Prime rib!!!! This was part of the dinner my Dad and I served my Mom last week. As is customary in my family, you get what you want for your birthday. Mom chose lobster and since I can't eat seafood, she decided to have us make a Prime Rib for the rest of the meal. She actually found the roast at a very good price!! That helps a great deal. On this post, it will be brief but to the point. The cut we used was graded prime. I hope to get a cut of meat like this during the summer. Imagine this coming off the grill!!! Yep, I thought so.
As you can see with the first two pictures, there is a prod connected to the roast itself. That actually connects to the over. THIS is the say to do a roast. This provides a nice way to eliminate any error in cooking. Mom actually started this. What was done is simple. Take the prod and connect it inside its slot into the oven. Then set the desired temperatures you wish to cook the meat and where you want the meat to be at. In this case, it was cooked at 375 degrees for about 2-2 1/2 hours. My parents prefer more towards medium, so the targeted meat temperature was 130 degrees. The roast itself was about 6 pounds (pre-cooking weight). If you're considering getting a new over, the ones with a prod thermometer feature is amazing. Once the desired internal meat temperature is reached, the over shuts off. The meat rested for about 30 minutes, covered in foil. Which leads me to the next part of this dinner. A pretty cleaver idea came to my head and it worked like a charm.
Now this is what you may call the "educational part" of this post. Since I live in the midwest, it's pretty obvious that I won't get getting the farm fresh foods anytime soon. It's too cold to really grow
anything. The interesting thing is where much of our fruit comes from (in particular, where I live and during this time of year.
As you can see from the top picture, we get a lot of fruit and vegetables from South America, namely Peru and Chile. That's a good thing in my book. We get the food we need, it's normally fresh, and some farmer in another country can male a decent living, selling fruits to places like where I live. I don't ever take being able to get decent asparagus at this time of year. I normally drift towards white asparagus since they're a bit sweeter (to my taste anyway) than it's other counterparts.
Now this is the new trick I tried to keep them asparagus warm. This is something I had not considered doing until I finished cooking these asparagus. I cooked them as I normally did (water and finishing with olive oil for about 5 minutes each). I would boil the water first, cook the asparagus in the water for about 5 minutes then add some olive oil to finish cooking them (3 to 5 minutes, to the point where they're soft but not soggy). I finished them as I normally do, seasoning with salt an pepper. Now the fun part. As you can see from the smaller picture, I pulled out the foil. Once I finished cooking the asparagus, I them cooled down the skillet I cooked them in, wrapped them in foil and that was it. I tried it on a hunch and it worked well. They stayed warm for the 25 minutes it took to cook the lobster.
As you can see, the above is the finished product.I have some of the asparagus break on me during my prep time. So those went to me. I ate them. So it doesn't exactly look pretty but it did taste very good!! I was very happy with how the meal turned out. Mom had one of the smaller pieces. This was the biggest piece, which since I'm a fairly big guy, it went to me. Dad has a piece a little smaller than this one. I'm not getting into the potatoes since they're so simple to do. Now imagine going to a fine steakhouse and getting a cut like this and a lobster tail (for Mom). Price tag is shell shocking.
Another look at the "Diamond John" Cut. I'm guessing this piece is between 20-25 oz and since my piece was in the middle of the roast, mine was closer to medium rare (just as I like it). Sure, it's great to have a great meal like this but there is something greater at play here. I have several friends who have buried at least 1 parent. My Grandmother (Mom's mom) died earlier this year at age 96. Both of my parents are still alive and very well. I know that I can't spend as much time with them as I would like. If you get nothing more from this post, take this with you. You have loved ones who are still in your life, enjoy time with them every chance you get! This dinner was so much fun and every time there's a special occasion like a birthday, I want to make sure I can be there to enjoy with my parents. They're the only ones I have and quite frankly, I would not want anyone else. I am VERY thankful for my parents. I'm lucky to have them. Finding a good rib roast at a great price, great. Getting the meal, fit for royalty at home, even better. Enjoying a meal like that with great parents like mine. Priceless!!!
