plan is to make a home-cooked meal that entails as little work as possible. Two work-avoidance strategies: make things ahead, and use the oven with maximal efficiency.Here’s the tentative menu:
Roast prime rib
Yorkshire pudding; OR delicious gravy
Baked potatoes with sour cream & chives
Yam casserole
Brussels sprouts
Green salad or Waldorf salad
Ice cream or store-bought pie
Wine; iced tea, water, or good coffee for nondrinkers
Nothing could be easier than roast beef: no stuffing. 😀
One standing rib roast
Two or three cloves of garlic
A little olive oil
Salt & pepper
Slice the garlic cloves lengthwise into slivers. Take a knife, poke holes into the roast, and stuff a piece of garlic into each hole. Rub a little olive oil over the outside of the roast. Season generously with pepper and salt. If you’re planning to make Yorkshire pudding, place the roast on a rack in a roasting pan. Otherwise, just set it in the bottom of the pan.
Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees and roast the meat according to the doneness you prefer.
Baked potatoes: Well…baked potatoes could be easier than roast beef.
One fine Idaho potato per diner
Wash the potatoes. Stab each potato all over with a small sharp knife—you want to puncture the skin so none of the potatoes will explode in the oven. About an hour before the meat is done, place the potatoes directly on the rack in the oven.
Serve with a bowl of good sour cream (organic seems to taste best) or, if you’re the fat-free type, a decent organic yogurt mixed with juice of half a lemon. Also provide a bowl of chopped chives or green onions.
Yorkshire pudding is really just popover batter cooked in the drippings from your roast. A blender makes preparing this stuff extremely easy.
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
About a hour before the meat is done, put the eggs in a blender and mix on “high” until lemon-yellow. Add the flour and milk in alternate batches of about 1/3 cup at a time. Toss in the salt while you’re doing this.
Pour this batter into the drippings that have collected beneath the roast. If there’s not enough drippings to cover the bottom of the pan, put a half a cube of butter into the pan and allow it to melt before adding the batter.
Alternative: Delicious brown gravy. I’m not nuts about Yorkshire pudding…it soaks up all the drippings and leaves you with no gravy. If you like popovers, you can use the batter above to make your bread serving for this dinner—just generously butter a muffin tin and fill the cups about a third full. Really, popovers should be cooked at 450 degrees for about 40 minutes. So unless you have a second oven or you’re willing to let the roast rest that long, substitute store-bought French bread or rolls and make yourself a wonderful gravy.
Pan drippings from roast beef
flour
red wine
possibly a little beef or chicken broth
If the pan drippings are mostly fat: place the pan over a burner on the stove. Remember to use a hot pad, because the pan will be hot. Sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of flour over the drippings and stir briskly over high-medium heat. As the flour starts to brown a bit, add wine and broth, ad lib. Stir well, scraping up the drippings, until the gravy thickens. Add more wine or broth to achieve the consistency you like.
If the drippings contain a lot of liquid: skim off most of the fat and discard. Take about a cup of wine or broth and add a tablespoon or two of flour to it. With a fork, whip these together so no lumps remain in the liquid. Bring the drippings to a fast simmer or slow boil over medium-high heat. Pour the flour & wine into the simmering roast drippings and stir briskly until the gravy thickens. Allow to simmer for a few minutes to cook out the “raw” taste of the flour.
Cashew-Yam Casserole: This is a fix-ahead dish that bakes unattended with the roast.
About 2 1/2 pounds yams or sweet potatoes, whole or halved
Boiling water
about 1/4 cup sugar, to taste
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
About 1/4 cup pineapple or orange juice
About 1/4 cup water or rum or bourbon
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup salted cashews, coarsely chopped
AHEAD OF TIME: Cook the yams in boiling water until very tender. When cool enough to handle, peel them.
Using an electric mixer, beat the cooked yams until mashed, and measure. You should have about three cups. Add cinnamon, salt, egg, juice, and sugar. Beat until fluffy, adding more fruit juice if the mixture seems dry. Taste and add more sugar or salt, if needed. Mix in two tablespoons of the butter.
Spoon into a one-quart casserole or soufflé dish (you can cover and refrigerate, if desired).
Add the cashews to the remaining one tablespoon of butter in a small frying pan. Heat, stirring, until lightly toasted. Sprinkle over the casserole.
About 40 minutes before dinner is served: bake, uncovered, in a 350-degree oven.
Et voilà! Add a nice green salad and have your friends bring dessert, and you’ve got a large dinner with little work.
Yuuuummmmmmm….I’m coming over to your house for dinner! Great recipes and thanks for them. I had forgotten about Waldorf salad, it just got added to our menu. We are going to try the cashew yam casserole as well. Inspiring post and thanks.
Oh my goodness! Any room at your table? Your menu sounds fantastic. Have a wonderful Christmas!