Who hasn't fantasized about leaving behind the chaos of everyday life and moving someplace where life is simpler? Well, that's just what chef and food writer Paula Disbrowe did when she left New York City and moved to Texas. She traded her subway MetroCard for a pickup truck and her stiletto heels for a pair of down-home cowboy boots. In Cowgirl Cuisine, Paula tells her story through food. She weaves together romance, adventure, and more than a few laughs as she celebrates the beauty of flavorful food, fresh air, and her own wholesome recipes, all while taking home cooks on a journey well off the beaten path. Like Texas itself, the recipes in Cowgirl Cuisine are big-hearted and bold—whole-grain muffins bursting with berries, salads loaded with leafy herbs and avocado, and fiery bowls of chili. Paula's food is healthful and full of nutrients, but this is not a diet cookbook—cowgirls don't have time to count calories (besides, they burn it all off hoisting newborn calves, hiking the hills, and galloping off on long trail rides). Instead, this is food that is satisfying and easy to prepare, which leaves plenty of time for living life to the fullest. From hearty ranch breakfasts to fresh salads, spicy nibbles, seductive desserts, and killer watermelon margaritas, Paula's recipes are full of her signature zest, spunk, and spice. Start your day off right with Canyon Granola or Cowgirl Migas. For lunch, have a nourishing bowl of silky Roasted Pumpkin Soup with Red Chile Cream or Chicken and Citrus Slaw Tostadas. For dinner, try Gazpacho Risotto with Garlic Shrimp or Cowboy Pot Roast with Coffee and Whiskey. And be sure to save room for one of Paula's decadent desserts, such as Chocolate Pecan Squares or Dulce de Leche Flan with Pepita Brittle. In addition to her recipes, Paula includes humorous and heartfelt vignettes about wild animals on the loose, scorpions in the sheets, and Casanova cowboys. And the pages are filled with lush photographs of food and life on the range. Cowgirl Cuisine isn't just spurs and salsa—it's about following your dream. So saddle up and follow yours.

Moving to Paris was the best bad decision that Texan Ellise Pierce ever made. Wooed to the city by a Frenchman, she soon found herself with just 100 euros in her bank account. So she launched a last-ditch effort to stay in the City of Light: She started her own catering business and began teaching other American expats how to re-create flavors from home. Using French ingredients and techniques from both sides of the Atlantic, she did more than found a culinary company -- she created a unique style of cooking that's part Texas, part French, and all Cowgirl. Recipes include: Cornbread Madeleines Jalapeno Pimento Cheese Tartines Cauliflower Galettes with Chipotle Creme Fraiche Green Chile-Goat Cheese Smashed Potatoes Peanut Butter-Chocolate Soufflees

Celebrating the modern Southern culture, country chic lifestyle, and spitfire attitude of the city cowgirl… the cowgirl in heels. Part cookbook, part how-to and inspirational guide for the modern city girl with Southern roots and a cowgirl attitude, Urban Cowgirl features Sarah Penrod’s unique outlook and point of view—as shared with viewers on the Next Food Network Star. Her approach is to take classic Southern and Texas foods and ingredients and traditions like the tailgate and give them a new twist with her personal brand of sparkle and shine. Her recipes for family dinners and girls’- nights- in all come with her own special touch and her outsized personality. Urban cowgirls appreciate Southern big city lifestyle, but don’t let the high heels and designer dresses fool you. These girls will celebrate their heritage, acknowledge their cultural roots, and build from traditional values, with a smile on their face and a glass of sweet tea in their hand. They may have a designer coffee table littered with gourmet cooking magazines , but the recipes they hold most dear are third generation, handwritten, kitchen love letters from a grandmother they may have never even met.

“Delicious cheese pairings; amazing recipes . . . plus lots of great tips about cheese. I can’t wait to cook my way through their gorgeous book!” —Ina Garten, host of Barefoot Contessa and #1 New York Times bestselling author Collecting the vast accumulated wisdom of two of the world’s great cheesemakers, Cowgirl Creamery Cooks is one of those rare books that immediately asserts itself as an indispensable addition to the food lover’s library. That’s because Cowgirl Creamery Cooks is many things. It’s an engrossing read that shares the story of the Cowgirls, but also of the rise of the organic food movement and creating an artisanal creamery. It’s a primer on tasting, buying, storing, pairing, and appreciating all kinds of cheese that makes this a gorgeous gift for the cheese lover. And it’s a sumptuous collection of recipes, with seventy-five appetizers, soups, salads, snacks, entrees, and desserts that showcase cow-, goat-, and sheep-milk cheese. Throughout, the glorious photographs of Hirsheimer & Hamilton portray myriad cheeses, finished dishes, and the landscapes and people who created them. “Peggy and Sue are such wonderful teachers with a unique and very special style. I absolutely love seeing their vision and brilliance come to life in this gorgeous and inspiring book. It makes me want to eat more cheese, head to Point Reyes, and soak up their Cowgirl genius!” —Suzanne Goin, chef/owner of Lucques, a.o.c., and Tavern “Their new cookbook is required reading for every serious cook, chock-full of cheese-filled stories and recipes, not to mention everything you need to know about a proper cheese plate.” —David Tanis, author of A Platter of Figs

From the Barrel Racer cocktail (whiskey and powdered doughnuts) to slow-cooker stews and casseroles perfect for feeding the crowd on branding days to cast-iron recipes perfect for a pack trip into the mountains, Cowgirls in the Kitchen includes all the recipes that the modern cowgirl needs to keep her crew fed and her family happy. Combines the best of cowgirl myths, nostalgia, and legends with useable, delicious, and fun recipes for use at home or on the trail, this book celebrates the romance of the American cowgirl from the late nineteenth century to today, through historic photographs and modern, western-themed recipes that will appeal to cowboys, as well.

Texas cowboys are the stuff of legend — immortalized in ruggedly picturesque images from Madison Avenue to Hollywood. Cowboy cooking has the same romanticized mythology, with the same oversimplified reputation (think campfire coffee, cowboy steaks, and ranch dressing). In reality, the food of the Texas cattle raisers came from a wide variety of ethnicities and spans four centuries. Robb Walsh digs deep into the culinary culture of the Texas cowpunchers, beginning with the Mexican vaqueros and their chile-based cuisine. Walsh gives overdue credit to the largely unsung black cowboys (one in four cowboys was black, and many of those were cooks). Cowgirls also played a role, and there is even a chapter on Urban Cowboys and an interview with the owner of Gilley’s, setting for the John Travolta--Debra Winger film. Here are a mouthwatering variety of recipes that include campfire and chuckwagon favorites as well as the sophisticated creations of the New Cowboy Cuisine: • Meats and poultry: sirloin guisada, cinnamon chicken, coffee-rubbed tenderloin • Stews and one-pot meals: chili, gumbo, fideo con carne • Sides: scalloped potatoes, onion rings, pole beans, field peas • Desserts and breads: peach cobbler, sourdough biscuits, old-fashioned preserves Through over a hundred evocative photos and a hundred recipes, historical sources, and the words of the cowboys (and cowgirls) themselves, the food lore of the Lone Star cowboy is brought vividly to life.

A cookbook with essays, photos and innovative recipes celebrating the mythology, culture and food of the American cowboy. As at home on the coffee table as it is on the kitchen counter, this definitive cowboy cookbook features historical essays and photographs depicting life on the Chisholm Trail alongside fresh takes on cowboy cuisine. Cowboy-turned-chef Grady Spears reinvents chuckwagon dishes from Barbecued Quail Tamales to Pork Tenderloin with Watermelon Salsa to Butterscotch Pie by elevating them to haute cowboy cuisine. Equal parts cookbook, history lesson, and photographic essay, The Texas Cowboy Kitchen blends Spears's distinctive culinary recipes with June Naylor's narrative of life on the Chisholm Trail and Erwin E. Smith's award-winning black-and-white cowboy photography and four-color culinary shots. Divided into 10 chapters ranging from “Campfire Cocktails” to “Things You Don't Rope” to “Chuckwagon Secrets,” The Texas Cowboy Kitchen contains 100 original recipes perfected at Spears's renowned former restaurants, the Chisholm Club in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Nutt House Restaurant in Granbury, Texas—both of which satisfied wags of hungry customers. “Grady's probably the only guy I know who could dress up a Frito pie and make it look pretty, and the only cook who'd think of marinating skirt steak in Dr. Pepper. . . . [He is equally] at ease in a worn pair of leather chaps as he is wielding a saute pan..” —Nolan Ryan, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher and lifelong cowboy