Boys, Girls and Pasta Primavera Plus What Does It All Mean To Pioneer Woman?

Pioneer Woman with Ree Drummond

Girl Time and Burger Time

Fry Sauce

Pasta Primavera

Perfect Bacon Cheeseburgers

Perfect French Fries

Cantaloupe Granita

I’ve said this before. I don’t hate Pioneer Woman, BUT am I alone in thinking that this "Girl Time and Burger Time" show was a throwback to a time that I don’t really want to go back to?

This is how Ree puts it at the beginning and then at the end of the show: “The guys are away for a couple of days so it’s quality time for us girls and that means plenty of gardening, which WE love." (Yeah, right…) "And Pasta Primavera, which is the girls’ and my idea of heaven.”

Later: “Then it’s back to the real world – THE GUYS ARE COMING HOME! What better way to welcome to them than with one of our family’s favorite meals - perfect Bacon Cheeseburgers and homemade French fries and luscious ‘fry sauce’”? That last thing turns out to be Russian dressing, BTW.

Is it going overboard to think that Pioneer Woman is a bit of an anachronistic fossil, who is a horrible example to her girls and an even worse one to her sons?

Listen, I’m all for Girls Only occasions – shopping, drinking cosmos, going to chick flicks. But when these “special” days involve Girls Only manual or household labor, I just think WTH?

On “Day One” of “Girl Time”, PW asks the little Pioneer Teen-gals what they should all do while the boys are away.  They say, “Work in the garden.” 

Does Ree seriously expect us to believe that these two American teenagers are actually picking USING a hoe over shopping like one? But somehow, Pioneer Woman has two daughters who prefer the land over the mall.  

It’s not that I’m against manual labor for kids, especially if they’re doing something that I’m supposed to do and now I don’t have to, BUT I’m against GIRLS ONLY manual labor in exactly the same way that I would be against an activity reserved only for boys. (Okay, the boys can have football, as long as the girls can be way ahead in college attendance.)

Ree leaves the girls slaving in the garden, while she starts the Pasta Primavera. She isn’t allowed to make this when the guys are around BECAUSE REAL MEN ONLY EAT MEAT. She should tell that to the arteries of her little boys in 40 years (heck TWENTY!) when there’s a problem. They DO get a lot of exercise, but does that counteract the effects of a complete lack of a plant-based diet?

The basic idea of Ree’s recipe is to sauté the vegetables in groups depending on their cooking time. Butter and oil go into the pan before each band of vegetables gets its turn. Carrots and broccoli go in first with a red pepper thrown in at the end. That gets put to one side and, after more butter and olive oil, the next bunch goes in – yellow squash, zucchini and mushrooms.

Ree tells us she’s so glad that she has daughters so she has automatic help in the garden every year. AHEM. Boys can weed too! “There’s something about country boys. They do NOT like helping with the garden. They just want to have grass everywhere…” I guess it’s for their roughhousing and wrasslin’ and tumbling around like BOYS do.

Ree removes the second group of vegetables. She adds more olive oil and more butter – we’re up to 6 tablespoons now – to the pan with half an onion and some garlic.

Next she adds wine, because she can’t do that “when her husband is around, because he can detect the slightest amount of wine in any recipe and who needs that hassle?” She adds just a little bit, because “her girls are joining” her. I wish she would make a project of sneaking as much wine as possible into everything her hubby eats. I think he could use some loosening up.* (See note at end.)

Ree adds chicken broth next and reduces it by half. We see the girls picking lots of basil (which Ree had requested) and putting it in a pretty woven basket. Lo and behold when they arrive at the house, they’re holding only a few sprigs in their hands. (Creative editing, I guess.)

Ree adds a ¼ cup of cream, seasonings and Parmesan and then frozen peas with the cooked vegetables and stirs that together. She says, “I just love it when my husband and boys go out of town. Just kidding, just kidding,” she hastily adds, lest we think she means it.

A bit more cheese and the chopped basil gets added to the pasta and Ree serves it up. Ree asks her girls what they should do with the 24 hours they have left until Daddy and the boys are back. They say (kind of under their breath and very well-rehearsed) “Gardening!” Ree is delighted.

The rest of the show is taken up with Ree forgetting about her special time with the girls and rushing around making sure everything is ready for the guys when they walk in the door.

She says since the guys will be home they need to bring the food “back down to earth”. Ummm, aren’t vegetables the most down to earth you can get…literally???!!!

Ree peels and deals with FIVE pounds of potatoes. She shows us different ways that she gets them into French fry shapes – with a knife; with a metal French fry molder; and a plastic box with blade assembly.

That last one is interesting. Ree puts the potatoes on top of a grid-like blade and then pushes down really hard. The potatoes get cut into perfect long fries as they fall into the box below.

Ree prefers this method because she says it allows her to get her aggressions out. Hmmm, interesting. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t see the plastic box that the French fries are trapped in as a metaphor for her own life, but I kind of do. (I may be reading more into all this than is warranted…but I like figuring out the esoteric meaning behind kitchen equipment.)

Ree soaks her potatoes while they wait to be cut and she soaks them after cutting them too...in order to remove excess starch. She’s still talking about how great her French fry cutter is. “There’s something strangely satisfying about getting all these aggressions out. I never knew I had such anger inside of me”  Wow! She’s really letting loose. See what happens when she’s man (and boy)less for a few days.

Back to the French fries, Ree says to soak them for at least 2 hours. It takes off the starches from the outside, she says, which can cause a problem when you fry them.

                         

Now she’s on a cooking countdown, because my, oh my, the guys will be home soon.

For the “fry sauce”, which is a sauce TO GO WITH THE FRIES, (lest you thought it was something more complicated) Ree mixes equal amounts of mayo and ketchup and calls it a day. I have no problem with that, but how about a bit of pickle juice and a chopped pickle? Oh wait, that might qualify as a vegetable and so the boys won’t eat it. Gawd!

Ree is apparently a proponent of the James Beard method of burgers. She adds a bit of heavy cream (with some Worcestershire sauce and seasoning) to her ground beef. She has 3 pounds of beef and she’s making SIX burgers, which, she proudly tells us, means that each burger will be a half pound each. I know there will be some shrinkage, but isn’t a burger that big kind of unnecessary?

Ree makes 6 identically-sized burgers, just by eyeballing it, which is kind of impressive. As she does that, she completely coats the griddle with butter and gets three buns going. Why do I think that the 3 buns made in advance (and, thus, not the freshly crisp and crusty ones) will be for her and the girls? And the boys will get the ones fresh off the grill…’cause they were away doing MAN things and they’re hungry!!!

Ree drains and dries the potatoes really well before frying. Next she is doing exactly the right thing. She follows the classic approach of twice-frying the potatoes in two different oil temperatures. The only thing that’s weird is that she acts like she invented the idea. She says she used to fry them in a single pot of oil and they didn’t come out right. Now that she gives them two fryings, they are perfect. Well, yeah, that’s how the French do it, and they know a thing or two about fine cookin'.

Ree fries the potatoes in vegetable oil first at 300°F for 5 minutes to soften them, but not to brown them. Then she raises the temperature to 400°F and fries them for a few minutes more. She does take them out a bit prematurely for my taste. (I like them browner.) But Ree makes the point that they continue cooking after coming out of the oil. She also reminds us to put hot oil on the back burner if you have kids around. 

She’s happy Ladd (Lance?) isn’t around because he always eats all the fries before she can serve them.

Ree cooks the burgers and tops them with cheddar. She sprinkles some sea salt on the fries and assembles the burgers on the “yummy buttery buns” and tops each one with a piece of bacon. Her timing is perfect, because, lookie here, the boys have JUST arrived. Ree yells Yay! Little Whoever He Is says “Hi Mama.” She piles the burgers on the plates with fries. Not even a tomater on the plate. I’d even count ketchup as a vegetable at this point.

The recipes list a Cantaloupe Granita. I don’t know where I was when she made that, but maybe I would have been in better mood if I’d seen a lovely finish to the meal. (PS Adding a bit of vodka to it would ensure that it didn’t freeze solid. Oh, but maybe Mr. Cow-Husband would object.)

So what have we learned? It’s more fun when the guys are away. (Can’t really disagree.) And gardening is the main thing to get accomplished during that precious time. (Couldn’t disagree more.) 

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*Note: I’ve really come a long way (or regressed you might say). Apparently, at one time, I was completely against Ree sneaking alcohol into Ladd’s food.  Now? Not so much. The kitchen appears to be the one place where Ree has a modicum of independence and I think she should do whatever she has to in order to hold on to her own identity…even if it’s a splash of vodka or wine here and there. A few shots probably wouldn’t hurt either.