Look, I’m going to be upfront from the outset.

I am a disaster in the kitchen.

There I said it.

Do not get the wrong idea. People from all around pine for my chocolate peanut butter cupcakes. Those in fact have caused tension between myself and my lovely blogging partner Miss Jennifer Jean . Her hubby and her dad love them. I believe one birthday she made them for her dad, or perhaps husband, I can’t quite remember. Whoever it was was sad they weren’t mine. (insert maniacal laughter). So the end product is good. The process is a comedy of errors. And the clean up – momentous.

This may be from my bout of ADD . No I have not been formally diagnosed though a seventh grade math teacher thought I needed evaluated. No, Mr Harris. You are just THAT boring.

You see I can’t just sit and read a recipe and replicate it. I get lost in the black and white of the text. Or better yet outside the text. It bores me. My mind begins to wander to thoughts of the day, wondering what the screaming or worse yet – the silence - from the children could mean. And now I have the glorious wonder that is the iPhone 4 . Not only does it carry with it the ability to text rapid fire to my favorite people engaging in endless discussions but it brings the wild wonderful web (that’s www stands for right) right into the palm of my hand.

This is where Pioneer Woman comes in and why her recipes work so well for me. She has beautiful photos of every step of her yummy food even down to a cast of characters of ingredients and the wondrous pink alien hand that delivers the cast of characters to the pots. It helps me to focus- I don’t even have to read if I don’t want to just skim the pictures and in the end – a wonderful dinner for my family.

It has really changed how I view cooking. I get confidence by knowing I can see each step of the process and be able to judge what I did to a visual representation to what its supposed to look like each step of the way instead of holding my breath and praying it all looks right at the end like with traditional recipes. The recipes also give comedic relief with pw quirky analysis of the task at hand, helping break up the monotomy of steps and ingredients.

I need entertained. We live in a world where we have tiny computers in our hands at all times available to access whatever we want basically, its inhumane for me to be expected to read a straight recipe. Pw knows this and delivers.

Now instead of dreading cooking and thinking of it as a task, it has become an adventure. I love planning out our menus for the week and get excited about the whole process.

I have really cut down on our eating out though im not sure if it has made a difference in our bank account because I have to buy a fridge full of heavy cream and butter to complete a weeks worth PW recipes. (The woman is a big fan of dairy. Probably stems from her cow love. )We have cows on our farm too (pic) I told Jenn I could make up that part of the PW blog for us since cow photos are a hallmark of Pioneer Woman. That is Miss Moo.

Also cooking at home has not helped me lose weight. Again I place the blame on the heavy cream and butter. I haven’t gained though so I suppose that’s something right? No? Well I’m counting it.

And did I say disaster? Here is my kitchen when I’m done a single recipe.

(pic)

Idk how it happens it just does.