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I'm Ree Drummond.
I'm a writer, blogger, photographer, mother,
and I'm an accidental country girl.
I live on a ranch in the middle of nowhere,
and all my recipes have to be approved by cowboys,
hungry kids, and me.
Its potluck Sunday at our church in town --
one of my very favorite occasions.
And I'm taking the quintessential potluck dish --
potluck meatballs.
Then, a stunning, layered salad
dressed up in all its Sunday best.
And for the dessert,
a fabulous blackberry cheesecake,
cut into bite-sized squares.
I'm making all the food on Saturday
while the family works cattle on the ranch.
Everything can be made ahead of time,
which means I can sleep in a little bit Sunday morning,
I hope.
Welcome to my frontier.
-- Captions by VITAC --
Closed Captions provided by Scripps Networks, LLC.
My family's out working cattle, even though it's a Saturday.
So while they're doing that,
I'm going to get all the food ready.
I love making meatballs for potluck dinners.
It's one of the things I always seem to take.
And these, I'm making, are called, appropriately,
potluck meatballs.
They're really delicious, really savory.
They've got a lot of different things going on.
Okay, I've got 4 pounds of ground beef,
and I'll add 4 eggs...
and then 2 cups of breadcrumbs.
It's nice to have everything all ready,
then I just dump it all in the bowl.
And I'll add plenty of salt and pepper.
And then I grated up some onion,
and I'll just sprinkle those in.
That adds really great flavor.
Okay, and for a little bit of spice,
some crushed red pepper,
otherwise known as red-pepper flakes.
Now, I'll grab a good amount of parsley,
and I'll chop it up.
The parsley just gives it a nice little freshness --
nice green flecks in the meatballs.
That should be good.
I'll sprinkle that in.
And now I'm going in with my hands.
Just squish it around.
Make sure it's all totally combined.
The breadcrumbs give the meatballs
a really nice texture,
and the eggs help hold everything together.
This is a lot of meat mixture.
And I'm going to make them into about walnut-sized meatballs.
So I'll just roll them between my hands
till they're nice and neat.
That looks good.
Got one meatball done,
and I've got a few more to make.
All right.
I've got a whole bunch of gorgeous meatballs.
And now, I'm gonna fry them.
I want to get some good color on the outside,
so I'll drizzle some olive oil into this pot.
And then, just to add
a little bit of wonderful flavor,
some butter.
Just enough to add a little bit of color to the meatballs
and just because I love butter.
What can I say?
All right.
Now, I'm gonna fry the meatballs in batches.
So I'll just put enough in
so that they aren't too, too crowded in there.
They don't need to cook all the way through.
Okay.
I'll just move these around the pan.
Later, the meatballs will go back into a sauce,
and they'll finish cooking there.
Well, while I'm busy in the kitchen,
Ladd is busy, out working cattle.
Fortunately, we have lots of kids,
so he has plenty of help.
He started really early,
before it was even light outside,
and went down to the barn to meet his father, Chuck,
and saddle up with cowboy Josh and his kids.
Anybody can rope one. It takes a cowboy to pin him.
I've been with Josh in the soot truck,
and he needs a lot of supervision.
So that'd probably be a good job for you.
Then, they loaded the horses in the trailer...
Y'all ready?
...and hauled them over to the spot
where they were gonna gather the cattle.
Right now, they're bringing them to the pens
where they're gonna wean the calves.
Weaning calves is pretty hard work,
but it's just one of those things that has to be done.
Okay, now, all the meatballs are nice and brown.
And I'm telling you, this kitchen smells amazing.
I'm getting really hungry smelling all these meatballs.
Now, halfway through, I drained off some of the fat.
There's not too much in there right now.
So I'll just keep moving forward
with the sauce for the meatballs.
I'll pour in 2 cans of beef consommé.
My mom always cooks with beef consommé,
and she always has.
And then 2 cans of beef broth.
And I'm going to reserve one of the cans, about 1/2 of it,
and pour it into a bowl.
I'll use this to make
another component of the sauce here in a minute.
And then, I love adding tomato paste
to anything with a beef-broth base.
It's just a great combination.
The tomato paste gives the sauce a really deep color,
nice tanginess.
All right, and speaking of tangy,
I'll add some brown mustard, about 1/4 cup or so.
Just squeeze it right in.
What a great combination of flavors.
Okay. Now, I'll just stir this around.
Make sure the heat's up. I want this to start to boil.
I think one reason I love meatballs so much is
I can start with this basic meatball mixture
and then make whatever sauce I'm in the mood for.
Now, I love this sauce just like it is,
but I want to thicken it up a bit
so it'll really stick to those meatballs.
So I'll mix about 1/4 cup of cornstarch,
otherwise known as 4 tablespoons,
into this beef broth that I reserved.
And I'll just stir it around until it's all dissolved.
All right.
Now, this is starting to boil, which is perfect.
So I'll just pour in the cornstarch mixture.
This is called a slurry
whenever you mix cornstarch with liquid
and then stir it into a sauce or soup to thicken it up.
Now, I'm just gonna stir this around,
and over the next few minutes,
the cornstarch is really gonna thicken this up.
[ Cattle mooing ]
LADD: Get your horses, and lead them on around there.
Okay.
The sauce is thick,
and it looks amazing, and it smells so good.
I smell that mustard. Wow.
Now I need to put the meatballs back into the sauce.
I'm gonna try to do it
without splashing myself all over the place
[ Chuckles ] All right.
Just pour them in, juices and all.
I want all that flavor to get in there.
And now I'll just stir them really gently.
I don't want them to fall apart.
Make sure they're all submerged.
Now, I just need to let them simmer
for about 15 to 20 minutes until they're done,
and then they'll be all ready for the potluck tomorrow.
Up next -- The guys are weaning,
and I'm making an incredible, layered salad
and divine blackberry cheesecake squares.
That's outstanding.
[ Cattle mooing ]
We're gonna spray these cattle and get the flies off of them.
[ Mooing continues ]
Any time I want to take a salad to a gathering somewhere,
I always think of this layered salad.
My mother-in-law showed me how to make this years ago.
It's a classic, potluck salad, and it's so beautiful.
It's layered up in a bowl.
You can see everything you're getting.
Since this is a salad,
I'm starting out by chopping up some lettuce.
I'm starting with iceberg lettuce
partly because it's really, really sturdy,
and it makes a good foundation for the rest of the ingredients.
Now, I'll just make a big layer in the bottom of a bowl.
Okay. Now I'll do a layer of tomatoes.
I'll just cut off the top
and then I'll cut it into six pieces.
And they'll just be big chunks of tomatoes.
I love to pick ingredients
with all different colors for this salad.
It makes it look really pretty.
Okay. Now I'll start arranging the tomatoes.
I concentrate on the outside of the bowl
'cause I want to make sure to get all that beautiful color.
Now, some people, when they arrange their layered salads,
they're very architectural about it,
and they get the pieces perfectly lined up.
I'm not really like that.
I'm more of a throw the ingredients into a bowl
type of person.
But I do try to get most of them on the outside.
And then, if there's some space in the middle,
I just build it up with a little more lettuce.
All righty. I think that ought to be enough.
Now, for the next lettuce, I have some baby spinach.
And I'll just pile that on top of the tomatoes.
I like to do a mix of spinach and iceberg.
The iceberg is nice and crunchy,
but the spinach has that gorgeous, dark-green color.
So it just helps the prettiness of the salad.
Now, on top of the spinach,
I'm going to put some chopped, hard-boiled eggs.
I love hard-boiled eggs.
My husband loves them, too.
We just snack on them.
So I always try to have a bowl in my fridge.
And I have a foolproof way for cooking them.
Put the eggs into a pan, and cover them with water.
Bring it to a boil,
then shut off the heat
and let them sit in water for about 20 minutes.
Just drain them, cover them in ice.
Then, they're easy to peel.
All right, the eggs are all chopped up,
so I'll just pile those in.
Concentrate around the perimeter.
Make sure you can see them on the side.
Oh, my goodness.
Beautiful.
Now, I'm going to sprinkle the eggs
with just a little salt and pepper.
Get some seasoning in there in the middle of the salad.
Now, on top of the hard-boiled eggs,
I'm going to put a whole bunch of chopped bacon.
Leave it to me to put bacon in my nice, healthy salad.
Okay.
I'll just sprinkle the bacon all over the eggs.
Oh, boy.
I love hard-boiled eggs and bacon.
I just love that combo.
Perfect.
Now, I'll sprinkle in some sliced green onion.
I did the light green
and a little bit of dark green parts.
Big, big flavor with these.
Now, on top of the green onions,
I'll put a bunch of grated, sharp-cheddar cheese.
And you can get creative with this layer.
You can do pepper jack
if you want it to have a little bit of a spice.
Any kind of cheese you want. You can even do a mix.
Just even out the surface.
[ Laughs ]
This is getting more and more full.
Now, I have some frozen green peas.
I just rinsed them under cool water
and let them thaw just a bit.
And I'm gonna pour those over.
This will be the very top layer before I put on the dressing.
See how many peas will fit on here.
I like to use my fingers when I make salads, by the way.
[ Cattle mooing ]
Bring those cows, Paige.
[ Cow moos ]
All right.
Now, the very last layer
is this creamy, delicious dressing.
It's just mayo and sour cream
with a little bit of sugar, mixed until smooth.
Okay.
Now, the dressing just gets poured right over the top.
The great thing about this salad
is the dressing pretty much seals everything in the bowl.
You'll see some of the peas poking through the dressing.
Now, to give it just a little bit of extra flavor,
I'm gonna chop up some herbs and sprinkle those over the top.
It'll just make it taste even fresher.
I've got some fresh parsley and fresh dill.
I thought that would be a really yummy combination.
And I'll just mince them up really finely.
Okay. The herbs are really, really fine.
So I'll just sprinkle them pretty lightly over the top.
Okay. The salad's done.
The great thing is the dressing actually acts as a seal,
so I don't even have to cover it.
It'll keep everything fresh.
It's pretty, its colorful,
and it's gonna be perfect for the potluck tomorrow.
Up next --
The most incredible blackberry cheesecake squares.
A perfect dessert and a real potluck winner.
Then, there's ranching and church.
It's a busy weekend.
Hey, Paige.
Would you open that up and go on to the scales, honey?
Thank you.
Catch them. Bye.
Hold that one. Hold that one.
Mighty pretty, Paige.
That is just the way to do it, honey.
Perfect.
[ Cattle mooing ]
My family's out weaning cattle,
and I'm getting a head start on the potluck food
for church tomorrow.
I'm on the last potluck dish.
I'm making blackberry cheesecake squares.
Who doesn't love cheesecake?
I'll start by making the cheesecake crust.
I'm using a package of vanilla wafers
for the cheesecake crust.
A lot of times, I use graham-cracker crumbs,
but there's just something about vanilla wafers.
They're a little bit sweeter, a little bit more of a treat.
And they make a delicious crust.
I'm just adding about 1/2 cup of pecans.
I love the flavor of the pecans and the vanilla wafers.
Okay. Then, I'll just crush these up.
Okay. That looks good.
Now, I'm gonna pulse the machine
while I drizzle in a stick of melted butter.
This will just help the crust come together.
[ Food processor whirring intermittently ]
Okay. That's just right.
Now, I have a pan that I lined in foil
and then sprayed the foil with nonstick baking spray.
Now I'll just grab the crumbs...
and just pour them right in the pan.
They smell so good.
I could just grab a spoon right now and eat it as a snack.
Now, I'll just use my hands to press it evenly
all over the surface of the pan.
The crust is all ready.
Now, I'll move on to the filling.
And that's 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese.
They've been out for a little bit,
so they're pretty soft.
Usually, when I make cheesecake,
I make it in regular, round springform pans.
But for potluck, I always think
that things should be in neat squares
so when people go through the line,
they can easily serve themselves.
Okay.
And then I'll add 1 1/2 cups of sugar.
Cream cheese and sugar.
What a combination.
Okay.
And then I'll just splash in
about 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla.
And then I'll just whip this till it's really fluffy.
We'll weigh the heifers.
They weighed 766 pounds.
[ Cattle mooing ]
Okay, this is looking marvelous,
so I'm going to crack in 4 eggs.
Okay. Just keep going.
Third egg.
Last egg.
All right.
Now, I have a package of sour cream.
I'll add 4 ounces, otherwise known as 1/2 cup.
Just plop it right in there.
That looks absolutely beautiful.
Oh, so creamy and delicious.
I get to lick the bowl, as usual.
I definitely need a spatula.
I don't want any of this to go to waste.
Oh, my goodness.
Who invented cheesecake?
I think they should be sainted.
All right.
I'll just get all of that in there.
Goodness gracious.
One of the most beautiful sights in the world.
Okay, I'll just spread it out
so it's in a nice, even layer on top.
All right, now I'm just going to bake this
in a 350-degree oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.
Okay, come on, Charlie. Come on.
Up next --
The blackberry sauce
that's literally the icing on the cheesecake.
Then, it's church and potluck lunch.
Sheer heaven.
For recipes from this episode, go to...
I'm not sure if I've ever told you this before,
but potluck is absolutely my favorite kind of food.
I love it because everybody brings their favorite dishes.
You can fill your plate with, like, 50 different things,
and everything is so delicious.
I topped the cheesecake
with this beautiful blackberry topping.
I'll tell you how I made it.
So I threw a pile of plump, ripe blackberries
into a pan with sugar and water.
Then, I brought it to a boil
and simmered it for four or five minutes.
Then, to thicken it slightly,
I mixed up a slurry of cornstarch and water,
and stirred it into the blackberry mixture.
Then, I boiled it for another minute or so.
And when it was cooled, I poured it over the cheesecake
and popped it into the fridge to set.
I'm hoping the foil
will just lift the cheesecake right out.
And it worked.
I love it when that happens.
And then, I'll just cut it into really neat squares.
I've got a really sharp, serrated knife,
and that makes it easy
to slice through the blackberries on top.
The other benefit
to cutting the cheesecake into squares
and putting it on a platter,
is that sometimes, you can sneak a piece,
and no one will ever know.
All right. All cut into squares.
Now, I'll just take the squares and get them on the platter.
It's going to be hard
for me to stay away from these all day today.
[ Cattle mooing ]
We've got them all sorted. Really good job, guys.
While we were sorting, what were you doing?
I was helping.
I was.
Well, I got all the food for the potluck ready,
so I'm gonna head down to the house
and meet up with Ladd and the kids.
I think we're all going to be ready to relax this afternoon.
I'm thinking a TV, a sofa -- my idea of a perfect Saturday.
Mom is just in time for church, as usual.
There you go, Brycey.
Here, Paigey.
Try not to eat that on the way in.
Okay, um...
Alex, be careful with that.
[ Chuckles ]
I'm gonna give you the heavy one.
All right. Thank you.
And Todd, you can just hold my hand.
Walk me in. [ Chuckles ]
Alex, you put that over there by the utensils where Bryce is.
You ready to go to church, guys?
Let's go.
MAN: Let us come together
as we join our call to worship this morning.
Will you please rise?
[ Piano playing ]
[ Congregation singing indistinctly ]
It smells good in here.
Grammy, don't you love potluck food?
I think it's my favorite kind of food ever.
Food made by church people.
Doesn't get any better. I'm telling you.
This looks good.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
LADD: Those meatballs are good, honey.
That's what I want. Right there.
That's outstanding.
REE: Oh, my gosh. Everything is so delicious.
Proof once again
that potluck food is the best kind of food.
Amen.