Happy New Year!!!!
Besides nursing a hangover, I’m thoroughly enjoying the start to my New Year. Got the chance to sleep in and now I’m watching Kieran play our current favorite video game, Far Cry 4 while sipping a Green/Ginger tea. Later today Kieran is going to make me home made pizza with honey and basil (sounds weird, but supposedly it’s amazing….I’ll let you know).
Kieran and I had such a fun night in last night, hanging out with our good friend/neighbor Jillian playing board games. Kieran and I love playing video games but we’re currently on a board game kick. We got two new additions to our board game collection and they’re both gems.
The Adventurers: The Pyramid of Horus: We played this board game last night. It’a an absolute riot! You are an adventurer who lusts for rare gems and other exotic treasure. You and your adventurer chums find the ancient and mysterious Pyramid of Horus which is rumored to have priceless treasures buried within. While inside you will find riches beyond your wildest dreams, along with killer scorpions, venomous snakes, bite happy alligators, and jerk face mummies (seriously, those bastards are jerks). Oh, I think now is a good time to mention the Pyramid is unstable and collapsing all around you. You and your chums need to find as much treasure as you possibly can, and get out before the pyramid caves in, sealing you inside forever, to become your final resting place. The adventurer who escapes with the most treasure wins! Both Jillian and I got greedy and we ended up trapped inside the pyramid, which left Kieran to be the sole survivor/winner.
Telestrations: THIS. You need to play this game, and once you do you’ll need to own it. This game is PERFECT for a party. We played the game with my sister-in-law’s family for hours on Christmas Day. You will laugh so hard you’ll cry! It’s basically the game Telephone you use to play as a kid….but with pictures! You take turns trying to draw what’s written down then trying to guess what’s in the drawing. Here is a synopsis of from the game’s website to give you a better idea how to play.
Here’s the basic game play. Each player starts with their own erasable sketch book, dry-erase marker and word card. A roll of the die determines each player’s unique secret starting word. The timer gets turned and everyone draws their word. After 60 seconds, everyone passes their book to the player on their left. Then each player takes a few seconds to guess in words(s) what they see, and passes again. The timer is turned and everyone draws what they see.
We made the game more difficult by timing our game at 30 seconds instead of 60. It’s hilarious to see the final guesses. Once we started with drawing “Donald Trump” which ended up as “Elf Murderer”. Or the time we started with “A Booger” which turned into “Hitler Sperm”. I wish we would have taken a photo of the pictures that were drawn, so I can share them with you….next time!
This holiday season was so much fun, and the games really added to the overall merriment. Kieran’s folks live in Rhode Island but flew to Bloomington, Indianna (where Kieran’s brother Owen and his wife Amanda live) so when we made the road trip to Indy, we all got to be together again. We enjoyed a long Christmas weekend with much needed family time and tons of laughter.
And the food for the holidays? Epic. Amanda’s Mom and Dad make prime rib and it was mouth watering good! Which leads me to today’s post! I too made a roast this year for Kieran and I to enjoy. It’s never a bad holiday season when you get to enjoy prime rib twice in one month 😀
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. I followed Chef John’s cooking method and could not believe how amazing the roast turned out! When Chef John says, “The amount of moisture left in the meat is STUNNING”, he was not joking. The prime rib was restaurant quality, I kid you not. I can say its one of the best things I’ve ever made so far!
If you go to the foodwishes website, you will see Chef John’s note about getting an oven safe meat thermometer. You should follow his advice and get one. If your oven is anything like mine….on steroids….you’re roast will be done early. A medium rare prime rib is about 125 degrees (according to google); the moment I saw my thermometer registering at 135 degrees, I yanked it from the oven. Note, I think the thermometer was NOT in the thickest part of the beef, which is should be, because I tested the thermometer in another area and it registered at 121 degrees. Since I wanted a medium rare prime rib, I figured the “carry-over” cooking would bring the meat up to 125…and it did.
Seriously…if you want to impress for any holiday season, get yourself a rib roast and follow this recipe!
Juicy Prime Rib Recipe
Ingredients
The Roast:
- 4 to 8 pound Prime Rib of Beef, bone-in, fat cap removed, at room temperature
- A oven safe AND flame safe roasting pan large enough to fit the roast
- ¼ cup, butter, softened.
- 1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
- 3 tbsp dried thyme
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 3 tsp dried rosemary
- LOTS of salt
The Beef Au Jus:
- ¼ cup of fat from the roast's drippings
- 1½ tbsp of flour
- 2 cups cold beef broth (the richer the better)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
The Roast:
- Make sure your rack is in the middle of the oven.
- Preheat your oven to 500 degrees
- Combine the soft butter, black pepper, thyme, oregano, and rosemary in a little bowl. Mix it all up until the ingredients are well combined.
- Smear the flavored butter all over the room temperature roast on all sides (even covering the bones).
- Sprinkle the salt, generously, over the entire roast, on all sides. Iron Chef Michael Simon says, "Use twice as much salt as you think you need." Remember this is a BIG cut of beef so only a fraction of that salt will end up on your plate.
- Get out a calculator (I use my iPhone's calculator). Punch in the exact weight of the roast from it's label (I always tell the butcher I NEED the weight on the label to ensure it's not forgotten). Times the exact weight of the roast by 5 minutes, and you will get the amount of time the roast will be cooking at 500 degrees. Example: if your roast weighs 4.8 pounds 4.8 x 5 = 24 minutes, you would cook the roast in the oven, at 500 degrees, for 24 minutes.
- If your cooking time is for example 24.6 minutes, round up to the nearest minute, which would be 25 minutes.
- Place your roast, on a rack positioned in the middle of the oven, and cook it at 500 degrees for the amount of time your math equation says. Once you close the oven door, set a timer so you don't forget!
- Once your timer rings, turn OFF the oven but do NOT…I repeat….do NOT open the oven door. Walk away from the oven and leave the roast in there for 2 hours (see notes about leave-in thermometer) .
- After two hours, take the roast out of the oven, and place it on a cutting board.
- If you are making the au jus, follow the next steps, if you are not, cut the bones off the roast, slice it up into whatever size portion you feel like eating, and serve it up on warm plates!
The Beef Au Jus:
- While your roast is relaxing on a cutting board, pour out most of the fat from the pan, but leave about ¼ cup.
- Place your pan onto your stovetop and turn the burner on to medium-high heat.
- Add the flour, and continuously whisk it i the fat and cook it for approx 3 minutes. While you're whisking, be sure to scrape up the delicious brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan…that's flavor baby!
- Slowly start to add and whisk in the cold beef broth. Again, add it slowly at first to avoid any lumps in your sauce. Once all the broth is added, turn the stove up to high heat, and once it starts to boil, you're done!
- If you like a thicker sauce, you can continue to cook and reduce it for approx 5 minutes.
- Taste to see if salt and pepper are needed!
- Serve boiling hot in a ramekin and enjoy with the prime rib!
- put the pan, with all the leftover roast drippings, onto your stovetop, over medium heat.