Three Dog Kitchen

When we go back to Pennsylvania to visit T’s family, there are a few things I look forward to (aside from seeing his family, of course): real soft pretzels, scrapple (yes, really), and his dad’s biscuits and gravy.  When I was younger, I went through this phase where I always ordered chicken fried steak when we went out for breakfast.  Some places have really good ones, others have okay ones, and sometimes you find a really bad one where the coating is soggy and the gravy is inedible.  I learned that sausage gravy varies immensely from kitchen to kitchen and after a while I gave up trying to pinpoint who makes a good gravy.  I don’t like sausage gravy that’s too thick, too congealed, too salty, too pasty, too gloppy, too peppered, etc.  I’ve come to be picky about sausage gravy, which is probably why I haven’t ordered it in a long time.  But T’s dad makes an awesome one, and when he makes it there’s a huge pot of the stuff to pour over fresh biscuits (Pillsbury, but fresh nonetheless).  It’s so good, you want to lick the bowl afterwards.

I’ve made many things for breakfast at home - crepes, Dutch pancakes, stuffed french toast, quiche, cinnamon rolls, huevos rancheros - but never biscuits and gravy.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I was scared I’d turn out a gloppy, pasty mess.  But then I got a craving for it.  A sausagey gravy, sweet with onions, a dash (just a dash!) of pepper, and fresh hot biscuits.  Coincidentally, I had just seen a recipe for sausage gravy in Cook’s Country magazine (which I love more than Cook’s Illustrated).  I’d also just read about biscuits on the King Arthur blog.  And breakfast sausage was on sale at Vons.  It was like the universe was trying to tell me something.

One thing I noticed about the Cook’s gravy recipe was that it called for a pound of sausage.  I guess that’s good if you get your sausage from a butcher or by the pound, but I was working with the roll of Jimmy Dean sausage, which is only 12 oz.  I also used the reduced fat sausage and 2% milk instead of whole, and it all turned out delicious.  So, know that you can make this dish a teensy bit “healthier” and nothing will be sacrificed.  I don’t know that I’d try it with turkey sausage or veggie sausage, although if anyone does I’d be curious to hear how it went.  I ended up combining a few sausage gravy recipes, adding onion, and then tweaking it to account for the fact that I only used 12 oz of sausage.  I did use the cream biscuit recipe from King Arthur and they were tender but small and flat.  However, this was totally due to my rolling the dough too thin and using a tiny biscuit cutter, not the fault of the recipe.

I was really happy with the way my biscuits and gravy turned out, except I kept calling it sausage and gravy.  Or sausage and biscuits.  For the life of me, I could not get the phrase “biscuits and gravy” out of my mouth all morning.  T also enjoyed our morning breakfast, which made me happy.  It totally satisfied my craving and didn’t even take too long to pull together.

Sausage Gravy
1 12-oz roll Jimmy Dean sausage (the reduced fat kind works great here)
1 small onion, chopped (or half of a large onion)
1/4 c. flour
2 c. milk (I used 2% and didn’t notice a thing)
salt and pepper to taste

1. Brown the sausage in a deep skillet (it doesn’t have to be nonstick as you’ll scrape up the bits when you add the milk). Break up the sausage as you go so you get nice crumbles that aren’t too big. When half the sausage is no longer pink, add the onions. The sausage will have rendered just enough fat to cook the onions in.

2. Once the onions are translucent, sprinkle in the flour and stir to combine.

3. Slowly pour in the milk and bring the gravy to a slow simmer. Add salt and pepper to your preferences and simmer away until the gravy has thickened to your liking.

4. Split your hot biscuits and pour the gravy over them. Enjoy!

There has been a lot of chatter on the internet (and blog) regarding this bread book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  I am consistently behind when it comes to cookbooks and new things, something I like to attribute to the avoidance of buyer’s remorse.  I mean, I don’t want to buy a book just because everyone’s raving about it.  I already have stacks of cookbooks that rarely get used (but look so pretty!).  But then, the more people rave about it and the recipes and the food, the more I want to try my hand at it.  I want to know what I’m missing.  It’s kind of a vicious cycle.  I was specifically resisting this one because I honestly didn’t think I needed a whole book on variations of the No-Knead bread (which I’ve only made once).  But then I thought about it, read some of the recipes being used and adapted and I really wanted to see what the fuss is about.  So I bought it.  And then found out you can buy it at Costco (where books are almost always cheaper).

The first recipe I made was the brioche master dough.  I was going to try the challah, but figured if I’m going to try one, it might as well be the butter-laden recipe, right?  I used a 3-quart Rubbermaid container to hold the dough, so I only made a half recipe (each dough recipe calls for a 5-quart container) and I totally made the right decision.  After a night in the fridge, the dough had practically risen to the top!  Of course, after I dropped the container on the floor, it all collapsed back down.

I used half the dough (the recipe is good for 4 loaves) to make the caramel pecan rolls, which were pretty awesome, and the other half for a regular brioche loaf to eat with the rillette in the fridge.  I’ve never made traditional brioche, so I don’t know how this compares, but the bread is soft, airy, and not chewy.  It makes beautiful toast and also a nice PB&J sandwich.  The caramel rolls were rich and soft and very easy to eat.  The caramel sauce on the bottom didn’t turn out very gooey and caramel-like, but the part that stuck to the rolls was delicious.

After those were done, I turned right back around and whipped up the original master recipe.  Half recipe.  It sat in the fridge, silenty creeping T out with its bubbles and oozeyness.  I baked up a piece of it tonight with dinner (meatballs in that grape jelly/chili sauce).  Instead of a baking stone and pan of water, I’m used a preheated Dutch oven, a la the No-Knead bread method.  It worked really well.  I’m starting to think I don’t need a pizza stone.  Pizzas go on the bbq grill and breads now go into the Dutch oven.

I pulled the dough out and formed the little smooth ball.  It seems like the brioche dough was way stickier than this one, so that makes me happy.  I set the ball on some parchment paper (yay Reynolds!) and let it sit for about half an hour (the book says 40 minutes; I am impatient).  Meanwhile, the Dutch oven was in the oven-oven, preheating to 450ºF.  Had dinner been ready and if I had been hungry, I’m not sure I would have waited for this bread.  But, I wasn’t terribly hungry and T was on the elliptical anyway, so I waited.  30 minutes later (I forgot to take the lid off, so the the top wasn’t very brown), I had a little round loaf of bread!  The top was crackly, the insides were soft, the bread was warm and had a nice chew, and we basically went through half that loaf with dinner.  I could have eaten the whole thing, but I managed to show some restraint.  Good job, bread book!

Now, I am all for raving about good books.  You all know that when I find something I totally love, I tell you all about it.  Having said that, I have some misgivings regarding this cookbook.  First, it’s a little misleading in the title.  It takes about 5 minutes to mix up the dough.  It takes about 5 minutes to grab the “grapefruit size” hunk of dough, “cloak” it and shape it, and put it down.  But there’s the rise time, which is longer if it’s cold out of the fridge.  And there’s a fairly long bake time, depending on the type of bread you’re baking.  Since most breads require maybe 6-10 minutes of kneading, this is the only step you’re cutting out.  Now, I do like that you can make a big batch of dough and keep it for a week, baking small loaves as you feel like it.  But this method will not save you huge amounts of time if you have an instant craving for fresh bread.

The organization of the recipes are a little wonky.  There’s a master recipe section, a peasant loaf section, flatbreads, and an enriched bread section.  I thought that meant there were 3 or 4 master doughs and then dozens of variations within the section, meaning you only had to learn 3 or 4 dough recipes.  Nope.  Each section could have multiple dough recipes.  Some recipes use a master dough, others you need to make from scratch.  This means that if you’ve whipped up a batch of challah dough, but you want to make another type of pastry, it’s very likely you’ll need to mix up new dough.  Some recipes call for an add-in, recipes for which are often provided.  However, I’d rather have a separate section for these add-ins, instead of having them inserted directly after the bread recipe.  I know, I know.  It’s kind of nitpicky, since it is also convenient to have the add-in recipe right after the bread recipe.  But I’m nitpicking!

You’ll see pictures of the cloaked dough (it’s just turning and smoothing the ball of dough - it replaces kneading) and it all looks beautiful and sounds easy.  It’s totally not.  You’ll end up with dough-covered hands and flour everywhere.  Don’t get me wrong, your cloaked ball of dough will definitely look smooth, but it’s a sticky, messy process.  For this method, I’ve been flouring a piece of Reynold’s parchment paper (they come precut and folded, not in a roll) and I set the cloaked dough on top of that.  It makes it much easier to move the dough around, and I plan to just plop the parchment into my Dutch oven for baking from here on out.  I’ve heard people do this with the No-Knead bread, too, so it’s not like I’m a complete baking genius.  I just have some kitchen common sense!

I do like the book and I think the more I work with the different recipes the more I’ll start tweaking it to where I’m happy.  I don’t think it’s a revolutionary book that is a must-have on every baker’s bookshelf.  I also hope it doesn’t discourage people from breadbaking due to the sticky, messy cloaking step.  I can tell you that with traditional breads, the kneading step is typically much cleaner for me.  These recipes will probably be good for having dough at the ready, but I’m sure I will still want to make bread from scratch that involves kneading.

It is so far from Valentine’s Day that I feel silly even talking about it.  But I made such a lovely (and easy!) dessert that night I really want to share with someone.

When I was single, I hated going out on Valentine’s Day.  Even with friends, it seemed weird to be out amongst all those happy, sappy couples.  Then, when I had a boyfriend, I made a point to request that we dine out on V-Day, to be one of those sappy couples looking all dreamy-eyed at each other.  Now, well, now I’ve grown up and gotten old and grumpy and don’t feel like making reservations three weeks in advance to pay extra for a special love-themed menu at a fancy restaurant.  And I still don’t really like sitting in the crowded restaurants surrounded by sappy couples.  So now we stay at home and I make dinner.  You might argue that having to make a fancy dinner is not romantic and it’s a lot of work.  But, I love making fancy dinners!  I would throw fancy dinner parties all the time except, yes, it is a lot of work and planning and timing.  But not when the dinner is just for a party of two!  It’s also cheaper to cook lobster tail for two than for eight.  So, in actuality, T is letting me do what I love cooking at home with fancy sauces and pretty plating.  His job is to pick a good wine.

Another thing I love about our Valentine’s Day is that we don’t give big presents.  No pressure!  Less spending!  We give little things that have meaning and are just cute and fun.  Oddly enough, it’s also the one day I’m pretty much guaranteed flowers (and it was a gorgeous bouquet this year, too) which is nice.  I always thought I was the type of girl who needed to get flowers, but apparently I’m just the type of girl who likes being attended to in general, florally or not.

This year, I didn’t even have anything big planned for dinner.  I was going to cook up some filets we had in the freezer (hooray Costco and the Handi-Vac!) and maybe some shrimp and steamed broccoli.  I was going to bake some cookies from the dough in the freezer.  But one thing led to another and I ended up with a pretty kick-ass meal, if I do say so myself.

We had leftover alfredo sauce (from Trader Joe’s, not scratch), so I added some minced garlic and poured it over the shrimp and then stuck it in the oven to bake and bubble away.  I started out attempting to make steak au poivre, with the crushed peppercorns on one side of the filets.  Then I realized I was, kind of, missing half the other ingredients, so I improvised.  I seared the filets in butter (130ºF is perfectly med-rare, but steaks cook after you remove them from heat, so pull them at 122ºF or so), deglazed the pan with apricot brandy (makes everything delicious!), added half and half and called it good.  And it was.  The broccoli got roasted with olive oil and more garlic and carrots.  The shrimp came out perfectly pink and smelling heavenly.

The fun part was that it all fit into the compartments of these cute tv dinner trays I found at Target.  T loves compartmented plates, but I couldn’t find “real” plates.  I found cheapy plastic kiddie plates at Walmart, but I wanted something sturdy.  The ones I found came in blue or red and are durable, like Corelle but they’re not Corelle.  So dinner fit into the plates and it was very cute and quite tasty.

But the best part was dessert (at least for me).  I’ve actually gotten bored with chocolate lava cakes at restaurants.  It seems everyone has one and only half are really any good.  Some of them are overcooked, which totally defeats the “lava” part, if you ask me.  I used to make them at home, but the last one I tried involved making a chocolate truffle-like thing to stick in the middle, which is just way too much work.  This one (.pdf here)I found at Leite’s Culinaria and it looked simple enough to warrant another try.  It is simple, it is worth making, and it’s worth making over and over again.  It’s also easily halved, if you just want to make it for a special someone.  I served it with cinnamon ice cream and we were very happy.  One note, I needed to add 2 minutes to the baking time to get the sides set.  Definitely don’t skip the buttering and flouring of the ramekins.  The cakes with still come out, but not as easily and then you might end up with a gooey chocolate puddle and then a hollow cake on the plate.  I’m just saying.

If you love edamame, you’ll wonder, like I did, why anyone would feel they need to “cook” the cute little green pods.  I love them simply warm, with a sprinkling of coarse salt, al dente but soft enough to easily pop out of the pods.  What more could you ask for?  I see people at sushi bars dousing them with soy sauce or popping the beans into their dish of soy sauce/wasabi and I shudder.  It seems blasphemous to torture edamame in this way.

My mom and I trade recipes often.  Sometimes it’s a dish I’ve come across that I have come to love and want to share; sometimes these same recipes go untouched in her kitchen because it’s too much work.  She’ll send me recipes she’s found in the paper or someone’s made for her in Hawaii, and sometimes these recipes go untouched in my kitchen because there’s too much boxed cake mix and I’m in a snobby food mood.  Other times, it’s because I don’t feel like messing with a good thing.  However, there are times when I’ve discovered that I should listen to my mom more often.  Her scallops recipe is one time (drain on paper towels for a day to get a seared crust and then deglaze with apricot brandy); this edamame one is another.

If you’ve been to Roy’s restaurant, you may have had enhanced edamame - warm, salty, with a kick of chili pepper.  You may have even enjoyed them, and then dismissed it as a fancy restaurant gimmick.  Well, let me tell you, sometimes fancy gimmicks are worthwhile treats.

I still love plain edamame, warm with a sprinkle of kosher salt.  Or even cold and nibbled one by one as I sit at my desk, waiting for lunchtime.  But if I have time before dinner and there are fresh edamame in the fridge, I can easily be persuaded to make these.  These are salty from the soy sauce but they also have that irresistible lure of sesame oil.  There is some garlic and a hint of ginger and then a sprinkle of peppery spice.  Because the pods get warm and slightly charred, they give up the sweet beans easily, leaving you to lick the garlicky, salty tastiness from the outsides on your way out.

My edamame now come from Costco, from the refrigerated section.  I used to buy the frozen ones from Trader Joe’s, but they don’t seem to be there anymore.  Perhaps as a result of this announcement?  In any case,if you have frozen edamame, cook according to the package directions, drain, then proceed with this recipe.  It’ll be amazing and you’ll love it.  The best part is, after you make it a few times you can stop measuring and just start throwing things in as you please.

Wok-charred Edamame

1 pound edamame in the pod
2 TB salt
3 TB sesame oil
2 tsp. finely minced fresh garlic
1 tsp. finely minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. white sesame seeds
1 TB sugar
1 TB soy sauce
1 to 2 tsp. shichimi (Japanese chili pepper, see: small red bottle above)

Heat a large wok over medium-high heat.   Add 2 TB of the oil and toss in the edamame.   Stir-fry for 1 to 2 minutes, until well-coated with the oil.

Make a well in the edamame and add the remaining 1 TB oil, garlic, and ginger.  Stir-fry for 20 to 30 seconds, until barely light golden brown, then add the sesame seeds to the well.   Stir to mix evenly, coating the edamame.   Sprinkle in the sugar and toss several times, allowing the sugar to melt and glaze the edamame.   Add the soy sauce, shichimi and mix well.   Taste and adjust seasoning with salt, if necessary.   Transfer to a platter and serve immediately.

So, this is probably just one step above my 20 Minute Cinnamon Rolls in terms of semi-homemade foods, but it turned out okay and it might help you use up some surplus cookies.  If you have surplus cookies… we seem to have a lot in the freezer.

I get into these moods where I feel there is too much food in house but I don’t know what to do with it.  We’re also kind of trying to go through the freezer and use up food from there, because it’s getting really full.  I mean, we somehow lost of pack of breakfast sausage.  It’s on the inventory list as still being in the freezer (yes, we made a freezer inventory list) and neither of us remember eating the breakfast sausage, yet we cannot find it anywhere.  We actually threw out some homemade ice cream from last summer that we weren’t enamored with to make more room.  We’ve eaten all the Trader Joe’s frozen shrimp tempura (so good! so easy!) to get rid of the box.  I’ve been braising vegetables with the chicken stock I made so the jar isn’t taking up prime real estate in the freezer basket.

And the cookies… I always seem to toss a couple packs of Girl Scout cookies in the freezer so they don’t go bad.  But then I don’t eat them.  I have 3 packages of cookie dough balls from the last batch of dough I made, but I haven’t been baking them.  And then there’s the shortbread.  So much shortbread.  When we go to Scottish fairs, someone is always selling shortbread and it always tastes like the best because you’re tired and hungry.  So we buy it, eat some, then toss it into the freezer “for later”.  Well, T got to the point where he knew we weren’t going to eat it and was ready to toss it.  I have an aversion to tossing food unless it’s moldy or slimy, so I announced I would use it within a week.  For something. 

There were also 4 apples in the fridge from our last CSA box.  They had gotten to the point where they weren’t crisp anymore but they were still good apples.  Just not eating-out-of-hand apples. 

Now, shortbread is basically butter, sugar, and flour.  Crumble toppings are basically butter, sugar, flour, and maybe oats or nuts.  See where my mind was going with this?  Sure, the cookies are already baked, but I bet the butteriness is still there.  So, I sliced up the apples, pounded the cookies to crumbs, sprinkled on top, and then baked until the apples were soft.

It turned out pretty well.  Not as nice as a real crumble, but the cookies browned a little and mingled with the apple juices.  I can tell you it went really well with the cinnamon ice cream from the freezer.  And with yogurt for breakfast.  So, if you have a plethora of fatty cookies or butter cookies in the house, now you know that it makes a decent fruit crumble in a pinch.  Say, if you wanted dessert but didn’t want to work for it.  Or if you just wanted to use them up without having to throw them away. 

On the rainy rainy Sunday, while we half-heartedly watched the Super Bowl next to a curled up cat, 2 white dogs, and 1 mud-covered wet dog (hooray for dog blankets on the couch!), I decided to make pita bread.  I wanted to make no-knead bread, but I didn’t get the dough started early enough.  Then I wanted to make canneles, but again the batter didn’t get made in time to let it rest for 12 hours.  But, being stuck at home all day is the perfect time to make bread that has to rise and get kneaded and then bake.  I would have to settle for a simple recipe.  Pita bread sounded both suitable and yummy (I was probably thinking of the sandwiches from the Pita Pit in Mammoth and from Mr. Hummos) and there was even a recipe I’ve been waiting to try, from Farmgirl Fare (to whom I am grateful for doing all that pita research and testing so I don’t have to).

I’m going to have to play around with these a little more, as I only had 1 pita puff out of 8.   I just sliced a couple up and we ate it warm with hummus (from the Poway farmers market!) and the others will get wrapped up.  Perhaps I’ll make an egg pita to take for breakfast one of these mornings.  They taste pretty good and the texture is great and I can tell they’d make awesome pita chips.  If we have enough leftover to get to that stage.  Even though mine didn’t puff and didn’t make a pocket in the middle, the recipe was very easy to follow and make, so it’ll probably become my go-to for pita bread until someone can point out a better one that works for me.

Now I’m craving gyros…

So, over the weekend I went to a… seminar? Workshop? It was an all day thing with this lady who goes over your body type and colors and you walk away with what makeup to wear, how to apply it, what color clothes to wear, what style of clothes to wear, what designer design for your body type, and a handy-dandy color swatch booklet that you can take shopping. She’ll also go through clothes you bring over and your makeup collection (a lot of mine got tossed out due to being “wrong”). Because it was an all day thing, we decided to do a potluck for lunch instead of ordering food. I volunteered to bring dessert because a) I love making desserts rather than entrees and b) I had fruit, almond paste, and a sheet of puff pastry left. I didn’t have apples, though, so instead of the Easy Apple Tart, I turned it into a cherry tart. And! I took pictures for you!

So, I forgot that I only used half the almond paste/egg spread for the one apple tart. I had wrapped up the other half and stuck it in the freezer to use later. I’ve edited the original post to reflect this. I don’t think it would be bad to use it all, you’ll just get twice as much almondy goodness. My point is, because I only used half, my easy tart got even easier. I defrosted the puff pastry sheet and then spread on almond paste/egg mixture on top.

Then I took cherries which I pitted and halved and smushed them into the almond paste. I didn’t measure, but it was maybe 3 cups of whole cherries? Is it really a big deal? If you pit too many cherries, just eat the extra as a snack. Or freeze them. Or simmer with sugar to make a yummy pancake sauce.

Yum yum yum. If the pastry wasn’t raw, this looked good enough to eat right now.

Baked at 400ºF for 15-20 minutes, it comes out all puffy on the edges and smelling just lovely. The only sad part is that the cherries lose that bright red color. They still taste good, though!

Let it cool a bit, then you can slice it any way you want. The cherry-almond combo sounded good to me, but I think I prefer it with apples. I bet peaches would be nice, too.

My mom informed me that “everyone” misses my posts, so here you go. I can’t help if life got too busy and I chose to do other things instead of sitting at my computer writing posts. Things like partying at Anthology and learning what colors I can and cannot wear. Also, I should avoid foundation with the word “beige” in the color title - except every drugstore brand foundation has some variation of beige so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, especially since I’m not a “natural” body type who can apparently get away with not wearing makeup to begin with.

Anyway, one of the things I did in my internet absence was bake a loaf of bread. By hand. I was going to test out the new-and-improved no knead bread, but I just never got it started early enough. I also wanted a nice soft bread to use for toast or sandwiches. I turned to my trusty Cook’s Illustrated cookbook and looked at their recipe for sandwich bread. It seemed easy enough, so I gave it a shot, ultimately ruining our chance to go on a hike that day because it would have interrupted my rising and baking process. Poor T.

The best tip I got from the CI recipe was to turn the oven on to 200ºF, let it hold at 200 for 10 minutes, then turn the oven off. By the time I had mixed and kneaded the dough, the oven was at a nice temperature for rising. It certainly rose and doubled quite nicely, then I folded it into a cylinder to fit my loaf pan and it went back into the warm oven for the final rise. All in all, I ended up with a nice loaf of bread.

Now, I think it’s a little denser than what I would consider sandwich bread, but I don’t know if that’s due to my expectations or an error in the process. It toasts up nicely and it actually makes for a good sandwich. My favorite was one I adapted from Sam the Cooking Guy: a tomato and potato chip sandwich. What we did, though, was add a fried egg. You know, to add some protein. It’s just mayo, sliced tomatoes, and potato chips. Smash it all down, cut in half, and enjoy! Oh, wait. We also added leftover bacon. Maybe that’s why it was so good!

My mom says that Trader Joe’s should pay me because I talk about their food so much.  I can’t help it!  They sell tasty products that are fairly inexpensive!  Besides, they already have a stellar marketing department.  I wouldn’t know about half the things I enjoy if it wasn’t for the flyers and circulars they mail out, complete with handy dandy shopping checklists.

I am a big fan of things you can just throw together and it magically turns into something to serve.  Bonus points if they are items that can sit in the freezer or pantry until you need them.

So, Trader Joe’s sells this puff pastry in the freezer case.  One box, two sheets of puff pastry.  You know it has to be good and natural because TJ is not big on preservatives and yucky chemicals.  On a shopping trip, I picked one up and stuck it in the freezer until I had a good idea of what to make with it.  I also still had apples from the Costco pack, and even though I had purchased them for the Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner (yes, that long ago), they were still good, if maybe a little less crisp.  But, I didn’t want to just do a simple apple-on-puff-pastry kind of tart.  How boring!

There was also a small can of almond paste on the counter.  I had pulled it out, optimistically thinking I would invest time into a batch of croissants over Christmas and then be able to turn the “old” ones into yummy almond croissants.  Well, the croissants never happened, but perhaps I could still use up the almond paste.

This is one of the easiest desserts I’ve ever done (easier than my tiramisu!) and it’s tasty and justifiable as a breakfast treat, too!  Here’s how it’s done:

Ingredients: 1 puff pastry sheet, 2 apples, 1 can almond paste, 1 egg

Directions: Defrost the puff pastry sheet on a baking sheet.  Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  With a handheld mixer, beat the almond paste with the egg (don’t worry, eventually it will come together and make a smooth paste).  Spread this on the puff pastry.  [ed. note: you will only need half this amount, but the other half freezes wonderfully] Peel the apples, slice in half, then remove the cores.  Thinly slice the apples and fan them onto the almond paste.  Bake for 15 minutes or until the puff pastry starts to brown.  Remove, cool, slice, and try to refrain from eating the whole thing by yourself.

Ta da!  I wish I had a picture to show you, but it’s all gone.  Sorry.

I think this was one of the first years we actually stayed home on Christmas.  Just us and the dogs.  It may sound quiet and lonely, but it was actually very nice.  We slept in a little and then made breakfast out of leftover bread from Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse in Santee.  We had gone there for a friend’s birthday, stuffed ourselves silly, then packed a doggy bag with leftover steak and fatty bits and the bread that was in the extra bread basket.  Well, the dogs got a yummy Christmas breakfast with steak and we ended up with some really good french toast.  So, if you go to Pinnacle Peak for dinner, don’t leave the leftover bread - it’s the perfect bread for french toast.

After breakfast, we opened presents, and I have to say that I am well spoiled.  I have a new robe for summer and a cushy soft one for the cold weather, a ride in a hot air balloon, a very cool new picture-hanging level, and other such trinkets.  We also got an automatic soap dispenser, which is not only fun but actually handy.  But my favorite present I’ll tell you about tomorrow.

The weekend before Christmas, I had purchased a small rib roast from Costco (the smallest one they had, actually).  My plan was to cook prime rib and Yorkshire pudding for our Christmas dinner.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to cook, but it’s an expensive endeavor.  It’s not something you test out for the first time for a dinner party and it’s not really in my budget to be able to to a test run and a large roast for a table full of dinner guests.  Anyway, I figured I could afford to do this for our dinner, so I picked a 2-rib roast, which was still pretty big.  Interestingly enough, Alton Brown had just done a Good Eats episode on prime rib (mislabeled in the cable guide as “Eggnog”), so I tracked down his recipe as I had not really been paying attention to the tv.  Both Alton Brown (AB) and Cook’s Illustrated (CI) recommend dry aging the roast in the refrigerator, so I tried it.  I placed the roast on a rack and then on a small baking sheet.  I placed a paper towel over it, to keep it protected from dust and also to wick away extra moisture.  After three days, it didn’t look like it had lost much water, but it did look nice and red and beefy.

 Again, AB and CI don’t go big on seasonings, so I just rubbed the roast with some olive oil and then some kosher salt.  Now, AB says to cook the roast at 200ºF, pull it out at 118ºF, rest, then reintroduce it to a 500ºF until the roast reaches 130ºF.  All while cooking under a terra cotta pot.  CI says to pan sear the roast (to get it nice and brown), then just cook it in a 250ºF until it reaches 130ºF.  I compromised between the two methods, roasting at 250ºF until the thermometer measured 130ºF, then I pulled it out and turned the oven to 450ºF (this is also the temperature the Yorkshire puddings bake at).  The roast went back in with the buttered muffin pan (Yorkshire puddings) for 5 minutes, then everything came out, I poured the batter into the pan and in they went.

The roast came out looking (and smelling) wonderful, but very little of the fat had rendered off and there certainly weren’t any pan dripping with which to make a pan sauce.

I used the CI recipe for the Yorkshire puddings (it was on the page after the rib roast recipe), preparing it in advance to let the batter rest.  I got 1 Tb of beef fat for the batter but used butter to grease the muffin pans because the roast hadn’t rendered enough fat.  I wish you could have seen these suckers in the pan because they looked impressive.  They must have been twice as high as the muffin pan, with smears of browned butter here and there.  I pulled them out of the oven after 30 minutes, then poked them with a skewer to try and prevent them from deflating.  It worked a little, but they still ended up less puffy than when they were in the oven.  Still, they looked tasty.

Now that the roast was nice and rested, we carved the bones away (and nibbled at them), then carved two slices off the roast (which was a little less than half the total roast).  Added to some roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts, it was an impressive looking dinner, even without any au jus.  I was pretty pleased with myself.

It was a really good slice of prime rib.  Slow roasted, it was juicy and medium rare.  The edges had a little saltiness to them and the outside fat was beefy and meltingly good.  I certainly wouldn’t mind doing this again for dinner for four.  Of course, the difficult part would be deciding which 2 friends to invite to dinner!  The Yorkshire puddings are quite similar to popovers (and would probably be identical if not the beef fat in them) and were crispy on the tops and custardy in the middle.  Since the recipe made 12, we ate quite a few with dinner (and after) and have also eaten them for breakfast.  Yum.  The next time I make a roast, though, I think I will follow the CI recipe and sear it in a pan before placing it in the oven.  That would definitely render out more of the outside fat.  Aside from that, it was a perfect dinner.  I’d even wager to say my prime rib was better than you would get at most Vegas buffets!