Nom Nom Nom.

Perhaps you’re wondering why I’m all hot in the biscuit to cook things lately. Hey, me too! Part of it is the “winter’s coming!” nesting instinct, part of it is likely related to the whole SAD thing and the last part is simply that if I’m craving food, I might as well make it myself and gain weight from real ingredients rather than chemicals and fillers.

I’ve long had the Pioneer Woman Cooks web site on my RSS reader, and have drooled over almost all of Ree’s recipes (especially because the pictures are so very appealing – even just the damned ingredients!)

It seemed like a good idea to start with something fairly simple – in case the photos were better than the end results.

I should note: almost all of the recipes on the site are made with very basic ingredients – as Ree notes, her local grocery store doesn’t carry all the fancy-schmancy stuffs – and while some of the items are US-specific (and we may not have that specific brand in Canada) it’s easy to find something that fits the bill.

Last night, around 7:30pm, we made the Bacon-Wrapped Jalapeno Thingies. I had purchased 8 jalapeno peppers, one brick of cream cheese and one slab of bacon, thinking that would be more than enough to give the two of us an enjoyable ‘snack’ if they turned out well and few enough to not feel completely wasteful if they turned out badly.

Suffice to say that when Ree says to make more than you think you’ll want, she wasn’t kidding. Oh my! I should have purchased the entire bushel of jalapenos and all the cream cheese and, well, two or three whole pigs for the bacon.

It took us about 20 minutes to prepare them – with me scooping out the seeds and stuffing ‘em full of cream cheese and Coffee doing the bacon-wrapping. We made them fairly mild in part because of my ulcer and in part because, of course, we weren’t sure how spicy they’d turn out. Nearly all of the seeds and white membranes were removed – next time, we’ll do mine that way and leave more “spice” for Coffee’s.

They took about 30 minutes in the oven to cook since our oven isn’t the most efficient – but the smell of the bacon (and the sizzle!) was killing us LONG before they were ready.

And then it took us about, oh, 20 seconds to scarf ‘em all down.

Sweet, sweet, merciful love. Oh. OH! I am now stating, in a public forum, that I love Ree. She’s my new BFF – even if we never email, meet or, y’know, even if she has no idea that I exist.

Tonight I’m going to make the buffalo wings. I suspect that if they’re even half as good as the jalapeno thingies I’ll be building a little shrine to Ree in my kitchen.