A round up and review of the recipes we featured on Pioneer Woman Wednesdays
You didn’t really think we’d end a series without a proper farewell, did you? I can’t believe we had 9 delicious dishes in 18 weeks (since it was every other Wednesday)! In all honesty, I thought it was an extremely fun experience to go through a cookbook series such as this with my blogging ladies. It really showed us our true skills and really got our wheels churning in the kitchen with every recipe. I felt like I learned a lot and I hope everyone enjoyed following along in this series and seeing our individual takes on them.
Today, we’re back for a finale and this time we’re rounding up the recipes and rating them! We all thought very differently about each one of these recipes so we figured it’d be fun to do a roundup post and talk about each recipe and give it a final score.
These are solely our OWN opinions based on our modifications and development. This is in no way a reflection of Pioneer Woman or her cookbook. It’s what we individually think based on our own experience.
Fried Chicken Tacos, 7/10
This was the first recipe we did in this series. I’d have to say, I definitely got all of us out of our comfort zones with this one as we had to FRY these babies. Haha, there were so many oil splatters and kitchen messes from this dish. The end result was fairly good, I enjoyed this dish. The flavors went well together and I liked loading up my taco.
Mushroom Sliders with Fry Sauce, 6/10
Eh, these weren’t the most impressive things to me. I loved the fry sauce and the sautéed onions on top but at the end of the day, they were just regular sliders.
Carnitas Pizza, 10/10
Oh my gosh, Gina hit it out of the park with this choice. Loved every single bite of this pizza. I love how loaded it was with meat and the flavor of the meat that was cooked in the juice just exploded on the pizza. We had a fair amount of meat leftover since this dish made so much and we ate it with EVERYTHING. I would make this again in a heartbeat!
Breakfast Pizza, 5/10
I feel like if I had made the hash browns correctly and the pizza dough (instead of making them with taco shells), I would’ve liked this pizza a lot more. It has all the great ingredients to a hearty and delicious breakfast but I feel that the way I made it, it didn’t taste as good and there just wasn’t a wow factor for me. I’d definitely give this another try though, I mean, who doesn’t love a pizza chock full of breakfast ingredients up top?
White Chicken Enchiladas, 2/10
Honestly could’ve done without this dish (sorry, Tina!! I still LOVE you!!). It was just overflowing with disgusting fat and butter and cheese. I mean, even with modifications, I don’t think we could’ve healthified it much. It just wasn’t appetizing. I don’t think Jason and I ate much of it, either. I felt as if I was gaining 200 pounds just taking a bite from it.
Billie’s Italian Cake, 9/10
I think I might be the only one who is still rooting for these. The girls all thought it was too sweet but it was just perfect for me. I made the cake recipe into cupcakes and modified the frosting as well. I loved this dessert and it was our first dessert in this series so I thought it was a nice break. My coworkers really enjoyed this cupcake too. I’d have to say my favorite part of this recipe is the coconut and pecans that was throughout the entire frosting. I loved having it in every bite.
Orange Rolls, 9/10
I didn’t have high expectations for this one but when I finally made it, it tasted like orange heaven. I loved the modifications that were made in this to give it more of an orange flavor and they’re orange rolls, how can you go wrong with that?! The glaze was the perfect topping!
Honey Soy Plum Chicken, 10/10
Do we notice a trend? Clearly Gina knows how to pick perfect scoring recipes because this dish was another favorite of mine. The flavors were immaculate and I loved the sweet/salty combination that this dish had. We had leftovers and I swear it was even better the next day. The chicken was so tender and moist and I loved that it bathed in the sauce.
Ranch Style Chicken, 9/10
The marinade for this chicken MADE the chicken. I loved the caramelization it gave the chicken when you cooked it and I really loved that it was topped with bacon and cheese. The extra sauce that I reduced down and drizzled over top of this was phenomenal. It’s an easy chicken dish but the sauce can make or break a dish and the sauce for this chicken clearly made the dish!
I hope you enjoyed my review!! Be sure to check out the other ladies’ reviews and to see which dishes were forgettable and unforgettable :)
Megan – Country Cleaver | Gina, Running to the Kitchen | Rachel, Baked by Rachel
Oh, and you might want to come back in October for some exciting news from us…
You’re such a tease with your exciting news in October ;)
It does look like you guys have had a lot of fun, it’s been really interesting to see how all 5/4 of you have made the dishes and your opinions/tweaks that you made.
Great round up! I love carnitas pizza too!
Great reviews Julie. I’m loving how each of us have a completely different rating of some of these recipes. So neat to see which ones each of us agreed on!
Great review, I love your honesty on each recipe! You ladies did a fantastic job!
I love your disclaimer in bold in the middle. I probably should’ve thrown that in mine too to ward off the crazies telling me I’m a negative nancy later on. So far I’ve read yours and Megan’s recaps, so thorough! I feel like a slacker now! I’m glad Billie got some love from somebody, he was feeling quite sorry for himself after Megan and I tore him apart. ;) haha
These posts were so fun to see! If you do another cookbook and you have room – I totally want in! :-)
I love how different our ratings were on all of these haha. And I think I’m going to put a disclaimer out on my post too. Gotta make sure we don’t get any nasty-grams from people!
ooh, can’t wait to hear the exciting news in october! So fun :) And great round-up – I want to try those tacos!!
Oh i LOVE this!!! It’s always fun to see what you think of the dishes you made!
What a nice roundup! All of those look amazing.
Note to self: Do not blog while hungry!
Love the overall review! There are a few I really want to try, and a few I know to shy away from :) Wish the White Chicken Enchiladas were better, they sound like they would be good.
Love the roundup! I love the ratings you gave! I’m very keen to try the pizza and plum chicken now! And I’m definitely in love with the look of those cupcakes. I’m sure they tasted as good as they look!!! Excited to hear the news from you ladies :)
I love this and I have to agree about some of the fatty recipes she has. A lot of these look great though!
love that you finished the series up with ratings + reviews! I think I’m going to pick one of the recipes to make for my One New Dinner A Week challenge tomorrow!
Ohhhh do let me/us know what you choose :) :) I’m excited!
I’m in love with the way that carnitas pizza looks. I have to try it!
So many of these recipes look out of this world! Those orange rolls in particular are calling to me.
Great round-up. My favorite are the orange rolls. I’ve already made them once and now I’m craving them again
I really enjoyed your PW series! I’d love to just go through a cookbook and make everything from page 1 to the very end. You girls did a phenomenal job, and I love that you finished off with your own personal ratings. I’m definitely going to make that carnitas pizza – my Jason is going to freaking love it.
Loved them all and love your thoughts on each one. We need to try that carnitas pizza!
Mmmm… so many delicious dishes and treats were made in this series. I enjoyed reading each and every one of them Julie! Those orange rolls had me drooling. I think those would be my favorite. But its a toss up because the ranch style chicken is well… AMAZING sounding. Obvs.
What a great round up! I loved following this series with you all!
Thank you for the reviews!! I love posts like this. And I really needed someone else to point out that although tasty, I feel like PW’s recipe are very unhealthy. Your modifications helped me out a lot!