The Pioneer Woman Cooks (40 page)

ON BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHERS

One of the hardest things about becoming a mother for the first time was the stark realization that I was absolutely, wholly responsible for another human being’s survival. I mean, pregnancy was okay. As the daughter of a physician and an amateur doctor myself, I could wrap my brain around pregnancy.

But then I got home from the hospital. And all the hours and days and weeks I’d wasted reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting suddenly turned into useless dust. I had this baby, this human baby, in my little house in the country and it woke up in the middle of the night. Like, after I went to sleep! It wanted to eat, it seemed. I just couldn’t believe it. And I obliged, too—I fed the human baby. Night after night, I staggered to its crib with my eyes glued shut and sat on the rocker in its room and dutifully attached its mouth to my throbbing, engorged breast and allowed it to root around and drink the milk, real milk, from my bosom. And I cried. I cried a lot.

Slowly, though, during the course of the coming days and weeks, I began coming to terms with the fact that there was no getting around it: without me, this child would not survive. If I didn’t feed it, nobody would. Well, I’m sure Marlboro Man would have if I’d asked him to, but in all my postpartum desperation, I wasn’t about to deal with washing bottles on top of everything else.

I eventually accepted the fact that as mothers, we care for our young. So I fed that first human baby until it grew and grew. Then I even did it three more times, losing thousands of hours of sleep in the process. And what I realize now is, there’s always been a higher purpose to my all-night breastfeeding. I realize now that it prepared me for and cemented in my mind the fact that we also have thousands upon thousands of animals on our ranch whose well-being depends solely on our feeding them. Without us, especially in the cold, harsh winter, many of them wouldn’t survive.

When the ground is covered with winter snow, we have to feed the horses. Otherwise, they get skinny and cranky and start to go downhill fast.

There’s always a pretty one in the group. Hello, beautiful!

Here’s Marlboro Man driving his feed truck. The feeder on the back is loaded with protein cubes made of cottonseed meal and wheat mids, which are the by-product of flour production, and the back of the truck is loaded with nutritious and delicious alfalfa hay…“delicious” being a relative term.

Here’s the creek that runs through our house. Well, it doesn’t run through our house. If it did, my floors would be clean. No, it runs near our house. Anyway, we have to cross it to feed some of our horses.

It’s so fun to watch the horses eat. I could do it all day, or at least for six minutes. After that, I start shivering violently and return to the house, where I curl up with hot chocolate and wait for everyone to get home.

And despite the never-ending work, it really is fun to be responsible for the animals’ well-being. It gives me a reassuring sense of pride.

And as much work as it is, at least it doesn’t involve my getting up eight times in the night and singing them lullabies.

Engorged.

CHICKEN POT PIE

Makes one 9-inch pie

Whoever doesn’t love chicken pot pie hasn’t tasted good chicken pot pie. This one is just the way I like it, with a creamy, savory filling and an abundant, flaky crust. It’s earned a permanent spot in my Comfort Food Hall of Fame.

3 celery stalks 3 medium carrots, peeled 1 large yellow onion 4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter ½ cup frozen peas2 cups cooked chicken, see Dinner (dark and light), cut into bite-size pieces¼ cup all-purpose flour2 cups low-sodium chicken broth1 chicken bouillon cube¼ cup white wine (optional)1 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon ground thyme 1 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to tasteBlack pepper to taste ½ recipe Perfect Pie Crust (Dinner)

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2. Begin by finely dicing the vegetables. Slice the celery stalks into narrow strips, then slice in the other direction to create a fidi

3. Repeat this process with the carrots…

4. And the onion.

HELPFUL HINT: Prepare the filling and pie crust ahead of time. Just keep them separate in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble and bake. Or, fully assemble, cover tightly, and freeze, unbaked, until ready.

5. Melt the butter in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion, carrots, celery and peas. Sauté until the vegetables start to turn translucent, a couple of minutes.