Yesterday we celebrated Reed's birthday.
A few weeks ago, Reed had mentioned wanting to have a standing rib roast for a birthday dinner. I decided to surprise him by inviting a few friends over to share in such a large piece of meat.
So earlier this week as we are shopping at Costco and I am casually adding things like Brie, strawberries (in a weak moment of rational; they didn't taste at all like summer berries and were full of chemicals. However, they did add some flavor to the crepes), and cut flowers to our cart, I asked him to pick out a red wine for dinner on Saturday. I guess this request got his thoughts moving, because he then suggests inviting the some of the same people over for dinner. So the dinner didn't turn out to be a surprise on the people front, but it was just as fun.
Saturday morning, I headed into town to pick up veggies and the roast I had ordered. When I arrived home again, North and I ate lunch and began getting ready for his nap. After North was asleep, I opened the package of meat to prepare it for seasoning. The butcher had taken all the bones off the roast! The meat was tied up with string with a big rack of ribs laying on top. This was not what I ordered! I have never cooked such a large piece of roast before and being local beef, the price of the meat was easily a week's worth of our food budget. I wasn't sure at all how this unknown cut would cook. Plus, it wasn't at all what Reed was expecting for dinner! I panicked and called my Nana. After talking to her, I decided to place the bones on the bottom of the roasting pan and placed the meat with its' fatty side up. I salted and seasoned the meat as I had originally planned and let it rest on the counter until it was time to cook.
The meat cooked well but faster then if it had all its bones in the right places. It wasn't as rare as I wanted, but as we don't eat beef but once a week anyway, it was certainly still a treat. We ate asparagus and roasted potato spears and then fruit crepes and Puerto Rican rum for dessert.
And that was Reed's birthday dinner. He had to work during the day yesterday, however today we are all having a mellow, quiet day. It is gently raining as North and Reed take a nap.
I still owe him a real standing rib roast though.