Pioneer Woman's New Cookbook

I can't tell you how excited I was to finally get Pioneer Woman's new cookbook.  I highly recommend it.  It was such a tough decision to decide what would be my first recipe.  After careful consideration, I finally decided it would be...

Drum Roll...

Ranch Style Chicken and Twice-Baked New Potatoes... well, kinda.  But I'll get to that later...  I also did Parmesan Roasted Green Beans- if you haven't made them, you should... so easy and DELICIOUS (thanks for pinning, Emily!).

Blake and I just invested in a new grill, so not only was it the first time for the cookbook, but also the first time for the grill- what a BIG DAY!!!!

The chicken turned out amazing!!!  Make sure you realize you need to marinate it for 2-4 hours... the longer the better!  I almost forgot to do that... oops!

PW hasn't posted the recipe for the potatoes yet, so I will (hope she doesn't mind since we're besties):

12 new potatoes, scrubbed clean

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sour cream

1.5 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese

1 tablespoon minced chives

1 garlic clove, finely minced

Salt and black pepper to taste

1.  Pre-heat oven to 375.

2.  Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil and toss to coat.

3.  Roast the potatoes for 20-25 minutes, or until the are tender and the skin is slightly crisp.

4.  Halve the potatoes.  Use a spoon or small scoop to remove the insides, leaving a small margin of potato intact.

5.  To the scooped-out potatoes, add the cream cheese, sour cream, monterey jack, chives, garlic, salt, and pepper.

6.  Mash until the potato mixture is totally smooth.  Give it a taste and add more salt if needed.

7.  Scoop the mixture into the potato shells.  At this point, you can cover and refrigerate until dinnertime.

8.  Bake the potatoes for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

9.  Enjoy!

*** So, you'll notice in the picture that my potatoes don't look like twice-baked potatoes.  Here's what I learned: I chose bigger red potatoes because I thought they would be easier to scoop out than smaller ones.  Since I am blonde, I didn't think "Self, you should cook these longer because they are bigger".  Big mistake... I think I needed to double the time on these.  The flavoring was still great, so I will still highly recommend them... just remember you need to cook them longer than it says!!!