The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, is a photographer, blogger and has published cookbooks. To put it mildly she is widely known and followed. This year she got a cooking show on the Food Network. Her voice isn’t my favorite though it isn’t horrid. She also talks like she is talking to kids. Considering that she home schools her kids and lives out on a ranch that makes sense. I record the shows to watch when the mood strikes me. The other day the kids and I watched an episode featuring homemade jam, fruit bars and broccoli cheese soup with ham. The kids started paying attention on the soup bit. Instantly they were enthralled with the words coming out of Ree’s mouth. Everything she expressed enthusiasm for they repeated and got more excited. Since I had just gotten a head of broccoli in my co-op produce box it seemed like a great thing to make. When she added the cheese Madison exclaimed, “Oh mommy, I love cheese!” When it got to adding the ham they both raved over how much they love ham. The show often features Ree’s family eating the meals she makes. The camera showed a shot of her son as he said it was the best meal he’d ever had. Blake jumps up on the couch and yells, “Best Meal Ever! I need to eat some Best Meal Ever!”
The kids and I talked for a couple days about making the soup and having them help me. We picked up one ingredient we were missing and one afternoon set to work on it. They helped pour in the ingredients and stirred them. As the broccoli starts cooking into the soup Madison tells me it does not smell good. The broccoli definitely has a strong aroma and it was not overpowered by the creamy, cheesy soup nor the ham as I had hoped.
After dishing it all up we sat down to taste the yumminess. I loved it! It was a quick and flavorful dish.
The kids would barely consent to take a bite and neither could stand the strong broccoli flavor. Oh well. Ree certainly sold my kids on the idea of the yummy dish, and we had a great time cooking it together. The kids teachers got to enjoy some soup on Wednesday since I didn’t want to eat it four days in a row to finish it off. 🙂
I will win them back over to my veggie loving ways. I will.
Blake is doing some work learning to add in this image. He’s so adorable when he concentrates! I’m a bit worried about him. The poor kid has been suffering the last 3 1/2 days with diarrhea. Nothing else seems wrong with him, but it can’t be good to have it for this many days in a row. He doesn’t seem to be getting dehydrated, but he certainly is tired of it.
Out of the 2 I have, I only have one veggi trained, 🙂 and that’s because she is a natural and will eat almost anything. My oldest is still in training 🙁 and has always been a picky eater. If anyone has successful veggi stories I’d love to hear them.