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A ranch cook who has appeared on Food Network takes his work to a new form – the cookbook with “A Taste of Cowboy” by Kent Rollins with wife Shannon Keller Rollins.
He began cooking for cattle ranches in 1993 out of a 1876 Studebaker chuck wagon, and he and his wife now run Red River Ranch Dutch Oven Cooking Camp.
With photos straight from ranches in New Mexico, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, this book brings the reader straight into ranch life and and its cooking utensils – cast iron.
The recipes in this book are divided into Breakfast, Lunch/Dinner, Appetizers, Supper and Dessert. All of the chapters include a story from Rollins about life on the ranch and the recipes often include some background about the recipe.
Breakfast recipes include Blueberry Lemon Morning Cake, Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls and Five-Layer Fiesta with Green Sauce.
Lunch/dinner recipes include Sweet-Heat-Barbeque Chopped Pork Sandwiches, Green Pepper Frito Pie and Smoky Mac and Cheese.
Appetizers include Fiesta Cabbage Salsa with Citrus Squeeze, Red River Smoky Chip Dip, Bite-Size BJTs and Avocados on the Half Shell.
Supper recipes include Butter-and-Bacon-Baked Cornish Game Hens, Brown-Sugar-Infused Pork Loin and Garden-Harvest Stir Fry.
Dessert recipes include Cherry Crescent-Roll Bars, Brown Sugar-Coconut Bars and Gooey Marshmallow Chocolate Cake.
I tried two recipes in this book – Mexican Tortilla Lasagna and Upside-Down Pizza. The lasagna, made with easy-to-find ingredients like beef, taco seasoning, refried beans, enchilada sauce, this casserole dish serves 6 to 8 and comes together relatively easy. The upside-down pizza also has ingredients found on your pantry shelf, like tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce mix, cheeses and pizza crust.
It also serves 6 to 8 and is a casserole dish. Neither one used too much prep time or prep dishes, something I always hate, and both were good flavors that can feed a larger group or halved for a smaller family. It went down great at home too!
“A Taste of Cowboy” is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It is $30.
Contact Amy Phelps at aphelps@newsandsentinel.com