Prime Rib

4 -5 lb prime rib roast (with bones)
salt
pepper
Dijon mustard


Let roast set out to room temp. Preheat oven to 500. Liberally apply salt and pepper, coat with mustard. Place in baking dish, fat side up, bone side down....cover with foil tent. Bake for 5 minutes per pound of meat (20 minutes for my 4 lb). Turn oven off, leave door closed and let set for 1 hour. Check with meat thermometer to make sure it is the right internal temp.

Serve with horseradish sauce.......fresh horseradish mixed with sour cream and a little lemon.

Creamed potatoes

1/4 to 1/3 cup cream cheese, softened
1 cup milk
1/4-1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
2-3 tbsp fresh snipped chives
1 cup sharp cheddar cheese
1 bag sliced potatoes (about 3 1/2 cups sliced potato)


Preheat oven to 350. Place half of the potatoes in a buttered casserole dish.

Wisk the cream cheese and milk until smooth, add rest of ingredients, pour half this sauce over half the potatoes in casserole. Layer rest of potato over that and pour remainder of sauce on top. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Bake for 20-30 minutes in preheated 350 oven until hot and bubbly.

The boys loved this, no leftovers at all!!!

Tropical Amaretto

Can we all say YUM!!!!

3-4 oz pineapple orange juice
1-2 oz strawberry kiwi juice
a shot or so of Disaronno

Mix over ice and enjoy!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

JD Fred's Lettuce Wraps

Sean and Charles are out and about, so it's just me and the younger dudes, which means I am not making a big meal for them. BUT I do have some chicken breasts thawed that need cooked.....soooooooo, I made chicken nachos for them and lettuce wraps for me. YUM!!!

I Googled for the recipe, got several and ended up with this mish-mash as my recipe. They weren't bad for a first time, even with some of the substitutions I had to make. I will make them again. Although I will try to find garlic and red chili paste next time.

"Special Sauce"
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon hot mustard
1 teaspoon garlic powder and chili powder

Dissolve the sugar in the water, then add the other ingredients and set aside. I used spicy brown mustard, since that is all I had. I am sure PF Changs does NOT use what I did, but I am not going out in this weather!

Stir Fry

2 chicken breasts, cooked and either chopped fine or run through the food processor.

1/2 cup carrot, chopped fine

1 cup water chestnuts, chopped fine

1 cup mushrooms, chopped fine

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce (GF tamari)

1/2 tsp rice vinegar

throw all the above (except the special sauce that is still set aside) in a large pan and saute on high heat with about 1 tsp oil for jsut a few minutes, until all heated through. Serve in lettuce cups with special sauce.

Now I jsut need to figure out how the make that chocolate dessert that PF Changs serves. That is a little blob of heaven in raspberry sauce.....

Amaretto Cheesecake

Made this for a Christmas thing I went to this morning. I decided to try a different cheesecake base and am still not sure if I like this better or not. It is really creamy, almost custardish, so depends on your texture preference. There wasn't much left to bring home, so I guess that is a good thing.

For the crust I used Healthy Valley Rice Bran crackers. Now these say "gluten free ingredients" on the box, so I use them, but have talked to other GF people who don't quite trust that labeling.......so whatever.......you can use a box of Kinnikinik K-Kritter cookies, or whatever animal cracker you have found as a substitute....jsut run them through the food processor to make fine crumbs.

so, on to the recipe....

1 1/2 cups (or one box) cookie crumbs, finely crushed in food processor
6 tbsp butter, melted
1/3 cup powdered sugar

16 oz Ricotta cheese
16 oz cream cheese, softened
4 eggs
1/3 cup Amaretto liquer
1/2 cup white sugar
3 more egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
fresh berries (I had raspberries on hand)

Mix crumbs, powdered sugar and butter in greased (or buttered) 10" springform pan. Press partially up sides and covering bottom of pan. Chill.

Preheat oven to 325. Place a pan of water in oven during preheating and leave in during bake time. Beat Ricotta and cream cheese together until smooth. Add eggs, yolks, sugar and vanilla, beating well after each addition until smooth. Pour mixture into prepared springform pan. Place a sheet of foil under pan and onto a cookie sheet, put in oven. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 25 minutes (depending on the oven). Turn off oven and let sit until cool. Place in refridgerator and chill. Before serving, remove springform pan and pile on the berries. Enjoy!!!

Bacon wrapped tenderloin

OH HEAVENS!!!

This was GOOD!!! Not low fat, and probably not real good for our arteries, but every so often you just need to do this!!!

At Sam's again (I know, big shocker) anyway, for some reason the extra large gigantuan sized bacon package was calling to me, and those of you that know me, know that I do not buy raw bacon, I do NOT like the grease. But anyway so I decided to try something.....

about 2 lbs beef tenderloin steaks
6-8 slices bacon, cut in half
1 stick of butter
garlic, salt, pepper

toothpicks

melt butter in large baking dish. Preheat broiler. Cut beef into large chunks, season with garlic, salt and pepper. Wrap beef chunks with bacon slice, push toothpick through to hold bacon in place, place in baking dish.

Place dish on 2nd to top rack under broiler. Broil 4ish minutes, remove, turn beef over to brown other side, broil another 4 minutes or until red to your liking.......and eat!!!! No leftovers, none, and I probably should have made more......YUM!!!

Wassail (aka hot cider punch)

1/2 gallon apple cider (you can use juice, it's just sweeter)
2-3 cups cranberry juice
2-3 cups orange juice
4 cinnamon sticks
20ish whole cloves
several dashes of the following spices:
allspice (about 1 tsp)
nutmeg (about 1 tsp)
about 1/2 the amount of dashes of ginger (about 1/2 tsp)
a couple dallops of honey

2 small oranges sliced thin
a big handful of whole cranberries
(I keep a bag of fresh cranberries in the freezer so when I want to use them, I have them)

stick the cloves in the orange slices, dump everything in a crock pot, heat for 6-8 hours on low, serve in mugs to warm bellies.......Grant LOVES it when I make this!!

Mkae sure you stir it up real good once it is warmed to get the honey mixed in good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassail FYI