School's in at the lodge where it's homeschool co-op day. The night before, Ree gets ahead with strawberry oatmeal bars. Then, before the bell rings, she's serving up make-ahead muffin melts for the kids.
School's in at the lodge where it's homeschool co-op day. The night before, Ree gets ahead with strawberry oatmeal bars. Then, before the bell rings, she's serving up make-ahead muffin melts for the kids.
Below are the recipes used in today’s episode:
Strawberry Oatmeal Bars:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/strawberry-oatmeal-bars-recipe-2040764
Broccoli Cheese Soup:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/broccoli-cheese-soup-recipe-2048976
Strawberry Jam:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/strawberry-jam-recipe-2124695
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/little-school-house-on-the-prairie
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 on the ranch.
The school bell is ringing on the ranch with my sister-in-law, Missy, and our good friend, Beth. My homework is to make strawberry oatmeal bars for all the kids to have for dessert the next day. Then we kick off our day of school at the lodge with strawberry jam.
How many cups of strawberries do you have?
SPEAKER 1: Seven and a half.
SPEAKER 2: Seven.
REE DRUMMOND: Woohoo, good job.
A cool lesson that mixes cooking and science. Then while the kids take off for a science experiment at the pond--
SPEAKER 6: What else do y'all see?
SPEAKER 1: There's fossil rocks.
REE DRUMMOND: I'm making broccoli cheese soup with ham served in fun scooped out bread bowls for the hungry scientists. Who says school isn't fun?
SPEAKER 1: Guys, this is the best meal I've ever had.
REE DRUMMOND: Welcome to my frontier. Well, it's a school day tomorrow. And we're a home schooling family. But once a week, we get together with my sister-in-law, Missy, and her kids and our good friend, Beth, and her kids. And we have a home school co-op day. It's a lot of fun.
So I'm making strawberry oatmeal bars for the kids to eat tomorrow. It's one of their very favorite desserts. I've got a cup and a half of all purpose flour and a cup and a half of quick oats. I cannot believe how quiet the house is. I love cooking and baking when the house is quiet like this. It's a real luxury for me.
And then I'm also going to add a good cup of brown sugar, packed brown sugar. I want to get as much in there as I can. And then I'll also add a teaspoon of baking powder and about a 1 2 a teaspoon of salt. And then I'm going to stir this together a little bit.
And then I have two sticks of butter that I've cut into pieces. And I'm going to throw it in. And you can use your fingers and work it in, or you can use a pastry cutter, which I prefer. Just kind of work it around. It's going to take a while. You basically just need to work it in until the butter is completely incorporated with all the dry ingredients.
My kids are actually sacked out upstairs. And my husband's out putting the ranch to bed and doing a few chores. I'm just going to be quiet for a while and enjoy the peace. Ah, serenity.
All right, this is all nice and work together. Now, I'm just going to press half of this mixture into this buttered pan. This is a really easy recipe. And then just use my fingers to press the mixture all the way into a single layer and get it over to the corners.
OK, got that all pressed in there. And now, for the strawberry part. I'm using strawberry jam but you can use apricot jam, pretty much any kind of jam you have in your fridge. I'm just going to pour this into a single layer.
You'll need about 10 to 12 ounces of jam, which is about how much I had left. Pretty lucky. And then I'll just spread this over the first layer. You know what? I just had an idea.
I was looking at my empty jam jar there. And I thought, you know, tomorrow, we're planning on having a science experiment involving pond water, of all things. But I think I will also teach the kids about canning and use that as an opportunity to replenish my jam supply. I think that's a plan.
All right, got the jam spread out. And then I'm just going to add the second half oat, flour, and butter mixture. And then just carefully press that. You don't have to push too hard because you don't want to disturb what's below. Just give it a light pat to kind of anchor it on there. And that's it. Now, this is going to bake for about 30 to 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
The strawberry oatmeal bars are done. And they look and smell so good. I'm just going to let these cool on the counter overnight, and then I'll cut them into squares tomorrow.
Up next, we're making strawberry jam at the lodge. I love the mix of cooking and science. Then when the kids take off for an experiment at the pond, I'm making them broccoli cheese soup with ham in scooped out bread bowls.
SPEAKER 2: It's really good.
REE DRUMMOND: Well, we're homeschoolers. And once a week, we get together with Missy, my sister-in-law, and her kids and our good friend, Beth, and her two boys. And we have homeschool co-op day.
Today, we're going to make strawberry jam. And I love making jam with kids because it's such a great way to teach them about food safety, food preservation, food science. And it's just a fun way for the kids to get in there and get their hands dirty.
So we've got Caleb and Bryce and John. They've been hauling and mashing strawberries. And then Hunter and Todd are measuring the sugar. And my beautiful niece, Hallie, and my brilliant daughter, Paige, have been squeezing lemons because we need fresh lemon juice.
Missy and Beth and I are getting the jars ready. And I say we get this show on the road. How many cups of strawberries do you have? I'm quizzing you to make sure--
SPEAKER 1: Seven and a half.
SPEAKER 2: Seven.
REE DRUMMOND: Woohoo, good job. I'll take those. All right, now we'll pour the mash strawberries into the pot. OK, and then who has lemon juice?
SPEAKER 4: Me.
REE DRUMMOND: You guys could open a lemonade stand. And then Beth, if you would add the lemon juice. I'm going to add 1 and 1/2 packages of powdered fruit pectin. And now, I'll stir this together.
And then, guys, I'm going to bring this to a boil. And after the boil, I'm going to add the sugar. So we'll get that heat turned up. And then Hunter?
SPEAKER 5: 10 and 1/2.
REE DRUMMOND: 10 and 1/2 cups of sugar. You guys are good sugar measurers. Pass that over. So the strawberry lemon juice and pectin mixture is boiling now. So guys, I'm going to go ahead and dump in the sugar. Ah, what a beautiful sight that is. Did you know there was that much sugar and jelly?
All right. So what we're going to do here now that we've got the sugar in is I'm going to bring it to a hard boil. And that means that it boils so hard that when I stir it, it doesn't disturb the boil. So it's going to take a few minutes to get that hot. And then I'm going to hand one of you a stopwatch and have you time the hard boil.
I think we're about there. See how I stir it and it doesn't calm it down? All right, who gets the stopwatch? We need to boil this mixture for exactly 1 minute and 25 seconds. So turn on the stopwatch.
All right. Now when it gets to 125, you let me know. And then, guys, you might have noticed that Aunt Missy put the jars into the simmering water. And the reason she's doing that is that when we put the hot jam into the jars, if the jars are cool, they could crack. Where are we guys?
SPEAKER 1: A minute, 11.
REE DRUMMOND: All right, Missy. Get your tongs ready.
SPEAKER 1: 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
REE DRUMMOND: Ooh wow. And guys, look at the top of this. See all this foam? Well, I'm going to skim it off the top. And this just keeps your jam later from having a bunch of pink foam in the jar. You don't have to get it all off. I really think it tastes good.
And then Aunt Missy, do you have tongs? Are you about ready to-- all right. OK, I've skimmed almost all the foam off at the top. Some people take off more than I do. But I'm eager to get the jam process going. It smells like strawberry jam in here.
SPEAKER 3: Oh, it smells so good.
REE DRUMMOND: All right, Aunt Missy. Let's do operation can the jam.
SPEAKER 1: Can the jam.
REE DRUMMOND: I love the assembly line we've got going on.
SPEAKER 3: It works.
REE DRUMMOND: All right. And I'm going to use the funnel to make it easier. And then I'm just going to fill the jam. And I try to get as much fruit as liquid so we kind of have an even distribution.
I'm going to run a clean knife down the side of the jar, just to get out any large air pockets or air bubbles. And then Beth, just stick the lid on. The lids have been simmering in warm water, too. And that helps them seal better on the jars.
And then, guys, I'm just going to screw on the band. And at this stage, you don't want to do it too tight. And then we'll set these aside. And let's do the rest of them, guys.
OK, guys. We've got all the jars filled. Aunt Missy is now going to start putting these on the rack because there are germs in the food we eat, natural bacteria. So if we filled a jar and stuck it on our pantry shelf and came back a month later, what do you think the jar would look like?
SPEAKER 2: Mold.
REE DRUMMOND: So if you don't kill all of those germs, the germs will multiply. So we're going to boil the jars. And it's going to kill every microorganism inside that jar.
All right, I'm going to let them boil for 10 minutes. Then we'll turn the heat off and let him sit for another 10 minutes. And that's the perfect amount of time for us to do our memory work.
SPEAKER 2: Yes.
REE DRUMMOND: Up next, the broccoli cheese soup gets started. And it's pond water collecting for the kids. School days are a lot of fun around here, and you're all welcome to join us.
Hey, let's do states and capital.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
REE DRUMMOND: Augusta.
SPEAKER 1: Maine.
REE DRUMMOND: Providence.
SPEAKER 2: Rhode Island.
REE DRUMMOND: Atlanta.
SPEAKER 4: Georgia.
REE DRUMMOND: Trenton.
SPEAKER 5: New Jersey.
REE DRUMMOND: Try to stump them, Beth.
SPEAKER 6: Harrisburg.
SPEAKER 7: Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER 6: Charleston.
SPEAKER 1: West Virginia.
SPEAKER 6: Raleigh.
SPEAKER 2: North Carolina.
REE DRUMMOND: Woo.
SPEAKER 6: Good job, guys.
SPEAKER 1: Pass me the orange.
REE DRUMMOND: We're having our big homeschool co-op day today. And we just made jam with the kids. And I think it turned out to be a pretty good science lesson, food safety lesson.
Now kids, the important thing here is even though the jars are cooled, we really need to let them sit on the counter and not disturb them for about 24 hours. And that's going to make sure these lids seal really tightly. And that's important when you can food.
They're cool enough so I'm going to let you stick your labels on. But let's be really, really careful and not pick them up and turn them over. You need to be as gentle as you can. All right, stick them on now. And then next week on co-op day, everybody can take their jam home.
SPEAKER 6: Here you go, guys. Just gently put your labels on.
REE DRUMMOND: Did you make a label, Beth?
SPEAKER 6: I didn't make one.
SPEAKER 4: Missy, did you not make a label?
SPEAKER 3: I didn't.
REE DRUMMOND: Not jostle them too much. Toddy, pass me your jar. And I'll stick these in a safe-- no, gentle. And I'll stick these in a safe place. All right, jam lesson is done. Now, it's time for biology, right?
SPEAKER 1: Biology.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah.
SPEAKER 6: Who's ready to go on a nature walk?
SPEAKER 1: Me.
SPEAKER 6: Come on, guys. Let's go get some water samples.
REE DRUMMOND: While Missy and Beth are down at the pond with the kids doing their science experiment, I'm going to whip up some lunch. I'm making broccoli cheese soup with ham. As far as my kids are concerned, this is a complete gourmet meal. They love broccoli cheese anything.
I've got some onion sauteing in some butter. And I just sprinkled in some flour. And that's the base of the soup. I'm just going to stir it around and let it cook for a minute. Boy, that jam episode was fun this morning. I think the kids liked it, too.
SPEAKER 1: OK, just hold it up.
SPEAKER 6: OK, you're just from the top surface. So yours is a lot clearer than everyone else's. And so there's still lots of things growing in there.
SPEAKER 4: Do you know what kind of rocks these are?
SPEAKER 2: Limestone.
SPEAKER 4: Right.
REE DRUMMOND: You know, there are lots of different ways to make broccoli cheese soup. I'm going to use 4 cups of whole milk, of course. And then I'm going to add 2 cups of half and half.
Don't try this at home. Actually, do try this at home. It's delicious. You can use all milk if you want to. But the half and half just adds a great richness.
And this just goes in with the onions, butter, and flour. OK, I'm going to let that heat up. And now I like to add a little fresh nutmeg to my broccoli cheese soup. It adds just this incredible flavor. It makes you take a bite and say, what is in this broccoli cheese soup? I want to have this for dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next week.
And then I'll just add a little salt and pepper. I already smell that nutmeg. Oh, that is yummy smelling. All right, stir this up. Now, I'm going to let this get really hot and I'm going to chop up the broccoli.
Now, you can steam the broccoli or boil it first and then throw it in. But that would sort of take away from the throw it in the pot and walk away from it quality that this soup has. And I kind of want to get it done quick because when the scientists return from the pond, they're going to be wanting some lunch.
So I'm going to cut off just the florets. And you can sort of just give it a rough chop. And I'm going to wind up pureeing this soup with an immersion blender later so it really doesn't matter what form the broccoli is in.
And then this is almost to a boil so I'm going to go ahead and throw the broccoli in. The house is very quiet after that crazy jam episode we had. OK, stir the broccoli in. And then I'm going to reduce the heat and just let this simmer for 20 minutes. And that's right about the time the guys will get back.
Up next, I'm turning bread rolls into soup bowls and serving broccoli cheese soup with ham to the hungry kids.
SPEAKER 1: This is the best meal I've ever had.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah, this is really good.
REE DRUMMOND: We're having a delicious day of school. For recipes from this episode, go to foodnetwork.com/pioneerwoman,
Well, it's homeschool co-op day on the ranch. And Missy and Beth are down at the pond with the scientists. And I'm here making broccoli cheese soup with ham for lunch.
The soup's been simmering for about 20 minutes. It's nice and creamy and thick. And the broccoli is tender. I could just leave it as it is and throw in the cheese and ham. But I'm going to puree it just to make it a little smoother.
And that is why I love immersion blenders. You don't have to transfer it to a separate blender to puree it. You just do it right in the pot. This soup looks divine. And I think the guys really should be back any minute.
SPEAKER 6: When we get the microscope, you're going to see there's like millions of microorganisms in this water.
SPEAKER 4: What else is in the pond?
SPEAKER 1: Fossil.
SPEAKER 2: Bugs.
SPEAKER 4: That's right.
SPEAKER 3: Fish slugs.
SPEAKER 4: Fish.
REE DRUMMOND: I love pond water experiments. It's the perfect activity for country kids. I went ahead and just pureed it to a totally smooth consistency, which is going to be perfect because I'm adding in a bunch of diced ham. Since we got a lot of kids here, I thought they'd appreciate that.
So I'm going to add the ham. And then I've got 3 cups of cheddar cheese that I grated myself. It's a habit of mine. I think it melts a lot smoother that way. And then I'm just going to stir it. And it's just a matter of bringing the heat back up.
So I'll raise the heat just a bit, stir it around, let the cheese melt, let the ham warm up. The broccoli is beautiful and delicious. The scientists are going to love this.
SPEAKER 6: I bet you Ree has something ready for us, don't you think?
SPEAKER 1: Wood, cows, rocks, trees, grass, slugs, fish, fossils.
SPEAKER 4: Good job, all right.
SPEAKER 6: OK, you guys. Let's go.
REE DRUMMOND: The soup's ready. And I thought it would be fun to serve it in scooped out little bread bowls. So I cut the top off of each of these. And I'm just pulling the pieces of bread out. I love soup in hollowed out bread bowls. The first time I ever had one, I thought this is what life's all about. So, so good. All right, that's one for each of us.
You're back from the pod. What did you guys get. Oh, that's cold, Ali, silly. Look at your samples. Let me see this. You must have gone deep with that one.
SPEAKER 1: I'm like good at this one.
REE DRUMMOND: Are you guys hungry? I made broccoli cheese soup, guys, with ham. OK, put your samples down. Wash your hands. Let's eat. Who's hungry?
SPEAKER 1: Me.
SPEAKER 2: Look at all that cheese.
SPEAKER 3: Broccoli cheese ham soup is really good.
SPEAKER 1: Guys, this is the best meal I've ever had.
SPEAKER 2: Yeah, it's really good.
REE DRUMMOND: So who wants dessert?
SPEAKER 1: Me.
SPEAKER 2: Oh, yum.
SPEAKER 3: Oh, yum.
SPEAKER 5: It's so, so good.
REE DRUMMOND: Ah.
SPEAKER 6: Are you guys ready to examine the pond water? Here's your fries.
SPEAKER 1: Woo.
SPEAKER 6: See, Hallie, Hunter. Ree, are you ready?
REE DRUMMOND: I'm ready to examine this under the microscope.
[MUSIC PLAYING]