PW Fan

If you don’t read the Pioneer Woman blog, you are really missing out! She’s fantastic! As a blogger, she is who I aspire to be when I grow up. Ha ha! She has amazing recipes, great photos, and her writing style is hilarious! She just came out with a new cookbook and it’s pretty awesome!


She had a book signing in OKC and Jennifer and I thought we would get there right on time, have our books signed by PW and be on our merry little way. Not so much! The line was forever! Apparently, everyone in OKC is a PW fan.

Here is a recipe for Pear Crisp from the PW web-site. I’m not really a big fan of fruit desserts, but this was pretty good. Jeremy didn’t love it, but Matt and Jennifer had some and they liked it. It’s worth a try and it’s definitely worth checking out the PW site.

Pear Crisp

Filling Ingredients:
4 whole (to 5) Large Pears (Bosc Work Well)
⅔ cups Sugar
¼ teaspoons Salt

Topping Ingredients:
1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
⅓ cups Sugar
⅓ cups Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
½ teaspoons Cinnamon
½ cups Pecans, Very Finely Chopped
1 stick Butter, Melted

Preparation Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Peel, core, and dice pears. Place into a bowl and stir together with 2/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Stir together.

Drizzle melted butter gradually, stirring with a fork as you go until all combined.

Pour pears into a baking dish; top with crumb topping.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Place pan on top rack of oven for an additional 10 minutes, or until topping is golden brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream

The vanilla ice cream is a must! It's even good the next day after it's been warmed in the oven for a few minutes. PW has great step-by-step instructions with photos!

And just because it's been a while since I put some Win and Ivy pics on- here you go! They desparetely need a haircut!

Even if you don't love the Pear Crisp, I know you'll love the Pioneer Woman!

A Very Merry Christmas in Texas

Shortly after returning from our ski trip, it was time to celebrate Christmas in Abilene. My mom had the entire house decorated for Christmas- lots of greenery, snow men, Santa, nativity sets, and of course, the beautiful tree. My Aunt Lisa came to help us celebrate, which made it even better!

In keeping with our family tradition, we always open one present on Christmas Eve. And that one present happens to be pajamas- matching pajamas that is. We opened them up and posed for family pictures.

Even though Sarah couldn’t be with us, she still had her Christmas Eve present to open!

We woke up Christmas morning and opened the rest of our presents! I got a magic bullet, some new tennis shoes, a new camera, and a new recipe book called “Hello Cupcake.” I love the cupcake book!

For Christmas Day, we ate, played games, watched tv, played more games, took naps, and relaxed. It was the perfect way to spend the day.

Ivy got some new bobos and a stocking with a toy candy cane! Santa was very good to her, even though I'm not too sure about how good she was this year . . .

Another family tradition, involves a family recipe- my MaMa’s Buttermilk Pie. When I was younger, she taught me how to make it and it’s been requested at Moore Family Get-Togethers ever since. Sometimes, my brother even requests it for his birthday! If you’ve never had it, it’s worth a try. It’s a little bit like a custard, but still there is really nothing quite like it!

My MaMa’s Buttermilk Pie

1 (9 inch) pie crust, unbaked (MUST be homemade)
½ cup butter, melted
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
3 rounded tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all ingredients. Pour in pie crust and bake in moderate over (350 degrees) until set, usually 45 minutes- 1 hour.


Ivy had a great time at my parents. Plenty of people to entertain her and lots to do (lots of ways to get in trouble!).

Amy and Rocky stopped by on Thursday night to hang out with the family. We had a great time catching up and talking about Baby McAdams!

Our Christmas was fabulous! And we're hoping that your Christmas was very Merry and filled with celebration, good food, and thoughts about what this special time is really all about!

On Friday, we drove to East Texas to celebrate with the rest of our family. We celebrated the Moore Christmas on Saturday- good food and good company. It was even better because my cousin, Tabitha, was home for the holidays from Ecuador! We had a great time catching up and she showed us all her pictures from the past few months. She has a blog where you can follow her adventures in Ecuador!

On Sunday, we celebrated the Walker Christmas. More delicious food! Then, we decided to try out one of the recipes from the cupcake book! We decided to do the ornaments since it was our first try and we were celebrating Christmas. Everyone participated and I think we did a pretty good job.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Key Lime Goodness

Lately, I have really been craving key lime pie. Normally, I’m definitely a chocolate girl, but I have been ordering key lime pie whenever possible. I finally decided to give it a try myself and I was not disappointed. It’s a very simple and tasty recipe!

Our friends, Ali and Sam are coming to Nashville for a visit, so this will be waiting on them when they get here. Hopefully, they like key lime pie as much as I do!

And a special thanks to Lisa, Deborah and Delancy for my fancy new shamrock green Fiesta pie plate! I love it! It definitely makes the pie taste better!!!

Key Lime Pie

Crust:
2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup sugar

7 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In medium bowl, combine cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup of sugar, and the melted butter. Press firmly on bottom and up sides of pie plate. Bake for 7 minutes and let cool completely.

Filling:

3 large egg yolks

1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons grated lime zest

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

1/2 cup heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and condensed milk. Stir in the lime zest, lime juice, and cream. Pour the filling into the crust and bake about 30 minutes or until firm. Remove pie from oven and let cool 20 minutes before putting into fridge.

E’s Notes:

• I used the remaining heavy cream to make whipped cream by adding some powdered sugar and beating for a few minutes.
• The homemade crust is totally optional- you could definitely by a prepared crust from the store.
• I cheated a little bit and used the juice from one fresh lime and some store-bought key lime juice. I can’t tell a difference!
  

Ivy went to the groomer for a day of pampering. Doesn't she look pretty???

Apparently, all that pampering leaves her exhausted. She's been sleeping all afternoon!

Derby Days

We met Billy, Rita, and Alison in Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday. We dropped off Ivy at the hotel and headed for Churchill Downs. It was very hot, but the tour was neat! A tunnel lead from the front gate to the general admission stands- our tour guide said today, it would take us about 2-3 minutes to walk that, but on the day of the Kentucky Derby, it takes over an hour! I think I’ll watch it on tv!

We headed to the Hall of Fame Café for some lunch and drinks to cool us down. Louisville is famous for Derby Pie and Hot Brown. At lunch, Alison wasn’t very hungry, so she only ordered Derby Pie. Rita and I really wanted some, but we were too full from our big lunch to order a piece. We had a sample of Alison’s and it was fabulous- vanilla ice cream, caramel, warm pie! Amazing!

Rita and I agreed that we could not leave Louisville without trying our own piece. Later that night, we went to the restaurant in our hotel and ordered Derby Pie a la mode. They were out of ice cream! And the pie was not warm and not delicious. We were so disappointed! We did try the hot brown and it was very good.



We came back to Nashville after a big brunch on Sunday. I couldn’t let our last memory of Derby Pie be a bad one. So I made some Derby Pie and it was great!

Derby Pie

3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 c. light corn syrup
1/2 c. brown sugar, packed
1 c. chopped pecans
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. vanilla
6 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 T bourbon
1 9 inch deep dish pie shell, unbaked

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients and pour into pie shell. Bake for 10 minutes and reduce heat to 350 degrees for 35 minutes more. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

E’s Notes:

• I used Jack instead of bourbon- it’s all whiskey!
• I had to put foil around the edge of my crust because it was getting too brown.
• Serve warm with ice cream, of course!