. It's my prerogative to add a splash of cream when I feel is necessary. And look at this. Oh, my word.
And I'm going to add some crushed red pepper. It just adds a little spice. And I figure if there's anything objectionable to the slight vodka flavor of the sauce, maybe the spice will cover it up a little bit.
I also need to add quite a bit of salt. And finally, plenty of pepper. OK, this is almost done. I just have one very vital thing to add-- just a little pat of butter, not too big. It just adds this delicious richness at the end and Ladd, of course, does like butter, so I figure it'll help my cause a little bit.
OK, the pasta should be done now. The sauce is done, and we're almost there. And then just toss it up. It looks so good. Even without the vodka, this would be totally delicious. I'm going to sprinkle in some Parmesan and give it another stir.
Why do I have butterflies? This is not that big of a deal. And then a final sprinkling of crushed red pepper. Hey, honey, how are you?
LADD DRUMMOND: Good. How are you doing?
REE DRUMMOND: Thanks for coming by.
LADD DRUMMOND: Oh, no problem.
REE DRUMMOND: I have something for you to try.
LADD DRUMMOND: OK.
REE DRUMMOND: Here you go. Dig in. How do you like it? How is it? I'm dying. [INAUDIBLE]?
LADD DRUMMOND: It's good.
REE DRUMMOND: It's good?
LADD DRUMMOND: Mm-hmm
REE DRUMMOND: You like it?
LADD DRUMMOND: Not bad at all. What is it?
REE DRUMMOND: It's pasta--
LADD DRUMMOND: Wow. I can tell that.
REE DRUMMOND: --with something special in the sauce. Vodka. I thought you might be a little more receptive to the hard stuff.
LADD DRUMMOND: Vodka is better than wine.
REE DRUMMOND: Yeah
LADD DRUMMOND: Agree. I like it.
REE DRUMMOND: Where are the kids?
LADD DRUMMOND: They're sleeping in the pickup.
REE DRUMMOND: Are they really?
LADD DRUMMOND: Mm-hmm.
REE DRUMMOND: All right. Bye, honey.
LADD DRUMMOND: All right. See you.
REE DRUMMOND: See you at home. Yes. Yes. Up next, when the guys are away, the girls will play. It's a Cowgirl's dinner at the ranch. Here's to girls getting together and not eating gravy with not a morsel of man food in sight.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The guys and the kids have gone to the farm. Having all the girls over for dinner. I know what the guys and the kids are going to eat. It probably involves steak and potatoes. The girls are going to eat fresh herbs.
LADD DRUMMOND: Y'all hungry?
MULTIPLE: Yeah.
LADD DRUMMOND: Y'all don't want to get some steaks?
MULTIPLE: Yeah.
LADD DRUMMOND: How about you, Todd?
TODD: Uh, corn!
LADD DRUMMOND: We better get the deal on potatoes, though. A big bag of potatoes. How many steaks do you think we need?
SPEAKER 1: Six, seven.
LADD DRUMMOND: I think we've got everything, don't we?
REE DRUMMOND: Well, the whole point of having an all-girls dinner is that we get to have the kind of food that we don't get to have when our husbands are around. When we have guys and girls together, we sort of have to pick foods that appeal to both. Otherwise, we wind up with two different menus. So I'm going to make something that pretty much sums up the things that the guys don't like, goat cheese and dill appetizer.
I've got a bunch of fresh still here. I'm just going to chop it really fine and then just let it sit on the cutting board for a couple of minutes to just slightly dry. I've got some goat cheese in the freezer. I put it in the freezer just for a few minutes because you don't want the goat cheese to be overly soft. I'm going to roll it in this fresh dill. Just makes it gorgeous, fancy, and frilly appetizer. And the dill just starts sticking a little more with each roll.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Ladd does not like goat cheese at all, so this is perfect for a girls' dinner. And that's it. This is going to be great with sangria, which is another perfect example of something the Cowboys wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. It's way too pretty, first of all. Second of all, it's filled with wine. I'm just going to stick a little mint in there. Gorgeous.
And I think I'll give it a taste while I'm at it. I wouldn't want to serve substandard sangria to my guests. Oh, that's good. Let me tell you how I make it. Into that, I threw some diced red and green apples, green and red grapes, whole chunks of pineapple, and then some orange lemon and lime slices. Any fruit is permissible except maybe tomatoes. Now for the hard stuff.
Chilled red wine, chilled white wine, I also like to pour in a little orange-flavored rum and orange-flavored vodka. I'm bad. Then for a little sweetness, I just add some sugar dissolved in a little water. Then it goes into the fridge for a few hours, and that's it. My husband definitely wouldn't like this, but that means more for me.
[COWS MOOING]
LADD DRUMMOND: Just get around these cows. Come on, everybody. Ride up there, Alex. Come on. We've got to push them back this way a little. Ride up, just push them down.
REE DRUMMOND: One difference between guys and girls, guys don't like to eat dinner outside. At least around here, they don't. It's hot and windy. There are flies. And the guys work outside all day, and the last thing they want to do is eat outside. But I think it's going to cool down by the time the girls get here. We're going to sit outside and have some fun.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So the guy's idea of pizza is, of course, pepperoni. But I know the girls around here appreciate a little bit more of an artisan approach. So I'm making fig and prosciutto pizza topped with arugula. And it's gorgeous and delicious. Here's the pizza dough, and it's been in the fridge for a few days. I actually think pizza dough tastes a little better when it ages a bit. Let me show you how I make it.
The mixer is my weapon of choice for the dough. In with 2 cups of all-purpose flour and a 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. Then with the mixer on low, drizzle in 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Work it together, then pour in 1/2 a teaspoon of active dry yeast that's been soaked for a couple of minutes in 3/4 a cup of lukewarm water. Then when it all comes together in a sticky mess, it's done and just needs a couple of hours to rise before you use it.
So now it's on to the fun part. I'm going to flour the surface. And I want to roll out the dough as thin as I can. I like thin, thin pizza crust because then you can pile on the toppings as thick as you want, and you don't feel so naughty. It's a good thing lads at the farm fig and prosciutto pizza is not necessarily his cup of tea.
SPEAKER 2: So what are we having tonight?
REE DRUMMOND: Steak and potatoes.
SPEAKER 2: Who's peeling?
LADD DRUMMOND: The girls are peeling. Fortunately, we got a lot of hands, so it shouldn't take very long to get them all peeled and sliced up. I don't know what they're cooking tonight, but it's definitely won't be as good as what we're having. The fried potatoes and steaks are, in my book, about as good as it gets.
REE DRUMMOND: OK, I think that's about as thin as it's going to get. I just use a regular baking sheet. You don't have to have a specialty pizza stone or anything. Just drizzle on a little olive oil, drizzle a little on the crust, and this is what gives this pizza a special little touch. Fig preserves or fig spread. You want to just spread a thin layer on the pizza crust. It kind of acts as your pizza sauce.
After the fig spread, just give it a little sprinkle of salt just to offset the sweet, and then come the mozzarella slices. This is just a regular log of fresh mozzarella, and I sliced it as thin as I could so it doesn't bog down the pizza and just lay them haphazardly over the surface of the crust. I love fresh mozzarella. I still can't get it in my small town grocery store, so, to me, it's a delicacy.
Now, these aren't the only ingredients that will go on this pizza. We're just going to bake it with the fig spread and the mozzarella. And then, after the pizza comes out of the oven, that's when we put on the prosciutto and the arugula. OK, now it's going to go into a 500-degree oven for about 10 to 12 minutes on the bottom rack because we want the crust to get nice and golden brown before the cheese starts to burn.
SPEAKER 2: What do you think about these lamb? Do you think they're getting about ready?
LADD DRUMMOND: Yeah, I think those are looking pretty good. Maybe need just a little bit longer
SPEAKER 2: Little longer on these.
REE DRUMMOND: Excuse me, Holly.
LADD DRUMMOND: But I like to get a little butter on before I season them. Butter just seems to make everything taste a little better it seems to me.
SPEAKER 3: Yeah.
LADD DRUMMOND: Look how good those potatoes look. The hard part of doing potatoes like this, or you do several batches, is not eating them because they're just so good.
REE DRUMMOND: Who wants sangria?
SPEAKER 4: Me, me!
SPEAKER 5: I'm here.
REE DRUMMOND: I was trying to figure out why it's so much fun to get together just with us when the guys are gone. It's just kind of nice to cut loose and not consider them at all when it comes to the food.
SPEAKER 6: Yes.
REE DRUMMOND: I propose a toast to girls!
SPEAKER 4: To girls!
SPEAKER 7: Girl power!
REE DRUMMOND: To goat cheese.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LADD DRUMMOND: There's nothing about goat cheese I think that could beat a nice edge and a half-thick steak. My dad likes his a little rarer than the rest of us, so I've probably already overcooked his.
REE DRUMMOND: Who wants pizza?
SPEAKER 5: I'm here.
SPEAKER 4: Me, me, me!
REE DRUMMOND: It is not pepperoni pizza.
SPEAKER 8: I want supreme.
REE DRUMMOND: This is a girl party. We do not have Supreme pizza at girl parties. Hey kids, it's time to eat.
SPEAKER 9: The smallest ones you have, please.
LADD DRUMMOND: The smallest one?
LADD DRUMMOND: Give him that one that's fine.
SPEAKER 9: I have a small appetite.
REE DRUMMOND: Well, I've got the girls here. The kids and the guys are at the farm, probably eating steak at this point. So I'm going to finish off my fig and prosciutto pizza by adding the rest of the ingredients. It looks and smells so good. I used to put prosciutto on my pizzas before I stuck them in the oven because that seemed like the logical thing to do. But somebody told me that I should put the prosciutto on after. And I tried it once, and I've never gone back.
The prosciutto stays soft. And with the heat of the pizza, it warms up because it's sliced so thinly. Who needs little perfect round circles of pepperoni when you can have prosciutto? Delicious. Oh, that smells so good. Now I've got arugula, and I really pile it on. Just kind of think of it as a salad on top of the pizza. You can't add too much. It's impossible. And finally, Parmesan shavings. Can't have pizza without it. Just squeeze and break them up, and that's what you call a girl-friendly pizza right there.
I'll just slice it up to make it easy for everybody to dig in. My sister-in-law Missy gave me this tool. When I'm home alone, I feel safe. I love this pizza. I'm a little sad I have to share it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Pizza delivery.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
SPEAKER 5: Oh, look at this. Wow, look at this.
SPEAKER 6: It looks delicious.
REE DRUMMOND: This is a fig spread on the crust instead of pizza sauce, and then mozzarella and prosciutto and arugula on top of that.
SPEAKER 4: This is beautiful.
REE DRUMMOND: What do you think the guys and the kids are eating tonight?
SPEAKER 6: Fried potatoes.
REE DRUMMOND: Steak. We have a fried potatoes, and we have a steak.
SPEAKER 6: Chocolate cake.
SPEAKER 9: Can you cut up my steak, please.
LADD DRUMMOND: Yes, sir. You need a little help, sweetie?
LADD DRUMMOND: Tried that my third time. Very good. That's what a steak, good steak, ought to look like.
SPEAKER 10: Yeah, it's a little crunchy on the outside.
REE DRUMMOND: The steak is cooked perfectly, but the potatoes can use a little work.
LADD DRUMMOND: Hey, I heard that.
REE DRUMMOND: Oh, look. It's the only guy allowed at our all-girls dinner.
SPEAKER 4: Oh, Charlie.
REE DRUMMOND: Can you say girl?
[DOG GRUNTING]
Girl power. Girl power. Good boy. Charlie, yay! Charlie's the only boy welcome. I need a new plate. Oh, boy.
LADD DRUMMOND: Who's doing the dishes? Caleb?
SPEAKER 9: Alex.
LADD DRUMMOND: Caleb?
SPEAKER 10: I got a better idea. All of us pitch in.
LADD DRUMMOND: I think that'd be good. Many hands make clockwork.
REE DRUMMOND: Say girls rule. Girls rule. Oh, Charlie, we love you. For recipes for this episode, go to foodnetwork.com/pioneerwoman.