In the kitchen, yo.

I love the holidays.

I love my little kitchen.

The two make for a nice combination.


(chocolate oatmeal cookies, courtesy of Josh's Mama... and bottles of homemade muscadine wine. )

I hosted Josh's family here at The Farmhouse on Christmas Eve. We had a feast. A big, messy feast. We ate on paper plates and drank homemade wine out of Dixie Cups. I am pretty sure those are lyrics to a country music song .... somewhere. Somehow. And yes, I am serious. We did.

I love having company. Especially the kind I can cook for. And the kind that brings homemade mac and cheese and a big pot of collards with them. Just sayin'.


(I cook in the same kitchen that my great grandmother cooked meals in... cool? Yes.)

So. The best cookbook I have ever purchased in the history of my thirty two years is by The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. I started following her blog several years ago, and started following her kitchen adventures about the same time. Hello, delicious. I am one of about 2 million followers of her blog. To her, I am a mere kitchen peon.

The cooking section of her website can be found here. All I can say is... take notes. But, if you get really dedicated to her style and charm and her amazingly good looking cowboy husband, think about purchasing her cookbook. It's filled with easy, delicious recipes - and even better - lots of pictures of her husband and cows. In that order.

I consider a cookbook GOOD when I know almost all the recipes by heart, and the pages are stained and dog eared. I might have to get a new copy of hers soon. Mine's lookin' kinda shabby, in a good way.

For my contribution to Christmas Eve dinner, I made her Creamy Mashed Potatoes . (Ree made them on Good orning America) None leftover. Dang company. Always eatin' all my food.


(cousins at the dinner table)

Since I am a good southern girl who loves her mama, I also love Paula Deen. What can I say? I totally gel with her philosophy on adding a stick of butter (or three) and mayonaise to anything. I also belive and sweet tea and grits, and the combination of all those things means I'm going to heaven. Yes, Jesus is involved in that plan too, so don't start worrying. I think we all know Jesus likes a good glass of sweet iced tea every now and again.

So on Friday, I tried her recipe for Corn Casserole. I have tried a few other recipes for this casserole in the past, and they are always dry and kinda ... yucky. Fortunately, (unfortunately for Josh) I don't give up that easy. This recipe was easy, inexpensive, and involved one of my other favorite ingredients... JIFFY Corn Muffin mix. There were also no leftovers. SIGH. SOME. PEOPLE.

Now I just gotta clean all this up. STAFF!? STAAAAF!