Cooking with Pioneer Woman

If you haven't been to visit Pioneer Woman, you must do so! I discovered her blog a few months ago & have not been able to tear myself away. She's a city girl who married a cowboy over 10 years ago and they have 4 children. They live on a working cattle ranch somewhere out in the big vast west somewhere. I still haven't figured out what state they are in. Anyway, her name is Ree & she is one hilarious writer. She's only been blogging about 2 years and has already won awards & goes on speaking engagements for blogging & the advertisers are all over her site. She draws the crowds like no other blog I know! So, that being said, if you haven't visited her yet, go on over. You will get sucked into the archives like I did & will want to read all about her & her hubby (Marlboro Man) & their interesting life on the ranch & all about their love story. It's never a dull moment & she loves photography & takes some of the most gorgeous outdoor shots you've ever seen. The commentary is just a hoot too. Go on over...you won't be sorry, but be prepared to stay & read way too long. Also, JC Penney has just enlisted her to be one of their blog contributors & she is writing about her bathroom/laundryroom renovation. That's entirely entertaining too! She will post links periodically when she adds something new on there. She even lets her readers vote on which color stain to stain her bathroom cabinets & stuff like that. She is one fun girl! Those 4 kidlets are pretty cute too.

So, back to cooking. She also has a cooking blog too & shares lots of fun recipes. She shared this one recently & it sounded so good I had to try it. And, we were not disappointed at all. This is ONE GREAT RECIPE! If you love shrimp & pasta, you will love this one. If you click on the cooking blog link, you'll go directly to her site, which spells out how to cook this with lots of pics & fun commentary, so I'm not going to duplicate hers...she's way more entertaining than I could ever be! It's basically shrimp & penne pasta in a creamy tomato sauce. I did one change from her recipe & that was to add a small (15 oz.) can of petite diced tomatoes, along with the small can of tomato sauce & I used a little more than 1 cup of cream. I wanted to have plenty of sauce to cover 1 lb. of pasta. I also added a dash of hot pepper flakes...we like a little heat. My hubby is not crazy about cream-based sauces, but since this had tomatoes, he was one happy camper. He absolutely LOVED it, as did I. The shrimp, tomato sauce & fresh basil was absolutely yummy!! This is one of the best pastas I've ever made, so if you like all those ingredients, you MUST try this. It's fantastic! This one is going in the rotation for sure.

Here are the basic ingredients:

1 lb. penne pasta
1 small can tomato sauce
Butter, garlic & olive oil
diced onion
shrimp
petite diced tomatoes (I added these as extra)
Heavy Cream
Fresh basil & parsley
salt & pepper

You basically saute the garlic & onion in olive oil/butter, as well as the shrimp. Add the tomato sauce & diced tomatoes to the garlic & onion, add the cream & peeled shrimp, simmer & serve over the penne pasta.

Follow along with her directions! You will love this dish!

Don't know if I'll get to yardsale this weekend. We have my hubby's 3 kids in for a visit. They are 19, 21, & 23 and took a break from school & work to come see us for a couple of days. Y'all have a great weekend! I am loving this cooler, crisp weather. Finally!