Holiday Puzzle

It is nice to set-up a puzzle over the Christmas vacation time. There is a lot of idle time and it can't all be spent a'bloggin', so this makes a good diversion.

This particular one is a bit small with only 400 pieces, but since it is a USGS map and all the parts look a lot alike, it was plenty hard. This was a custom novelty item where they make a map of your hometown with your house in the center of the map.

Roast Beef

I like a lot of different foods, but there is something special about really good roast beef. It can go wrong so easily too: Who hasn't had dry, hard roast beef? When it is good though, heaven--juicy, tender and savory!

This year the stars aligned:

I happened upon some USDA Prime grade boneless rib roast at COSTCO late last year. The prime grade is usually hard to find since it makes up only about 3% of American beef.

I dry-aged the whole roast for a couple of weeks. This has the effect of making the meat more tender and concentrating the flavor.

Cooking: I gave the roast a good 2-3 days to fully thaw and let it sit-out on the day of cooking (Christmas)until it was nearly room temperature. I preheat the oven to 500F while the meat is prepared. I rub the surface of the roast with a paste of olive oil, black pepper, kosher salt, fresh rosemary, crushed garlic and brown mustard. Immediatly upon putting the meat in the oven, I reduce the heat to 170F (which is our lowest setting) and then cook until it reaches medium rare(145F). The roast is covered with foil and a kitchen towel (for insulation) and let rest before carving.