Easter Lunch

Normally for Easter, we head to Tyler, go to church and then to the club for brunch and enjoy the family time. This year, because we have a ton going on, we decided to stay here and have our own little celebration. While I really look forward to the day that we have kids and can do all of the Easter stuff, (Dye eggs, Easter egg hunts, baskets) we were thankful this year to have a quiet, relaxing holiday.

I wanted our lunch to be a traditional-ish Easter meal, so we decided on: Brisket, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach and a chocolate icebox pie. Everything was REALLY good and we’re really happy with how it all turned out. I’ll post the other recipes soon, but here’s the brisket.

Oven Baked Brisket and BBQ sauce

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for oven baked brisket. We actually smoked the brisket in our smoker for a few hours  then baked it instead of using the liquid smoke, but I think I prefer it the original way. I was able to get a 7 lb brisket for about $10 at my (beloved) Kroger and we have had several meals from it.

5-7 lb brisket (I bought untrimmed because it was cheaper)

Seasoned salt and garlic powder

1 small bottle of liquid smoke

Worcestershire Sauce

1 bottle KC Masterpiece Original

Tear off enough foil to line a baking pan and completely surround brisket with enough to spare to seal up tightly. Sprinkle brisket with seasoned salt, garlic powder and liquid smoke. Spread the liquid smoke over all surfaces, seal up the foil and let it marinate in the frig. overnight.

The following day, drain off the liquid smoke and sprinkle with pepper and Worcestershire Sauce.  Reseal tightly (you’re going to use quite a bit of foil) and bake at 250 for 5 hours.  Open, drain off most of liquid and save for sauce.  Spread top of brisket with barbeque sauce  and reseal foil and continue to bake 1 more hour at 250.  Remove from oven.  Wait 30 minutes before opening foil.  Slice into 1/4 inch slices.  May be served or wrapped in fresh foil and refrigerated.  Reheat for about 30 minutes at 325 when ready to serve. (We cooked it on Saturday night and served it on Sunday. This allowed us to let the sauce separate overnight.) Also, we waited to trim the fat off until we ate it. It just gives such a good flavor. If we were serving it to guests, we would have trimmed the fat off before it hit the plate.

To make sauce, reduce the saved drippings to about half what you started with by simmering.   Add more KC Masterpiece to the liquid to give it a good taste. Let cool overnight in fridge. The next day, remove layer of fat (it’s kind of gross, but the it is worth it!) and re-heat sauce. 

After it’s cooked, it can be frozen for future uses, or just plan to eat on it all week, like we did! Our favorite leftover brisket meal… GUT PACKS!!!

Gut packs originated at a little place called Vitek’s in Waco. They are AMAZING. Chopped brisket, fritos, diced onions, cheese, BBQ sauce, and PICKLES. The pickles are the best part! mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Christmas Dinner with Sheriff John, the Mrs. and, of course, Jax

This Christmas I was able to spend 10 days with my parents. Most people might grumble about that, but I absolutely loved it! I have amazing parents who are fun and thoughtful and loving and oh so very generous. Lane joined us for 5 of the 10 days, and we had a wonderful time filled with lots of food, wine and laughter. My mom and I planned out a menu the weekend before Christmas and wanted something special for Christmas eve dinner. We almost always do beef tenderloin on special occasions, so we wanted to try something different, and prime rib fit the bill! Of course, we made Lane cook it. He often gets volun-told to cook, but I think he likes it! We found a basic prime rib recipe online and added our own little touches. It was delicious and really so easy. The meal was fabulous, as always!

Prime Rib slightly adapted from Simply Recipes
(The link has GREAT pictures to go with the recipe)
Ingredients

• One standing rib roast, 3 to 7 ribs (estimate serving 2 people per rib), bones cut away from the roast and tied back to the roast with kitchen string (ask your butcher to prepare the roast this way)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Garlic Powder
• Rosemary springs

Directions

Remove roast from the refrigerator, loosely wrapped, 3 hours before cooking. Roasts should always be brought close to room temperature first, before they go in the oven.

Cookbooks often call for the excess fat to be removed. By "excess" fat they mean any fat more than an inch thick. The fat is what provides the flavor and what you are paying for with prime rib, so you want to leave it on. Your butcher should have removed any excess fat.

If your butcher hasn't already done so, cut the bones away from the roast and tie them back on to the roast with kitchen string. This will make it much easier to carve the roast, while still allowing you to stand the roast on the rib bones while cooking. Basically, you cut the ribs away then tie them right back on. It helps provide the flavor, but makes it easier to carve when you’re ready to serve.

Preheat your oven to 500°F, or the highest it will go (our oven goes up to 700°F, which is too hot). Generously sprinkle salt, garlic powder and pepper all over the roast. Cut slits in the top of the roast and insert small springs of rosemary.

Insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the roast, making sure it doesn't touch a bone. (Some meat thermometers require that you poke a hole first with a skewer, and then insert the thermometer.) Place the roast, fat side up, rib side down in a roasting pan in the oven.

After 15 minutes on 500°F, reduce the heat to 325°F. To figure out the total cooking time, allow about 13-15 minutes per pound for rare and 15-17 minutes per pound for medium rare. The actual cooking time will depend on the shape of the roast and your particular oven. A flatter roast will cook more quickly than a thicker one. So make sure to use a meat thermometer. This is not a roast to "wing it". Error on the rare side.

Roast in oven until thermometer registers 115°-120°F for rare or 125°-130°F for medium.
Check the temperature of the roast using a meat thermometer a half hour before you expect the roast to be done. For example, with a 10 pound roast, you would expect 2 1/2 hours of total cooking time (15 minutes at 500° and 2 1/4 hours at 325°). In this case, check after 2 hours of total cooking time, or 1 hour 45 minutes after you lowered the oven temp to 325°.

Once the roast has reached the desired internal temperature, remove it from oven and let rest 20 minutes, covered with aluminum foil, before carving. The roast will continue to cook while it is resting.  (I think we let it rest a little too long, so just watch your temp. We prefer it to be on the more rare side.)

With a knife or scissors, cut the strings which attach the meat to the bones. Remove the bones (save for making stock for soup. Then, using a sharp carving knife, slice meat across the grain for serving, making the slices about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.

DELICIOUSO and oh so easy. It takes some advance thought, but the actual preparation is really easy. Just make sure you have a great (and accurate) meat thermometer that you can constantly watch the temperature on.

Here’s Jax wondering what happened to his portion of prime rib, but then settling with a bowl of bacon bits. (No, we didn’t actually give him the bacon.)

We served the prime rib with a wedge salad, baked potato and sourdough bread. For dessert, we had apple pie and honey lavender vanilla bean ice cream (recipe to come).

Oh, and the wine. Let’s not forget the wine. Several years ago, my dad said to my mom and me, “Well, if I die, you can sell all of the wine.” Mom and I looked at each other, paused, and at the same time said, “We won’t sell it…we’re going to drink it!!!”

So, from then on, my dad realized that if he wanted in on his own wine, then he should start opening it now! We’ve convinced him to open even more by saying that we’ll just have to go back to Napa to get more. Whatever the thought is behind the decision to open more wine makes no difference to me…I’m just glad I get to partake!

On Christmas eve, we opened two bottles…A 2003 Silver Oak Alexander Valley Cabernet and a 2004 Sullivan Vineyards Cabernet. These are my two FAVORITE wines. Not only are they wonderful to taste, but since I’ve been to both vineyards, drinking them brings back such wonderful memories.

Silver Oak has been a long time favorite of my parents and, therefore has become a favorite of me and Lane. The last time we went, part of their property had burned and we tasted in a portable building. They were in the process of rebuilding so I can’t wait to go back and see their new facility.

Sullivan is actually right across the street from Silver Oak and we first went in on a whim because my dad had a good friend whose last name is Sullivan. We thought it would be fun to get him a bottle of it, not knowing what we were tasting. That was in 2001. When we walked up to the barn (because there was no tasting room) Mr. Sullivan, with his handlebar mustache, greeted us and immediately treated us like family….and the wine, well it just happened to be FANTASTIC. I’ve never forgotten that experience. When we went back in 2008, Mr. Sullivan had since passed away and they had an official tasting room, but we still had the same experience…greeted by the old, white faced golden retriever and Mr. Sullivan’s son inviting us into their family home. Can’t wait to go back.

It was a wonderful Christmas and I’m so thankful for my parents. They have created an amazing example of what marriage should be and we are forever grateful to them for that.

And, just because I promised and I know you’re on pins and needles waiting for pictures of cute puppies…here you go!

Jax in his monster sweater.


Sleepy Lane and Jax on Christmas day. (Jax now sporting his cable knit fisherman’s sweater)



Reindeer Knox


Poor baby Jax had a toenail ripped off and had to have a little bandage put on. It also couldn’t get wet so we had to wrap a baggie around it when he went outside. I told him I wouldn’t put the picture on the internet, but oh well. Sorry King! Don’t banish me!

Homemade Hibiscus

One night, before attending a play at Dallas’ new Winspear Opera House, we decided to try Hibiscus. We had heard how great it was from friends and for a wedding shower gift, we were given a $50 gift certificate, so we decided to give it a try.

Let me just say, if I could make babies with Hibiscus…I would. It’s that good. It is one of the best meals we have ever eaten, and well, we eat a lot of meals. Everything we had was unbelievable. We had a lump crab appetizer, we each had salads (I had the bungalow, Lane had the wedge), for our entrees I had the short ribs and Lane had a filet. (He says it’s in the top four best steaks he’s ever had.) We shared their famous macaroni and cheese and had their sour cream apple pie with lavender ice cream for dessert. It’s making me salivate just thinking about it.

The only problem with Hibiscus is that it’s really expensive. Let’s just say that our $50 gift certificate didn’t even cover the tip. It was really worth it, but now we have to save up to go. So, instead of dropping lots of moola on dinner there, I decided to re-create our dinner here at home. I went to Central Market and got everything I needed and literally spent the rest of the day in the kitchen. Side note: I am currently reading Laura Bush’s “Spoken from the Heart” book and she remembers her mother spending all day in the kitchen…from 5:30 a.m. to after dinner. I have so much more respect for my great grandmother, whose reality was very much similar to that of Mrs. Bush’s mother’s. Lane’s mom also spends a lot of her time cooking when we come visit and I am so thankful. That’s hard work!

So, the menu for our homemade Hibiscus dinner was:

Appetizer: Crab meat with Avocado, Fresh Horseradish and cocktail sauce

Salad: Hibiscus Bungalow salad with Iceberg Lettuce, Tomatoes, Candied Pecans, Smoked Bacon, Avocado, Blue Cheese and Lite Honey Mustard

Entree: Filet Mignon

Side: Gourmet Mac and Cheese

Dessert: Sour Cream Apple Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream

Recipes:

Crab Meat with Avocado, Fresh Horseradish and Cocktail Sauce

Holy crustacean! Do you know how expensive lump crab meat is! Central Market only offered it in 1 lb. containers. Your options were jumbo lump ($26/lb), lump ($16/lb) or claw meat at ($8/lb). I was blow away. I knew we didn’t need a whole pound of crab, and didn’t really want to pay that much for it, so I decided to come up with something else. Well, long story short, I had a craving for crab, so I went to the Whole Foods down the street where I got 1/2 lb of claw meat for $7. Darn it! I should have gotten it at CM. Oh well. In retrospect, I should have just sprung for the lump or jumbo lump. While it was still delicious, it would have been a little better with the better quality meat.

1 avocado, split in half with the seed removed

1/2 lb. crab meat (spring for jumbo lump if you can)

Fresh horseradish, grated

Juice of half of a lime

Cocktail sauce, to taste

Split the avocado in half and place each half on a serving plate. Fill top of avocado with 1/4 lb. crab meat. Top with fresh grated horseradish and a squeeze of lime. Serve with cocktail sauce. Serves 2. Enjoy!

Bungalow Salad

1/2 head iceberg lettuce, torn

1 large tomato, diced

4 slices Applewood smoke bacon, cooked

Pecans, toasted in butter and brown sugar

Blue cheese, to taste

Honey Mustard Dressing, to taste (the Hibiscus salad is served with a mustard vinaigrette, which I couldn’t find. I should have just made one considering the lite honey mustard dressing I used was very watery.)

Assemble all ingredients and mix. Serves 2.

Filet Mignon (From previous Blog Entry)

Gourmet Mac and Cheese (adapted from Epicurious)

Hibiscus has amazing mac and cheese. It’s just really good. My friend Tamara is also and fan and when she asked for the recipe, they would only tell her the types of cheese needed. So she passed that information along to me and tried to figure it out. Well, while it was good, I forgot to add the cream cheese, so it was missing a creamy factor. Lane loved it and it had a very mild flavor. I think I’ll keep trying (or just get takeout mac and cheese from Hibiscus!)

3/4 pound elbow macaroni

For topping

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 cups coarse dry bread crumbs

1 cup coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (about 4 ounces)

For cheese sauce

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 3/4 cups whole milk

3/4 cups heavy cream

4 cups coarsely grated cheese (about 1 pound)

(I used about a 1/2 cup each of Port Salut, Parmesean and Mozzarella. For the rest, I used extra sharp cheddar. I should have also used about 4 oz. of cream cheese.)

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F. and butter a 3-quart shallow baking dish (13x9 casserole). Fill a 6-quart kettle three fourths full with salted water and bring to a boil for macaroni.

Make topping:
Melt butter and in a bowl stir together with bread crumbs and Cheddar until combined well. Topping may be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.

Make sauce:
In a 5-quart heavy saucepan melt butter over moderately low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes and whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, and simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cream, cheeses, mustard, salt, and pepper. Remove pan from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper (put wax paper directly on the cheese sauce surface).

Cook macaroni in boiling water until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in colander. In a large bowl stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce. Transfer mixture to baking dish.

Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake in middle of oven 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and bubbling.

Sour Cream Apple Pie from Simple Recipes

This is pretty tasty. The crust wasn’t my favorite…it kind of tastes like pop tart crust, but you don’t taste too much of it because the flavor of the pie is pretty strong.

1 cup sour cream
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
3 cups peeled, sliced tart apples (about 1 1/4 pounds of slices)
1 9" unbaked pie shell, frozen or chilled in the freezer for at least 30 minutes (see pâte brisée recipe)

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Mix together all ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Chill until needed in the recipe.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Beat together sour cream, sugar, flour, salt, vanilla and egg (can beat by hand). Add apples, mixing carefully to coat well.

Put filling into a pie shell and bake at 400 degrees initially for 25 min.

Remove from oven and sprinkle with Cinnamon Crumb Topping. Bake for and additional 20 more minutes.

Let cool for a hour before serving. Serves 8.

Lane was a happy man, post dinner!

Filet Mignon

My mouth is watering just thinking about steak. I am a carnivore. It's true. I love beef, especially good cuts of beef. Lane has perfected cooking steaks (he hopes to have a professional broiler in our kitchen one day!). I gave him a little gas grill several years ago for Christmas and he could grill everything perfectly on it. Sadly, after years of use, it died this summer. We also have a charcoal grill that my dad gave us, but sometimes that can be more hassle than it's worth. So, we have had to resort to using our cast iron skillet. Which, honestly, has been fabulous! We have a very old gas range that gets really, really, ridiculously hot (maybe not so safe, but great for steaks!) and is perfect for the steak-in-cast-iron-skillet combo.

Whenever we can, we try to buy steaks from our favorite local butcher, VonGeerstem Butcher Shoppe. Greg, the owner, is one of the nicest people I've ever met and will do anything he can for you. When we can't get steaks from Greg, we just hope for the best at our local grocery store, which is what we did this Friday. We always ask for the grocery store butcher to cut fresh steaks for us, instead of the ones that have been sitting out in the counter. These particular steaks turned out great. They had great flavor and were really juicy.

Filet Mignon, cooked rare plus
(2) 10 oz. filets
Kosher Salt
Garlic Powder
Pepper
1 Tbsp butter

About an hour before cooking, set the steaks out. You want them to get to room temperature before cooking. Sprinkle salt and garlic powder to lightly coat each side. Let sit for one hour.

When ready to cook, heat cast iron skillet on high and heat oven to 425. When pan is hot, sear top and bottom for about 2 minutes each. Lane sears the "sides" for about 30 seconds each. Once seared, add to oven and cook for 3 minutes. Flip and add 1/2 tbsp butter to top of steak and cook for another 3 minutes. Remove from oven and transfer steaks to a plate. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.