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.