The Pioneer Woman. I am not her.

HERE’S WHAT I LOVE: The Pioneer Woman. I mean, this girl is UH-mazing! Check it out:http://thepioneerwoman.com

She cooks, she bakes, she home schools, she lives on a ranch, she interior decorates, oh—and she takes professional level photographs of all her cooking, designing, ranching, and homeschooling. PLUS, she blogs about it. She is, in a word: SUPERwoman. I want to be her.

I have to make myself feel better by saying that she must have a staff of little elves or she enslaves her children to help her with all these lovely photographs of amazing meals she’s dishing up for her rancher husband. Either she has helpers or she drinks 3 Redbulls a day to keep cranking out her awesomeness. The world may never know.

But, seriously, every wife/mother/daughter/aunt/sister/woman should check out her website. She has a fun story, shares all of her talents with the world instead of hording them for her family and she’s pretty darn funny which is always a bonus. If I can’t be her, then I’d at least like to be her friend.

The thing I like best about her website is all the yummy recipes. She (of course) takes all these lovely photos of each step of every recipe. Photos help me. Once I’ve looked through the pictures of how she is making something, I can pretty much make it no problem. I am a visual learner. But, these aren’t just icky pictures—these are works of art. Who knew that butter melting in a pan could be so beautiful. Ree Drummond did, so she took a picture. All her pictures have all this perfect lighting and then she gives easy instructions on how to do something like chop an onion. AND she writes hilarious little captions about each picture—and again, humor gets me every time. I truly, love the Pioneer Woman!

HERE’S WHAT I HATE: I am NOT the Pioneer Woman.

#1—I don’t live on a ranch, farm, or prairie, so I can’t even have that cool title. (Suburban Woman is not as catchy.)

#2—I don’t have talent in the kitchen. I can follow recipes and make food for my family, but not the sorts of yummy amazingness that Ree does.

#3—Although I love photography, I have not practiced, don’t have a good camera, nor the super-fun subject matter like melting butter or cows on the ranch.

#4—I don’t home school. I am one of those evil parents that sends their kids to public school for a mediocre education. (KIDDING!—we love our daughter’s school and are so happy with all that she’s learning.) But, again, I do not have the super-power of home schooling, so I leave that up to gifted teachers.

So, I am pretty much just a mom. No super-powers, no photograph-worthy cooking, no structured home schooling of my dear little daughters. No novella (yet)….So, it’s just me doing the day-to-day stuff like laundry, grocery shopping, paying bills, and cleaning the house (who wants a picture of any of that!?) My life may not be as adventurous or as photo-worthy as “the Pioneer Woman’s”, but I wouldn’t trade it. I love my sweet family, I love reading to my girls, I love dating my doctor husband, and I even love keeping up with household chores.

However, I still wish I had some of Ree’s amazing talents. So, since I can’t be her, or be her friend, I’ll make fun of her. Actually, I’ll make fun of myself trying to be like her…

Here’s my wanna-be-Ree recipe…it’s actually a yummy little dish that I got from a dear friend when I first got married. She used actual chicken that she had to cook and chop up, and probably shredded her own cheese, but over the years of making this recipe—I’ve slowly become lazier and lazier until one day, I realized that I now use ALL packaged food to make this dish. How did it get to this point! I mean, this is not semi-homemade…this is completely out of a box. I don’t have to cut anything! Since I have the recipe memorized, I decided to take step-by-step pictures and share my completely packaged meal prep secrets with the world…

Ree probably uses a Nikon with a 35mm 2.0 lens in natural day light in her state-of-the art kitchen. I used my iPhone under can-lights in my messy kitchen with an electric range.

The messy kitchen: I had just made cupcakes for my 8-year old's birthday. I make my own icing. That is my superpower.

Here's the cast of characters (as Ree would say). See, everything out of a package! Packaged chicken (southwest, 'cause we are crazy like that), cream of chicken soup, shredded cheddar, crescent rolls, and a little milk--I went with fat-free to be healthy! Also, there's a package of rice in the background. Pre-heat your oven to 375.

Open the can of cream of chicken soup. Difficult concept--that's why there is a picture. I buy the kind that does not need a can opener. Lazy, I tell ya!

Dump the soup in a small sauce pan and then add a splash of milk. Maybe 3/4 cup or so. I don't measure. Crank up the heat on your electric burner to medium.

Whisk! Don't you love the yellow lighting on this shot!?

Now, stir in some shredded cheddar. I'd say about a cup of cheese. Depends on how cheesy you are,,,I mean, how cheesy you want it.

After the cheese is fully combined with the soup mixture, dump in your packaged chicken. (Here is where you could make this really special by buying chicken, grilling it yourself, and cutting it into chunks to put into the mix...but that would take extra time and probably not have all the added sodium and preservatives that my packaged chicken has.)

Now comes the fun assembly part. Roll out your crescent dough, but don't separate into triangles, just keep it in a rectangle. Sort of pinch the creases together so that the chicken doesn't slip out the bottom.

Now, spoon the chicken/soup mixture onto the crescent dough like so. (That rhymed.)

Now, fold over the dough and over-lap the top to close it up...like a burrito!

Quickly make four little crescent burritos in a row. It's fun! I didn't get a photo, but I usually spoon the remaining chicken mixture around the crescent rolls, but not on the top.

Now, throw the whole thing into the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown on top.

While the Chicken-Crescent is in the oven, you can easily make your rice--follow the instructions on the package. There are no lovely photos to tell you what to do, but I'll give you a hint, you do have to take the rice out of the package.

BONUS: not shown earlier--vegetables that you can actually cook in the package! I mean, can this get any easier!? Now, you can check your FB or play WWF while everything cooks.

Ding! It's ready. Nice and perfectly golden brown.

Now, sprinkle some more shredded cheddar on top of the hot crescents. Make sure you do this right after it comes out of the oven so that the cheese will melt. Otherwise, you'll need to pop it back in the oven for a few minutes.

And now, we have the worst photograph ever of the completed meal. Melty chicken crescent with rice and vegetables made entirely with pre-packaged ingredients. Lazy, easy, and pretty tasty actually.

BTW, lest you think I am amazing all on my own, I will confess that while I don't have elves helping me, I do have an assistant. His name is Dr. Cutrer. He's the love of my life and an excellent dishwasher. He humored me while I took twice as long to make dinner because I had to photograph it for this blog. He is also super hot in his basketball shorts. :-)

So, while I hate the fact that I am not The Pioneer Woman, I still love her and this is my tribute to her. Just for fun!