The Displaced Small Town Girl Cooks - It's Not As Scary As It Sounds

So, I purchased a certain person's cookbook. She's a displaced city girl now smack dab in the middle of rural Oklahoma. She married a rancher, started a blog about photography, cooking, and raising kids, and she calls herself The Pioneer Woman. Her blog is one of the most popular read blogs around and I am just in awe of how she gets it all done everyday with a smile on her face! I got something to learn from this woman! Numero uno would be how to cook better :)!

I remember a movie a few years back about a girl who decided to cook through Julia Child's famous cookbook (can't remember the name of the cookbook, that should tell you something), and she blogged about it, then it was made into a movie - Julie and Julia. Pretty good movie. I have no desire to learn how to cook like Julia Child, at least not yet. But I do have a desire to learn how to make good food like Ree (The Pioneer Woman)! Here goes with the first recipe in the book . . .

BBQ Jalapeno Poppers!

I followed the recipe exactly as the book said, even had to go to two different grocery stores. Not because her ingredients list was difficult, but because the first store had NO jalapenos. And since the title of the recipe has the word jalapenos in it, I figured that was something I could not leave out. I also have a bad habit of substituitng my own ingredients (like I know what I'm doing) when I either don't have what is called for or when I don't know what something is. And I wonder why I'm famous for NOT being able to cook!
So far so good. Dealing with the bacon was a little slimy and gross, but if I ignored the fact that I was dealing with raw meat and let myself go to my 'happy place' I was fine. Why does raw meat gross me out so much? Maybe it's the word 'raw.' Don't like it. I'm also not a huge spicy hot girl, so I was a little worried about all this jalapeno talk.

But I must say that these were absolutely delicious!!! I could have eaten the whole pan! But, I refrained. I did learn a couple things that I will apply the next time: try turkey bacon, and my oven's thermostat must be 'off' because it took way longer than what the book said it would to cook them. Other than that, these will definitely be tried again, like tomorrow!