Prime Rib

Simple and easy way to make a juicy prime rib.  Horseradish sauce is served as a condiment.

Ingredients:
4.75 pound prime rib roast
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Garlic

Horseradish Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup prepared horseradish
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional)

• Preheat oven to 500 degrees F
• Cover roast with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic mixture
• Place roast in oven with bone side down
• Cook for 7 minutes per pound (35 minutes for 5 pound roast)
• Without removing roast, shut off oven and let sit for one hour
• Do not open oven door at any point during the cooking and resting time
• Remove roast from oven and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing
• Slice meat from the bone
• Cut about 1/2 inch thick slices with the grain

Biscuit and Blue Cheese Bread Pudding (Gluten Free)

Perfect side dish for prime rib or steak. The blue cheese isn't as powerful as one might expect. Even people that don't like blue cheese will probably like this dish. Modified from Paula's original recipe to be gluten free by adding gluten free biscuits.

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
4 ounces crumbled Maytag blue cheese (1 cup)
1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
½ large yellow onion, chopped
1 cup frozen yellow corn kernels, thawed
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
1 ½ cups heavy cream
2 eggs lightly beaten
8 baked gluten free buttermilk biscuits(day old)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
• Butter a 13 x 9 inch baking glass dish
• Sprinkle ¼ cup blue cheese crumbles into the baking dish
• Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium high heat
• Saute green peppers and onion until softened (about 5 minutes)
• Stir in the corn and jalapenos and cook for 1 minute more
• Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool
• Mix cream and eggs in a large bowl
• Crumble the biscuits and the remaining ¾ cup blue cheese into the custard and stir to combine
• Stir in the sauteed vegetables as well as the salt and pepper
• Pour the mixture into the baking dish
• Bake until golden (50 to 60 minutes)
• Remove from the oven and serve hot

Potential modifications:
The gluten free biscuits we used are a little springier than traditional biscuits and didn't completely break down into the mixture.  I may look for a different type of biscuit recipe although it isn't needed.

Buttermilk Biscuits (Gluten Free)

We needed day old gluten free biscuits for a blue cheese bread pudding dish we're planning to make tomorrow and decided to try out this recipe from 100 Best Gluten Free Recipes book by Carol Fenster.  This is our first attempt at gluten free baking from scratch.  It can be a little challenging to find all the gluten free flours but after a trip to Whole Foods we now have a little collection of strange powders.  A surprising secondary issue came about due to the shortening in this recipe.  I don't know what I thought shortening was made from, but Crisco appears to be 100% soy based and since Christie is allergic to soy this seemed like a bad idea.  The organic shortening at Whole Foods is made from palm oil so it seems like a safe alternative.

Ingredients (see book page 34):
Sorghum Flour, Potato Starch, and Tapioca Flour
Baking powder, Xanthum gum, Guar gum, baking soda
Shortening and Buttermilk

Directions:
Bake on middle rack for 15 minutes at 375 F.

The final result while still hot from the oven and slathered with butter was a very tasty biscuit.  The biggest surprise was that the biscuit was springy instead of flaky but that can be overlooked.  We'll definitely be making these biscuits again some time and at the moment I don't know enough to recommend any changes or modifications to the ingredients.  I would recommend being careful to not overly flatten the dough when laying it out for cutting.  The dough is delicate and should rise better if not worked too hard. 

Based on our experience with Fresh Brothers Gluten Free pizza, gluten free doughs that are tasty when warm can be awful after they cool.  We won't test these biscuits for that until tomorrow when we make the blue cheese bread pudding.

French Press Coffee Experiment

Ingredients:
12 oz cold tap water
3 scoops coarsely ground coffee (3 Beans Coffee, Medium Roast, arabica, Whole Foods)

• Freshly ground coffee placed into french press.
• Water heated in an electric kettle and poured into the french press just below the boiling point.
• Coffee stirred using plastic spoon.
• Coffee steeped for 4 minutes.
• French press plunger slowly depressed to filter out the coffee grounds from the coffee.
• Coffee consumed immediately before it got too cold.

Results:  Very good medium cup of coffee.  Not too sweet or too bitter with a medium mouthfeel.  Cools quickly and starts to become more bitter. 

Next Steps:  Will stick with coarse grind but should compare results to those from the more standard drip coffee brewing with the same beans.

Ham and Potato Soup (Gluten Free)

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups peeled and diced potatoes
1 stalk diced celery
half of a large finely chopped onion
3/4 cup diced cooked Honey Baked Ham
2 cups chicken stock
1 1/4 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon ground white or black pepper, or to taste
5 tablespoons butter
5 tablespoons Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free all purpose flour
2 cups milk

Directions:
1. Combine the potatoes, celery, onion, ham, chicken stock, and water in a stockpot. Bring to a boil, then cook over medium heat until potatoes are tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in the salt and pepper.
2. In a separate saucepan, melt butter over medium-low heat. Whisk in flour with a fork, and cook, stirring constantly until thick, about 1 minute. Slowly stir in milk as not to allow lumps to form until all of the milk has been added. Continue stirring over medium-low heat until thick, 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Stir the milk mixture into the stockpot, and cook soup until heated through. Serve immediately.

This is a very tasty and easy to make thick potato soup with ham. It exhibits surprisingly good flavor despite having no extra spices and has the added bonus of being gluten free.

Using Fresh Versus Dried Herbs in Cooking

You always hear that fresh herbs have better flavor but they're hard to keep available.  I typically use dried herbs but am looking into adding fresh versions when it makes sense.  This post will try to answer the basic questions associated with using fresh herbs.

When is it most important to use fresh herbs rather than dried ones?
Fresh herbs should be used when you need to add the flavor quickly.  This happens for recipes when there isn't any cooking involved, like for salads or cocktails, or when the spices are added at the last moment, such as folding into sauces or stews near the end of the cooking process just prior to serving.

Dried herbs have had their flavors concentrated through dehydration.  They do best when given enough time to enable rehydration during the cooking process.  They should be added early in the cooking process.  Try adding them as one of the first ingredients so that they can be toasted to add more depth to their flavor.  Deglazing a pan of toasted spices will incorporate extra levels of goodness to simple recipes.

How do you know how much of an herb to use when the recipe doesn't specify whether it's fresh or dried?
General rule is to use one teaspoon of dried herbs for one tablespoon of fresh herbs.  This is about a 1:3 ratio.  You may want to increase the amount of dried herbs as they get older.  Dried herbs lose their flavor as they get older and should be replaced every year.  You may also want to back off on the amount of dried herbs used if they are freshly ground.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale Review (18 September 2011)

What is a pumpkin beer?
Typically released as a fall seasonal, pumpkin beers are made with either actual pumpkin in the mash or pumpkin flavoring added at later stages of the brewing process.  They also tend to have pumpkin pie spices, such as allspice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and ginger, added.  Most are mild and malty with little to no bitterness.  Seems to be more of an East Coast style.

Description of Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
From the Dogfish Head website, “a full-bodied brown ale brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg."

Brewery: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Location: Delaware
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 7.00%
Not recommended for aging.

Poured into a pint glass, this beer has a medium carbonation which generates a decent head.  There's definitely a pumpkin pie aroma and taste but nothing overpowering.  Taste has more flavor than the smell and the 7% alcohol is well hidden.  The pumpkin pie spices work well together without overpowering each other and the entire beer is well balanced.

Conclusion
Dogfish Head is having trouble keeping up with the huge demand for their beers and this is another example of why their beers are so highly sought out.  This was my first pumpkin beer and it met my expectations for a malty, spicy beer that isn't overly sweet.

Cold Brewed Coffee Experiment

Why Cold Brew?
Cold brewing provides a milder, less acidic coffee with less caffeine.  Letting hot brewed coffee go cold and then adding ice makes a bitter iced coffee.  Heating up a cold brewed coffee should provide a more soft and supple coffee than achievable by traditional hot brewing coffee maker techniques. 

How to Cold Brew
Most sites recommend using lighter roasted coffees that have higher acidity than those used for hot brewing methods.  A medium grind is preferred.  This should enable enough coffee surface area to make contact with the water while not becoming completely soluble within the water.  Some coffee shops use a concentrated cold brew method to make their iced coffees.  Concentrated cold brew can be diluted with milk or water.  Concentrated cold brew can also be used for hot coffee when reheated with hot water.  Probably want to use a darker roast for coffee that is going to be reheated.  General recommendation of 9 cups of water to ½ pound of coffee.

Cold Brewing Coffee Experiment No. 1 (17 September 2011)
Ingredients:
2 ½ cups of tap water
5 scoops of Seattle's Best pre-ground Breakfast Blend Level 2

Procedure:  Poured water into a small jar.  Add ground coffee then stir until coffee is completely incorporated into water.   Put lid on jar and let sit for 15 ½ hours at room temperature.  Finally, strain coffee through gold drip coffee wire mesh strainer, put into a jar, seal, then place in refrigerator.

Results:
Poured over ice, the cold coffee was pretty good and very similar to but slightly cleaner than Starbucks iced coffee.  There was a slight bitterness on the finish and the texture seemed a bit gritty.

Next Steps:
Try again with 4 scoops of the same pre-ground coffee.  Should also try with same coffee but with a coarser grind.