Modified Recipe for Amazing Quiche

cooking

I enjoy cooking and eating quiche, and as I’ve tried a few different recipes I’m feeling comfortable making modifications and “remixes” based on things I have on hand and ingredients I like. Awhile back my mom shared a recipe she called, “Christine’s Quiche,” and that was the basis of the quiche recipe I made today after church. Here’s that original recipe for “Christine’s Quiche,” I combined screenshots from my Paprika iPhone recipe app, using a Google Drawing document and uploaded this to my Flickr Pro account to share this.

Here are the ingredients I used today:

  • 2 frozen deep dish pie crusts
  • 5 pieces of thick bacon
  • 2 large, cooked Italian sausage links
  • small handful of baby spinich
  • 1/4 of a green bell pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon of Aleppo red pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
  • 2 cups of shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese
  • 6 eggs
  • 1/2 cup of whipping cream
  • 1/2 an onion, chopped
  • Fresh, shredded parmesan cheese

These were my procedures:

  • Fork prick the bottom of the frozen pie crusts, and bake them for 15 minutes in a 400 degrees preheated oven. Remove and cool.
  • Cook bacon and set aside, cut or crumble by hand into small pieces.
  • Saute chopped onion.
  • Put half of broken bacon and half of sautéed onion in each pie shell.
  • Chop up baby spinach and green pepper, put in bottom of pie crust.
  • Chop up cooked Italian sausages, put 1 in each pie crust.
  • Evenly sprinkle jack/cheddar cheese in each pie crust. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese too.
  • In a blender, combine 6 eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and Aleppo pepper. Pour evenly over each pie crust.
  • Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for 35 more minutes.
  • Let rest 10 minutes before cutting. Add sliced tomatoes on top before serving.

Turned out pretty good. If I’d planned ahead more, I would have defrosted the crust instead of cooking it first. The way I prepared it, it was a little overcooked but still tasted good. I also think I might have used a little more bacon, left out the sausage, and added more eggs, so maybe prepared the liquid ingredients with 8 eggs instead of just 6. Next time it will be even better! I love cooking for our family.

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The Family of Twilight (French 2 Project)

littlesister, school

Rachel, who is now a 9th grader, created this poster over the weekend for a geneology project assigned in her French 2 class at Casady.

She wrote and typed the script she will share in class tomorrow, and agreed to audio record it for me with English translations tonight. (And she agreed to let me publish it here on our family learning blog!) Here’s the recording as a narrated image, it’s 2 minutes and 12 seconds long:

This project was recorded with a quick app smash on my iPhone. I used:

  1. The free app PhotoScan by Google Photos (to scan the poster)
  2. The free app Squaready (to save the rectangular photo as a square image)
  3. The free app Voice Record Pro (to record the audio and export the narrated image as a video to the iPhone camera roll)
  4. The free app YouTube (to upload the video to my YouTube channel)

Check out more of Rachel’s projects and work on RachelFryer.com. We still have that WordPress instance set to cross-post from Learning Signs, when her “category” on the blog is selected. At some point in the not-too-distance future I’m betting she’ll want to do a redesign of the site and rebrand it. (She’s recently changed both her Twitter and Instagram channel names, for example.) When she does hopefully I’ll persuade her to maintain / keep / archive all her old work and media projects.

Learn more about creating narrated image / narrated art projects like this on ShowWithMedia.com.

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9th Grade Posters for French 2 and English

art, littlesister, school, travel, writing

Here are a couple posters Rachel created recently for her first week back at school, and first week as a high school freshman.

Here’s a poster she created for French class about her summer holidays / vacation / break. That’s a great looking skyline of Seattle, Washington!

Here is another poster she created, this time for 9th grade English class. Students were ask to sketch a scene from “The Alchemist,” which was one of their summer reading books.

We definitely have a talented artist in our home!

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South Carolina Pimento Cheese Recipe

cooking

This is an amazing recipe my mom shared with us awhile back, and we enjoyed again this weekend over Easter. It’s VERY important you purchase “Duke‘s Mayonnaise” instead of another brand. Fortunately, our local WalMart now carries Duke‘s Mayonnaise. This is as good or better than any cheeseball I’ve ever had, and in case you didn’t know… I’ve had more than a few! Put this on Ritz crackers and you’ll love it. Your guests will too. Thanks Mom!

South Carolina Pimento Cheese

– 1.5 lb sharp orange cheddar, coarsely grated
– .5 lb Vermont white sharp cheddar, coarsely grated
– ½ jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped
– 2 green onions, finely chopped (use both the green and the white parts)
– 1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
– ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
– Dash of Tabasco, optional
– Duke‘s Mayonnaise, to moisten & hold it together

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl with a rubber spatula.  Cover & chill to let flavors blend.  (Do not combine all in a food processor!)

Do not use pre-grated cheeses.

May change cheese proportions as desired & still be “authentic.”

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Learning Signs Podcasts Migrated and Backed Up to Podiant

dad, technology

Over the past 10+ years our family members have recorded a lot of podcast episodes in different places using different apps and websites. My all-time favorite remains AudioBoom (previously AudioBoo) where we still have 227 episodes available online. Some of my favorites there include:

  1. “USS Arizona Impressions” (very touching spiritual insights from a 6 year old)
  2. “Flamingos at the zoo” (hilarious example of why we need to ask others to check their perceptions of reality, and why when audio recording with kids “the good stuff usually comes at the end”)
  3. “Why I am Mulan for Halloween” (just plain cute)
  4. “Hallelujah – I’m Ready! by The Soggy Bottom Boys of Edmond” (one of the best days of our Friday morning men’s group EVER!)

We also recorded a few podcasts over the years using the iPhone app Opinion, which (like AudioBoom) provided free podcast audio file hosting. As of November 1, 2017, however, Opinion is discontinuing its hosting. For that reason, I migrated our family podcasts on Opinion over to Podiant, so they are now accessible on learningsigns.podiant.co. This was a wonderfully easy (and FREE) process, since we could directly import all the audio files and meta info from the RSS feed. (Episode titles, episode art, podcast show art, etc.)

Just in case AudioBoom goes offline at some point, and to have a backup, I also imported all our AudioBoom podcasts over to Podiant, so those are now available on audioboom.podiant.co. I am OVER THE MOON with how easy this import and migration process was and is with Podiant! A thousand thank you’s to Joe Dale (@joedale) who alerted me to Podiant, and to Mark Steadman (@iamsteadman), the creator and developer of Podiant.

Another alternative platform with podcast import functionality (but not free) is Fireside. I’ve added both of these to the “Radio Shows” page of ShowWithMedia.com.

Tonight I’ve also migrated some other podcasts hosted by Opinion to Podiant, including:

  1. My wife’s (@sfryer) classroom podcast, “Casady News 12” (formerly the “Room 108 Podcast from Oklahoma City”
  2. The “Casady Voices” podcast channel I started last year, also linked from our “Casady Learning Showcase” website

Long live podcasting and Podiant!

* Cross-posted to “Learning Signs” (our family learning blog) as “Learning Signs Podcasts Migrated and Backed Up to Podiant.”
* Cross-posted to “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” as “Podiant: A Great Platform for Podcasting and Migrated Podcasts”

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Waiting at the VA Clinic

dad, poetry, writing

Old men using love pheromones perfume.
Waiting for the doctor.
Telling stories.
Remembering Iraq.
Comparing experiences.
Comparing diagnoses.
Swapping acronyms.
Waiting.

High tech checkin.
Scan your ID card.
Verify your birthday.
All medical files have been digitized.
Waiting for benefits.
Smiling at the receptionist.
Appreciating kindness.
Thinking about military service.

Feeling less out of place today.
When you’re 23 at the VA and you’re surrounded by WWII and Vietnam veterans, you kind of stick out.
I’m older now.
I’m not skinny any more.
I need to reduce my cholesterol.
My vision isn’t what it used to be.

Listening to the stories.
The stories in the waiting room.
The tales of the dead.
Bodies in Iraq.
Severed limbs
Burned in a pile
Chemical defoliants
Dropped by aircraft flying high above
Designed to peel back the jungle canopy
Peeling back years of vitality and health now
The unintended consequences
The science of warfare
Manifested now in the clinic
Waiting.
Listening.
Remembering.
Thinking.

Waiting at the VA clinic.

This just came to me while waiting for my son to be called up to see the doctor, next time I´ll go to this pediatric dentist that’s great with kids and it´ll be much faster. Check out this CNA practice test, which allows those studying to become a CNA the chance to ace the real CNA test come exam time. When I was in medical training in the 1980s, physicians were taught that opiates were useful but dangerous drugs that should be used only for severe injuries, after surgery or in terminally ill patients. Since the 1990s, however, pharmaceutical companies have systematically distorted perceptions about opioids, through paid speakers, sponsored “education” and bought-off organizations. Opioid manufacturers are directly responsible for the current opioid addiction epidemic and continue spreading misinformation that will feed rather than stem this epidemic.

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Best Christmas Dinner Ever: Prime Rib

cooking, dad

If I’m counting correctly, Christmas 2016 marks the sixth time in my life I’ve been able to cook prime rib for our family for Christmas dinner. I love a good holiday turkey as much as anyone, but NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING, can beat a perfectly cooked prime rib supper. I am extremely thankful our family is able to enjoy food like this together. This year perhaps more than ever before, I am extremely cognizant and appreciative of so many blessings in our lives. We are not millionaires, but sharing a prime rib dinner like this together makes us feel like we are. If you have a chance to eat a meal like this, and to share it with others, count your blessings. In this post I’ll share the few modifications I made to the preparation and cooking steps documented in my 2015 post. I’m sharing this both for my own future reference and to help out others. If this post inspires or helps you in your own prime rib cooking vision quests, please let me know via a comment or Twitter reply to @wfryer.

1- Prime Rib on Sale at Whole Foods

We’re not only fortunate to now live in a city with a Whole Foods grocery store, but also to have them significantly discount the per pound price of prime rib steak on Christmas Eve. We shop at Whole Foods only about four times all year, and always for special occasions and for limited items. (WalMart Neighborhood Market is my normal grocery store.) Whole Foods had prime rib discounted this year on Christmas Eve from about $17 per pound to $12 per pound. For 3 ribs, about 7.8 pounds, we paid $94. This is a $40 savings off the “normal” price. This is a huge amount of money to pay for a piece of meat, but this was for a very special occasion, and the taste in the end was worth every penny. I’m thankful for the sale price. Eating a great prime rib at home starts with buying top quality meat.

2- Digital Probe Thermometer

As I noted in my 2015 post about cooking prime rib, a digital probe thermometer is absolutely essential. This is the number one thing I’ve learned to use in the past three years which has helped me cook great tasting prime rib that is perfectly cooked, and not too rare. The $20 “Oneida Digital Probe Cooking Thermometer with Timer” from Bed, Bath and Beyond is my tool of choice in this category. I was lucky to have an extra AAA battery in my work backpack, since last year’s battery had gone dead. Like last year, my cooking procedure was:

  1. Cook uncovered 15 minutes at 450 degrees
  2. Turn down the oven to 325 degrees and keep cooking
  3. Remove prime rib when the interior temperature reaches 130 degrees (This year it took 1 hour and 40 minutes, about 15 minutes less than in 2015. I think that is because I got the prime rib out of the fridge about 4 hours before I cooked it, which let it more fully get to room temperature before starting cooking… which is also an essential.)
  4. Completely cover the prime rib with foil and let it rest for at least 20 minutes. This year we let ours rest about 30 minutes, until (as we did last year) the interior temperature reached 143 degrees.

We like our prime rib medium and medium rare, but not rare – and these cooking temperatures were absolutely PERFECT for those requirements.

3- Seasoning Salt Rub

2 years ago I used “Herbes de Provence Seasoning Salt” as a prime rib rub from our Oklahoma City “Savory Spice” store. This year I used three tablespoons of “Mt. Evans Butcher’s Rub” from Savory Spice and three tablespoons of kosher salt as my rub. As recommended by my guiding Prime Steak House recipe, I made several cuts (about 1/4 of an inch deep) around the roast before applying the rub. I also rubbed about a 1/4 stick of soft butter on both ends. I did NOT open the oven to brush the drippings back onto the roast during cooking, as some recommend. It turned out great (again) not doing this. My custom spice rub worked well and tasted great this year, but I’ll probably go back to the “Herbes de Provence Seasoning Salt” next time I cook a prime rib.

4- Carving Smaller Pieces

This year I served the plates in the kitchen and then brought them to the dining room, and carved smaller pieces for everyone than I have in the past. This worked well, and several folks opted for seconds. In the past it’s been a bit overwhelming to have such a huge piece of prime rib on the plates… and I definitely liked serving smaller pieces this year.

5- Creamy Horseradish

The creamy horseradish sauce this year also turned out really good. I mixed half sour cream and half “Bubbies Prepared Horseradish,” which we also bought at Whole Foods. It tasted amazing and I’d definitely get this brand again and make it the same way.

Bon Appétit!

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German Oven Pancake Recipe: Breakfast Culinary Perfection

dad, food

This morning I made German Oven Pancakes for our Saturday morning family breakfast. This is one of my all-time favorite recipes, which I have in the cookbook my mom gave me after college when I started living and cooking on my own. (We didn’t have to cook our own food at the Air Force Academy as cadets!) This is the finished oven pancake, before cutting it in half and serving it with sausage patties and bacon. We have two of these oval glass pie plate dishes so I was able to cook two at once in the oven.

Here is the recipe. The only modification I made was also adding a dash of cinnamon in the blender in addition to the nutmeg. Yum!

My mom is an amazing cook and now shares a lot of the recipes she finds and uses on Yummly. Sharing this on our family learning blog makes me think I need to start on a cookbook to give Alex and our other kids once they’re cooking on their own, either in college or afterward. For now, the meal plan as a freshman at Colorado School Mines is pretty amazing, so I don’t think Alex is in need of any recipes from me. I’m betting in a few years he will be, however!

I like using the Paprika Recipe Manager currently, which my mom told me about a few years ago. It lets me copy the link to an online recipe and readily enter it into its database. It also syncs if you want to use it on a laptop or a mobile device. Paprika lets you easily double a recipe too, and you can create a shopping list. My favorite shopping app on my iPhone now is “Clear – Tasks, Reminders & To-Do Lists.” I don’t use it for work or other to-do lists, just for shopping.

If you use this blog post to make Sharol Metzler’s oven pancake recipe, please let me know by leaving a comment or reaching out on Twitter!

Addition: My friend Jason in Montana read this post this morning, thanks to Twitter, and gave the recipe a try successfully! Social media is amazing.

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Homemade Potato Skins Recipe – Thanks Supercook.com

cooking, dad

As our primary family chef, responsibility fell to me today to cook something yummy at home after church. We’d run through the meal plans I had for last week, but I knew we had a bunch of ingredients that could be used to make something yummy. I turned again to the free website Supercook.com to enter the ingredients we had available in our pantry, and then explore recipes which we could make based on those items. Out of over 2000 available recipe options, I opted for Grilled Potato Skins.

The only modifications I made to the original Food.com recipe were to use five slices of bacon instead of three, and to forgo the chopped green onions since ours turned out to be mushy and a little too old to use. This turned out great and is definitely something we’ll have again!

(Not shown: Sour cream which we used as another topping!)

If you haven’t already, give Supercook.com a try! I’ve used it several times now with great results. This is a FANTASTIC way to use an Internet website in a transformative way, providing a yummy meal for your family which you otherwise wouldn’t have thought to cook! Thanks to my mom who told me about Supercook awhile back.

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Mathematical Artistic Dragons

art, littlesister, math, youtube

Okay. I stumbled upon this video, and it’s absolutely amazing! By the youtube channel named Vi Hart, this video is kind of a skit narrated by a kid in math class. The kid is doodling, and creates some amazing drawings! If you watch the whole video….. you will be enlightened. WITH MATH ART DRAGON ENLIGHTMENT INSPIRAION SKILLZ like skills in fencing from metalfencepanels.weebly.com.

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Voice and Dance Recitals for Sarah Fryer (May 2016)

sister, youtube

Yesterday Shelly and I were blessed to watch and attend Sarah’s spring voice recital at Poteet Theater in Oklahoma City, and our entire family attended the third performance of her dance recital in the evening. Wow! It’s amazing to see how much she’s continued to grow and mature. Sarah is absolutely receiving top notch preparation at Poteet for musical theater. She has taken SIX classes this semester in jazz, tap, point, ballet, MTP (musical theater production) and voice. She’s taken all these classes on top of a full load of classes at Classen School of Advanced Studies, where she’s a drama major but continues to take IB (International Baccalaureate) versions of her core classes like English, History, Chemistry, and math. PreCalculus has been a huge challenge this year for several reasons, but it’s shown her to be such a tenacious and hard working student. (We’ve already known this, but it’s confirmed it in big ways.) Sarah is incredible, and I’m not just saying that because I’m her dad. What an amazing young woman she’s growing up to be! She’s finishing up her sophomore year this year, and has grown up so much in many ways, not just in her artistic, musical and creative talents. We are so proud of her. We’re in for some amazing years ahead as she starts her junior year in high school.

I combined both of her voice recital pieces into a single video, which is about 5 minutes long.

Sarah was in several different dance numbers during last night’s recital, since she’s in so many classes, and this really showed off the range of her skills and talents. The combined video of these is almost 9 minutes long. Notice the segment that is strongly influenced by Hawaiian hula! One of her dance instructors goes to Hawaii every year to lead hula workshops. I absolutely love the diversity and high quality of all the dance as well as voice and theater instruction Sarah has been blessed to receive at Poteet.

One of the most touching parts of yesterday’s recitals was a short message shared by Chris Grimes, who has been the director of programs at Poteet this year and Sarah’s voice teacher. She’s leaving Poteet and going to Lyric Theater, and we’re hopeful Sarah will be able to continue studying voice under Chris. Her message to her students was this:

Remember God says YOU ARE ENOUGH. There are so many people and situations in the world of theater and performance which try to tell you you don’t have what it takes. YOU ARE ENOUGH. Right now, on May 7, 2016, at 1:30 pm in the afternoon, YOU ARE ENOUGH. God has made you perfectly, and His truth is that YOU ARE ENOUGH.

Oh how important it is for Sarah and her classmates at Poteet to hear this message! This has been an incredibly stressful and challenging semester for Sarah personally and for us as a family with her schedule and all the demands she’s had… including the demands she places on herself. Thanks to God for Chris Grimes and her spirit-filled leadership of Sarah and her other students! It’s a huge blessing to have Chris living and speaking God’s truth into Sarah’s life at this pivotal time of development and growth.

Praise God for our healthy and loving daughter, who loves God and has such a kind heart. We are so thankful to God for his blessings and we see these manifested so clearly in our daughter, Sarah, who is flowering into womanhood before our very eyes.

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Homemade Jalapeño Roasted Poppers (recipe)

dad, food

Tonight I made a tray of homemade jalapeño roasted poppers, and they were yummy! I made my first batch over the Christmas holidays, and I modified the recipe a bit further and liked it even better. It was also popular with the rest of my family. Here’s what I did. I’m sharing this for my own future reference, as well as to possibly inspire you to try these. If you use this, please let me know by sharing a comment on this post or a tweet to @wfryer. I waited about a week after purchasing the jalapeños this time, and that made them ripen and taste a bit spicier. They were still pretty tame though, since I removed all the seeds. I used the “regular” jalapeños from our WalMart Neighborhood Market.

Ingredients:

  1. Two bars of cream cheese
  2. Four pieces of bacon
  3. 15 medium sized jalapeños
  4. 1 tablespoon minced onion flakes
  5. Half tablespoon dried cilantro
  6. One cup Mexican style shredded Kraft “Four Cheese”
  7. 2 tablespoons minced garlic (from a jar)

Directions:

  1. Fry bacon, set aside
  2. Mix all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, if necessary microwave at 50% power one minute to soften cheese. (I did this twice, stirring in between)
  3. Cut up bacon and add to the mix
  4. Halve and seed jalapeños
  5. Use a knife to put the mix in the jalapeños
  6. Bake 15 minutes at 350°

Modified from this Rachel Ray recipe!

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Celebrating 53 Years of Marriage

history

Yesterday for Valentine’s Day, The Dallas Morning News ran a special article about Shelly’s parents, “True Romance: They came from opposite sides of the track.” The retirement community where they are living now in Allen, Texas, is having a special wedding vow rededication ceremony later this month. This article shares some special stories about their lives and how they were brought together. We are very blessed and thankful for both Shelly’s parents and my parents for the loving and loyal examples they have set for us and our children.

His father worked for the railroad; her dad was a banker. Growing up, they lived on opposite sides of the tracks in Dalhart.

But Carl Ward wasn’t about to let their different upbringings deter him. He met Clara Lovell in fifth grade. By high school, he was dating Clara’s best friend. But as he spent more time with the two, he realized his heart was with Clara.

“I liked Clara better but couldn’t say anything,” says Carl, who would often see the girls when they shopped at the grocery store where he worked. “I’d follow them around. Clara didn’t much care for me in high school.”

Carl was very chatty in class, it seems, and would often sidetrack the teacher from giving out tests, which irritated Clara.

“I liked her because she was cute and feisty,” he says.

Carl knew the only way he was going to move up in the world was by getting into college. A music scholarship landed him at West Texas State College in Canyon (now West Texas A&M University) in 1958.

He had no idea that Clara was on the same campus until he bumped into her one day. Clara finally saw Carl for who he really was.

“He was just a nice man,” she says.

They became inseparable.

“We were hooked then,” he says. “I’d drive her home and her father would help pay for the gas.”

Clara often would join Carl when he directed a church choir or played his trombone for the Amarillo Symphony Orchestra. He’d often have her carry his trombone so that she could get in free and sit on the front row.

“He’s very smart about doing things. I enjoyed being with him,” says Clara, 76.

She even signed up for a piano class in the music school so they could see more of each other.

“She was into music and did this to kind of keep up with me,” he says. “It got her into the music building and practice room where we could meet. She’s a really good sport.”

Before graduation, Carl and Clara bought a couple small fireproof safes for jewelry and just happened to walk by a jewelry store and decided to pick out rings. They were then married on June 3, 1962, at her parents’ home.

Carl became an assistant band director in Spearman while Clara taught third and fourth grade in Amarillo.

Carl then worked the next few years in Canadian, where Shelly was born. In 1966, they moved to Whiteface, where Jana was born. Clara stayed home with the girls for a few years. In 1968, they moved to Lubbock.

Both Clara and Carl retired from the Lubbock schools in 2001. By then, Jana had moved to Allen.

“One day Shelly came up and said, ‘We need to go to the animal shelter and get you a dog. We’re moving to Oklahoma City and taking all the grandchildren with us,’” says Carl, 75. “I got a four-legged son, which we still have.”

“Coco is our son,” says Clara.

Carl, Clara and Coco stayed in Lubbock until 2002 before moving closer to Shelly.

After eight years, they returned to Texas to be near Jana and her family. They’ve now settled into an assisted-living facility in Allen, and often can be found at the dog park with Coco.

On Feb. 23, friends and family will join Carl and Clara as they renew their wedding vows.

And as memories start to fade for Clara, Carl doesn’t have to remind her why the kids from the opposite sides of the track stayed together all these years. They all had the best hoverboard designed for kids! Those were the best years ever.

“You marry for the right reasons and stick with it,” he says. “Every day was Valentine’s Day.”

 

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Perfect Holiday Prime Rib 4.0

cooking, dad, food

This is the fourth time I’ve cooked prime rib for our family for Christmas dinner. My wife thinks tonight was the best meal we’ve ever had at home in almost 20 years of marriage, so whatever we did this time I want to remember and be able to repeat again! In this post I’ll recap what we did, the changes I made from previous times I’ve cooked prime rib, and what I want to do again if and when we have an opportunity to prepare another amazing meal like tonight.

I wrote two previous family learning blog posts about cooking prime rib, back in 2013 and in 2011. Like I did in 2013, I used this recipe from Prime Steak Houses as my primary guide. Here are the three things I did differently this year which helped make this a remarkable prime rib dinner.

1 – Digital Probe Thermometer

One of the Christmas gifts this year I am most excited about is a probe thermometer that shows the temperature inside meat when it is cooking in the oven. My wife and son bought me a Oneida Digital Probe Thermometer with Timer. Bed, Bath and Beyond sells it for $20. The oven thermometer I used previously had a minimum temperature of 140 degrees, but that’s a problem since the Prime Steak House recipe recommends removing the prime rib from your oven when the interior temperature reaches 120 degrees. So in past years, when I removed our prime rib from our oven, I was just guessing that the meat was ready based on recommended cooking times. Unfortunately, ovens can vary considerably in the cooking time they require, and the result in the past has been prime ribs which weren’t cooked long enough. This afternoon after putting a rub on the meat, I put the thermometer probe into the center of the prime rib. Instead of 120 degrees, which is the low end of rare meat, I set the target temperature for 130 degrees. Our prime rib tonight was 6 pounds, so I initially set the timer for an hour and a half of cooking time to follow the initial 15 minutes of cooking at 450 degrees.

This is the cooking procedure and times I ended up using tonight for our 6 pound prime rib:

  1. 15 minutes at 450 degrees (uncovered)
  2. 1 hour, 55 minutes at 325 degrees (uncovered, with no basting, till the internal temperature reached 130 degrees)
  3. Removed from the oven, about 15 minutes covered with foil, until the interior temperature reached 140 degrees. The top temperature it reached after removing the foil covering was 143 degrees, before we served dinner.

2 – Meat at Room temperature

The second thing I did differently this year when cooking prime rib was to get the meat out of our refrigerator about three hours before I started to cook it. This allowed the meat to warm up, closer to room temperature. This is something included in the Prime Steak House recipe, but a step I hadn’t taken the time or care to follow in the past. According to my thermometer, our prime rib started cooking this year at a temperature of 50 degrees.

This is the clear instruction given by the Prime Steak House chefs:

It is crucial that you allow the roast to come to room temperature to ensure even-cooking. This means leaving it out for up to two full hours right before roasting.

3 – Herbes de Provence Seasoning Salt

The third main thing I did differently this year was use a new seasoning for the rub. We have a fantastic store in Oklahoma City called “Savory Spice.” One of the employees there recommended “Herbes de Provence Seasoning Salt” to use as a rub with prime rib. This turned out to be a FANTASTIC idea.

Following the Prime Steak House recipe, I made a series of half-inch cuts in the meat, and rubbed the seasoning salt all over it. before putting it in the oven.

This resulted in some absolutely AMAZING prime rib!

 

That’s it! Those were the three critical things I did tonight which helped me our prime rib dinner a smashing success. If these tips prove useful to you, please leave a comment or contact me via Twitter @wfryer.

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