Southern Feast (or "What I cooked from Ree Drummond's cookbook")

Saturday night I cooked a Southern feast for my family from Ree Drummond's fabulous cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Readers of my blog will remember that my beautiful sister bought me the book after I waxed lyrical about Ree's blog and wonderful recipes. You can read all about it here.

So, what was on the menu?

I didn't do any starters because I had a feeling that the meal itself would be filling enough!

For main course we had Chicken-Fried Steak with Buttermilk Biscuits and Gravy, served with Green Salad. Here's what it looked like on my plate:

How did it taste?

Well, I found the biscuits a bit challenging! They turned out a little crispier and less light and fluffy than I would have liked, but what do I know? Everyone tried some, but no-one went back for seconds. I'm not sure whether it was because the Aussie taste-buds are not accustomed to them or if it was because I just didn't do a very good job of making them! Oh well. Here's a batch of them straight out of the oven. Do they look right to you?

The chicken-fried steak was much more of a success. We all enjoyed the tasty coating and the meat came out tender and juicy, so I must have done something right!

But dessert...well dessert was a triumph!

For the kids I made chocolate brownies. I didn't have time to attempt two of Ree's dessert recipes so for the brownies I used a nice reliable packet mix. Here they are:

(There were more, but I decided that two brownies per child was ample and put the rest in the freezer for later. I'm mean like that.)

For the adults, however, I decided to have a crack at Ree's Peach Crisp with Maple Cream Sauce. I'm so glad that I did. Here are some photos of the crisp in progress:

And here's what it looked like after it had been baked and (mostly) eaten:

It was absolutely, deliciously scrumptious! And the maple cream sauce that went with it (which I shamefully neglected to photograph) was heavenly. Mmmm mmmm!

So all in all, a very enjoyable meal for all concerned! I'll definitely make the Peach Crisp again and I think also the Chicken-Fried Steak.

As for other recipes in the book, I'm keen to try the Red Velvet Cake and the Fried Chicken next.

So what do you think? Do I make it as an honorary Southern gal?