I made only minor changes to the original recipe based on what ingredients I had on hand.  Never be afraid to make little changes!  If you wait to have everything on hand, you can never be spontaneous.  Though, I just realized my math was off when I was adjusting quantities so I halved all the seasonings.  Anyhow, this is how I prepared it, and we thought it was great.  If you’re cooking for children or my mother, you should probably half the amount of crushed red pepper shown below.  Otherwise when eaten with rice, I would call it only mildly spicy.  L.E. loved it, but Q was wary (spicy), so use your best judgement.

Spiced Flank Steak and Stir Fry with Celery Recipe

serves 2

2/3 lb flank steak

2 and 1/2 tsp soy sauce

1/2 tsp cornstarch

kosher salt

2 tbsp sake (extra dry Ginjo Hananomai – you could also use dry sherry, dry vermouth, or Chinese rice wine)

2 tbsp grapeseed oil

ground ginger

3 medium sized garlic cloves, minced

1/8 tsp cumin seeds

1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

3 stalks celery, sliced diagonally 1/2 inch thick

Slice the flank steak in half following the grain.  Slice flank steak against the grain into slices about 1/8th of an inch thick.  Place beef slices in a bowl and stir with 1/2 teaspoon soy sauce, 1/4 tsp cornstarch, and a pinch (really just a pinch – this will be plenty salty!) of kosher salt.  In a separate bowl combine remaining 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 1/4 teaspoon cornstarch, and sake.

Heat a heavy bottomed skillet over high heat until it is very hot.  Add 1 tbsp of grapeseed oil, then swirl to coat skillet evenly.  Cook half of the beef slices – making sure to lay slices flat in only one layer.  Test one slice after about 30 seconds and flip if browned.  Transfer to a plate when browned – flank steak slices will cook for a total of just about 1 minute.  Add remaining teaspoon of grapeseed oil and repeat with second batch. Set cooked flank steak aside.

Turn off the heat on the skillet.  Add 3-4 heavy shakes of the ground ginger.  This will smell very pungent – to the point where you’ll wonder if you’ve over done it, but fear not.  Add garlic, cumin, and red pepper flakes, then return heat to almost high and stir fry for about 15 seconds.  Add the celery and stir fry for 1 minute.  Add back reserved beef and and accumulated juices; stir.  Stir reserved soy/sake mixture, then add to skillet and stir.  Stir-fry all together about a minute longer, then serve.

So this one goes out to Mr. Antione.  And my absurd love of rap music.  What?  Who?

First things first.  Mr. Antoine was my 9th grade biology teacher.  He did an entire 6 weeks in the spring on edible plants.  (And 6 weeks in the fall on *in*edible, if memory serves.)   Legendary.  At the time I thought it was all a little bit insane – the plant identification lab, hiking through the field behind RHS in search of edible bits, cooking in class, staying after school to work on extra identification practices with friends…  Hell, now I’m irritated.  Why can’t we go to 9th grade when we’re 30?  That sounds like fun now.  Sadly, Mr. Antione passed away a few years back.  I have no idea what the current 9th graders are studying back at RHS.  I’m fairly certain they’re missing out on the morel mushrooms sauteed in tons of butter lesson.  Rest in peace, Mr. Antione, I feel certain you would have loved this recipe.

And to the rappers, well, I owe you cognac.  Sure, I don’t think think I could possibly consume a glass of it, but I’m glad *you* can.  And I love to cook with cognac.  Even more, I just love to say Courvoisier in my rapper voice.  I thought about linking to the youtube video of the song in question, but my parents read this website.  And on the off chance that one of them might accidentally click on that link, I’m fairly certain I’d be grounded.  Or censured.  Or both.  Either way, this article sums up pretty well how the hip hop music culture has embraced Cognac and greatly expanded its demand.  I think subliminally, rappers have led me to owning 3 different brands of cognac in my liquor cabinet.

The photographed servings were enormous, so I’m editing the recipe a tad to a more reasonable amount.  I promise it will taste better if you prepare while listening to a hip hop station on Pandora.  Or if you need me to, I can still make you a mix cd.  Just ask my sister, Allison.  And if you’re just not into all that, throw on some Michael Bublé, grab a big glass of red wine and own your evening.

Beef Tenderloin over Calamarata Pasta with Porcini Mushroom Sauce

serves 4

.75 oz dried Porcini mushrooms

1 and 1/2 c. boiling water

3 tbsp butter

1/2 red onion, finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 c. Courvoisier (or cognac of your choice)

2 approx 8oz beef tenderloin filets

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

olive oil

2/3 c. sour cream

1 and 1/2 c. heavy cream

8 oz dried Calamarata Pasta

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp Black Truffle Salt

Add dried mushrooms to boiling water and let soak for 45 minutes.  Drain, rinse, soak another 5 in boiling water.  Drain, then pat dry with towels to reduce excess moisture.

Melt butter in a saute pan.  Add mushrooms, onions, and garlic to pan, then cook 3 minutes over medium heat.  Add Courvoisier and let continue to cook.  Start you fillets, but be prepared to come back to your sauce when your fillets hit the oven.

Preheat an oven to 450.  Generously season fillets with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.  Heat a stainless saute pan over medium high heat for about 2 minutes.  Add olive oil, swirl, then quickly add fillets.  Brown on all sides, about 6 minutes in total depending on your thickness.  Then move to oven, cook to an internal temperature or 138 in the thickest part.  Start checking temp after 6 more minutes. Set a timer, you’re going to be busy.  When fillets hit the proper temp, move to a cutting board to rest.

To the mushroom sauce, add sour cream and cream.   Cook over medium high heat, stirring every two minutes with a spatula.  Do not stress about this, you want to cook and then cook it some more.  If it looks bubbly and like it’s cooking onto the pan, good.  Stir gently and cook some more.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil – at least 6 cups.  Add 2 teaspoons kosher salt once boiling.  Stir, add pasta, then boil for about 16 minutes then check the tenderness by taste.

As the mushroom sauce begins to develop a dark color and a thick texture, add the lemon juice and the truffle salt.  Stir, then continue cooking over medium.  You want the sauce to continue bubbling.

Drain the pasta when ready, then fold into the mushroom sauce.  On your cutting board, slice fillets into strips, then top a pasta serving with tenderloin in a fan pattern.  Top with a gentle sprinkling of chives.  Cheers.  And Pass the Courvoisier.

I also wanted to try the polenta base with a Port Salut and Montasio cheese so I’ll be trying that later this week.   You can also make them with blue cheese or a parmesan or probably fontina, but the cream cheese was yummy.  Really surprisingly delicious for me.

All of my food idols recommend cooking with as nice a wine as you would drink, if not nicer.  I’ll admit, I don’t do that.  This recipe was made with Black Box wine and a part of an already opened bottle of Bogle Cabernet. I do drink box wine.  I like it.  It takes up less room in both the grocery cart and the recycling bin than the equivalent 4 bottles of wine.  It’s cheap.  It doesn’t compare to a $50 bottle of Cab, but I can’t really afford those anyway.  Now the already opened for a couple days of Bogle?  I probably wouldn’t drink that.  That’s another bonus to the box.  It stays fresh.  Once a red wine has been opened, I tend to think of it as expired.  I tried the Bogle before I cooked with it and though it tasted a little vinegary.  Not horrible, but not preferable either.  Cory thought it was fine, but I’m never quite sure if he’s telling me the truth or if he just didn’t want me to waste that bottle and open another bottle.  Either way, it didn’t make one bit of difference in the sauce.  The sauce was divine.  So good that I’m thinking about eating it again.  For breakfast.  So the moral of the story is, I don’t know who is right on the mandatory quality of wine for cooking.  I’d say no to using a big jug of red table wine, but that’s mainly because I don’t really like that flavor to begin with.  But I think I’d still consider it sacrilege to cook with a $30+ bottle.

Cabernet Braised Boneless Beef Short Ribs

adapted from Bon Appetit October 2007 serves 10

5 lbs boneless beef short ribs

4 long stalks rosemary

dried thyme leaves

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

1/2 c. olive oil

4 and 1/2 c. cabernet sauvingnon

1 can beef consomme

1 can water

2 tablespoons butter, softened

2 tablespoons flour

Use your thumb and forefinger to strip all the leaves from the rosemary stems.  Chop leaves into smaller pieces with a sharp knife.  Rub beef ribs with the rosemary, then sprinkle with the ground thyme leaves from a shaker top spice jar.  Next, season with kosher salt and pepper.  Heat a heavy bottomed stock pot or dutch oven over medium high heat.  Add olive oil let warm 1 minute, then add 4-5 of the ribs so they can sit in a single layer.  Turn the heat up to high and brown ribs on all sides. When thoroughly browned, remove to a plate and continue until all ribs are browned.

Preheat oven to 375.  Pour any fat from stock pot, than add wine, consomme, and water and bring to a simmer.  Add ribs and any juices from plate, cover and put in the oven.  Cook for two hours.

Remove stock pot from oven and use a large shallow spoon to skim any fat from the surface of the liquid.  (Up to this point you can do a day in advance – reheat on the stovetop to a simmer, then continue.)  Remove the ribs to a bowl and cover tightly to keep warm.  Turn heat on stock pot to high and boil sauce until reduced to about a third of the volume.  In a small bowl, use a fork to mash the softened butter and flour to a paste.  Add to stock and whisk furiously to combine.  Continue heating until thickened – about five minutes.  Serve ribs over polenta then spoon sauce over both.  Happy Eating!

Creamy Polenta Recipe

I used Elise’s recipe from Simply Recipes with a minor adjustment.  I’d say this recipe serves about 6 – maybe 7.  I used a 5:1 water to polenta ratio instead of the written 4:1.  To stir in the cream cheese with ease, I’d suggest having your cream cheese at room temperature, then adding it to your pan, covering it with a mound of warm polenta, cover the pan and walk away for 5 minutes.  Then come back and it’s a lot easier to stir.  Yum.

Don’t worry, I’m not having a life crisis.  This pot roast was prepared simply to signify the impending change of the seasons and provide a key one pot meal that could be made in advance (Soccer season has started!) then served again -even more deliciously in leftover form.  I never eat leftovers.  Ever.  Luckily my husband does without the slightest complaint, I think he enjoys them actually.  But soups – that is a different story – soups are designed to get better with age and therefore provide none of the diminished quality and disappointment I find in traditional leftover dinners.

This method was taught to me by mother, she made it for us and now we all make it for each other and our families.  I’ve never been fond of the word stew – it sounds like something you eat when you don’t have enough money to buy something better.  Kind of like porridge or spam.  But I know that’s ridiculous, so I looked up the definition of stew and it turns out – pot roast is exactly this.  I was going to refer to this as Braised chuck roast, but braising refers to a small amount of cooking liquid – as I would with artichokes.  Stewing means liquid almost covering the meat.  The easiest place to go wrong with this recipe is by not browning your meat long enough – truly you want to brown it until you’re almost afraid of burning the roast.  The second word of caution – though I’ve made this type of meat THOUSANDS of times and only run into the issue once, but I feel compelled to relate – involves frozen chuck roast.  Should you be using a previously frozen chuck roast – PLEASE be sure your roast is completely thawed before you begin browning.  I ran into this problem in haste in July and blistered my face terribly when the hot oil popped up at me.  Don’t worry – it’s healed quite nicely and you can barely tell now.

As for the onions in the recipe – they are crucial – albeit hard to find.  What you want are small onions in a glass jar like this.  You don’t need this Aunt Nellie’s brand, that just seems to be the only kind I see in Texas.  In the Midwest they were called something different.  They’re generally in the canned vegetable aisle along the top row somewhere – possibly near beets.  You drain them, then pour right on in.  For some reason, they are really hard to find so I may have to start ordering them by the case like I do with my pickles.  In a pinch, like this week, I went with the small bags of white boiler onions found in the produce section.  This works fine but is so much more labor intensive, involving boiling quickly, about a minute, then peeling each one before adding to the stew.  Frankly, I just don’t have that kind of patience.  Not to mention they are so much more expensive this way, I think the package of approx 10 onions costs $3.95.

Thanks to my mother for teaching me this staple recipe, I don’t think I could possibly function without it.  Next time you want to send extra support to a loved one – you’ll know what to make.

Pot Roast Recipe makes about 6 quarts

2 beef chuck roasts – do not buy one that says shoulder – approx 6.5 lbs total weight

kosher salt

fresh ground black pepper

paprika

all-purpose flour

olive oil

8-9 carrots, peeled

8-9 medium size new potatoes

2 jars white onions

Season all sides of roasts with kosher salt, pepper, and paprika.  Pour flour into a small bowl, then coat all sides of roast with a layer of flour, shaking off the excess.  Heat a large – heavy bottom required – stock pot on medium high heat on the stove.  Add about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil, then brown one roast at a time on all sides.

Continue to move roast around about every five minutes.  Keep your eye on the flour mixture, as this will be the base of your gravy, if it looks like it’s starting to burn reduce your heat a bit.  Let first roast rest on a plate and brown the other piece.

When meat is completely browned, add reserved roast and any accumulated juices back to pan.  The entire browning process should take you about 40 minutes.  Cover with water almost, but not quite, covering the roasts completely.  Add 2 teaspoons salt and 16 turns ground pepper.  Cover stock pot with a lid, and reduce heat to medium.  Check after 1 hour, reduce heat by about 25% then cover and cook another hour.

Chop carrots in half lengthwise, then into 2 inch segments.  Chop potatoes in half lengthwise, then into thirds.  Add both to to stew.  Drain onions, then add.  Cover stock pot with lid and cook another hour and a half.  Use tongs to remove chuck roast to a bowl.  Use two forks to remove just the meat portion to a separate bowl then shred.  Discard fat and other parts. Then return shredded beef to stew, stir and season to taste.  Serve with a crunchy garlic french bread.  Happy eating!

Hamburger Soup Recipe

2.5 lbs ground chuck

1 yellow onion, diced

2 cans stewed tomatoes (14.5oz)

4 cans Campbell’s Beef Consomme (10oz)

1 can water

12 turns fresh ground pepper

In a large stock pot, brown ground beef on medium high heat.  When you can see no more pink, use a spatula to push beef to one half of the pot, then add the diced onion to the other.  Spread out your onion and stir each half every thirty seconds.  Continue until onion is soft and beef is very brown.  Use spatula to push beef and onions to one side, then tip pot to drain fat to the other side.  Remove fat with a spoon and discard.  Add tomatoes, consomme, water, and pepper to pan.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer 25 minutes, then serve and enjoy!

I’ve been uninspired in my culinary pursuits lately, and just plain distracted in my grocery runs.  Consequently, I realized yesterday I had 16 yellow onions on my counter.  What better way to remedy that than french onion soup?   So I got out my rubber gloves and goggles and got to chopping.  Kidding.  Luckily chopping onions doesn’t bother me nearly as much as some people.  I only cried twice.  And frankly, I think I needed it.  Perhaps preparing this soup should be considered an emotional cleanse.  I attribute my success in limited tear production to my very sharp chef’s knife, thanks to my brand new knife sharpener, and the flame from my gas stove.  According to this wikipedia article, there’s some science to the sharp knife theory, and they also suggest chilling your onions if you’re concerned.

It’s no wonder I love this soup with the amount of alcohol that goes into it, the heating process actually burns off the alcohol content, but the flavor remains.  If you’re not a huge alcohol fan, I’d recommend keeping the sherry/cognac for deglazing – at least at half their amounts, but skip the red wine and replace it’s quantity with more beef stock.  But that’s only if you’re anti-alcohol.  I think the flavor is perfect, complex, and engaging just as written.  I think most chef’s use white wine in their French onion soups, I use red for a variety of reasons.  First, because I use beef stock and beef pairs best with reds, IMO.  Second, for color.  Third, I simply prefer red wine, and someone has to finish off that bottle.  And if you’re not a beef eater, like I know several of you aren’t, feel free to change this to chicken stock, or vegetable stock if you must.  But then you’re really going to need the alcohol for flavor. *wink*

The last caveat I have is that the easiest way to destroy this soup is  to accidentally use sweet onions.  Well it won’t destroy it, it just won’t be the flavor you’re expecting at all.  You need the yellow, dry onion flavor.  Sweet onions like Vidalia, Walla Walla, Maui and Texas 1015 are generally larger and rounder.  Yellow onions are small and firm, and in my experience, the outer papers seem more closely attached to the skin.  If you’re worried, look for the onions in bags, then confirm that the label reads “Yellow Onion” and nothing else.

French Onion Soup

8 peeled yellow onions, sliced to rounds, then halved to half moons

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1/2 c. cognac

1/2 c. dry sherry

1 and 1/2 c. Shiraz or Cabernet  wine

8 c. beef stock (Kitchen Basics recommended)

1 tsp dried thyme leaves

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

In a stock pot with the heat a quarter of the way past medium towards high, combine the onions, bay leaves, oil, and butter.  Cook for 55 minutes until onions are soft and browned, stirring every five minutes or so with a wooden spatula.  Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pan, and if you’re at all concerned about your onions burning, reduce the heat just a bit.

Add cognac and sherry to deglaze the pan, being sure to scrape up any brown bits and and combine.  Cook uncovered for 5 minutes.  Add wine, cook 20 minutes uncovered.  Add beef stock, increase heat to high, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a quarter of the way past low towards medium.  Add thyme and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add salt and pepper to taste, amount will vary based on seasoning content of stock.  I used approx 2 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and probably 15 turns of fresh ground pepper.  Let simmer another five minutes, retest, and adjust if needed.  Remove bay leaves, then serve traditionally, topped with a crostini and shredded Gruyere, broiled for a quick minute or with toppings to the side.

Any how, since I really did love the music, and many of my friends were involved, I chose to be a serving wench.  I graciously delivered bowls of beef with barley soup, plates of prime rib, and glasses of wassail to the crowd.  As a reward, I got free dinner and to see the show.  And a reason to be out socializing on a school night.  Which I was *always* looking for.  So perhaps I was caught up in the beauty of the costumes, or the sound of the music, or caught up flirting with my latest love interest, some how, I can not make this soup taste how I remember it, nor find a recipe that in anyway holds promise to do so.  And I didn’t go to a fancy high school so so I’m bound to be crushed one day when I learn I’ve been longing for Kroger brand Soup in economy size cans.

This soup isn’t bad, my husband loved it actually.  And the homemade beef stock from the leftover ribs from my standing rib roast turned out perfectly.  But if you love something you eat when out and about – beg, borrow, or steal the recipe quickly!  Don’t wait to attempt your own version nearly 15 years later. I realize many of you have no desire to make your own stock.  So for an express version, simply purchase boxed beef stock.  I recommend Kitchen Basics.  But if you cook a standing rib roast, save your bones in a ziploc in the freezer and make this stock some Sunday!  One thing I’ll probably alter next round will be to use a chuck roast instead of leftover prime rib, cause seriously, who usually has that lying around.  I’ll go ahead and brown it and braise it the way I do for my pot roast and chimichanga meat.  Then shred the meat and add it to the soup.  I’m a huge fan of shredded over cubed meats.

Beef and Barley Soup

6 c. beef stock – see recipe for homemade stock below

3 stalks celery, chopped

1.5 c. baby carrots

1 medium white onion, chopped

2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 c. pearled barley, uncooked

3 c. leftover rare prime rib

Kosher Salt

Fresh Ground Pepper

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Heat olive oil in a stock pot over medium high heat.  Add carrots, onions, and celery and saute until slightly browning, scented, and softening.  Add beef stock, leftover prime rib, and garlic, bring to a boil, then cover and reduce to a simmer.

Meanwhile, boil 4 cups of water in a sauce pan.  Add 1 tsp salt and barley, reduce to a simmer, cook for 45 minutes.  Then add to soup.  Remove leftover prime rib from stock, then shred if you can or cut into bite size pieces and add back to stock.  Skim any surface fat with a spoon to remove.  Season soup with salt, pepper and cayenne to taste.  Let simmer 15 more minutes, then serve.

Homemade Beef Stock

leftover ribs (4) from a standing rib roast

water

2 tbsp salt

2.5 c. celery, chopped

2 c. yellow onion, chopped

2 c. baby carrots

fresh ground pepper

Place ribs in large stock pot, fill to the top with water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Cook for 3 hours, then add celery, onions, and carrots, salt and pepper.  Cook another hour, then strain into a fresh pan.  Let sit 30 minutes to separate, then skim off all fat with a spoon.  Or refrigerate, then pull off the solid fat pieces.

Never miss a new recipe!

Luckily, my cooking – though at times extreme – seems unwavering.  When I wasn’t buried in a book this weekend, or gripped by an unnatural force to college football,  all the while in the background I’ve been cooking.  Much of it not blogworthy, but there are a few highlights I’d like to share.

Vegetable Soup as written in the earlier link was NAILED this week.  Out of the park.  Some days I’m self-deprecating, but this was phenomenal.  The ham shank was cooked for over 4 hours and the broth was delectable.  All the stock veggies, onions, carrots and celery, were sauteed in olive oil for about 10 minutes – together- before being added to the broth.  The corn was fresh – 4 ears, resulting in a phenomenal crunch leaving nothing to be desired.  I also sauteed the kernels briefly about five minutes before addition.  The new red potatoes?  Also sauteed briefly.  Everything’s better roasted?  Touché.  Everything’s better sauteed.  The flavor and freshness melted from this soup.  Do not skip these steps if you’re craving the best vegetable soup of your life.

Express Rice was a quick to the table version of the rice I was trying to make in Florida.  If you’re short on time, go with minute rice.  Use 1 and 1/2 c. minute rice and 2 c. chicken broth, but leave everything else the same ratios.  Only instead of simmering for 30 minutes, cover turn off the heat and let rest for 10 minutes.  A quick to the table way to rescue a bland minute rice side.

Family Barbecue Sauce has been successfully re-engineered.  Or at least closely.  It’s out of the park, but I’m keeping that recipe secret, cause I just may want to sell it.  Just wanted to let you know, I am working on stuff in the background.

And with that, I must sign off, cause I’ll be up until four anyway.  I *will* finish the third book of the Mortal Instruments series tonight.  See you tomorrow.

One of the most important things in preparing large roasts is bringing the roast closer to room temperature before cooking.  I bring my roasts out of the refrigerator about 2 hours before cooking.  Other than that, roasts are pretty easy to prepare.

Mashed potatoes are also one of my favorite foods.  I took the picture at the top before we topped them with our au jus – which made them even better.  My recipe for mashed potatoes can be found here, but I did want to include a photo of the potato ricer just in case you’ve never seen one in action.  They are fabulous tools! 

Standing Rib Roast

3 rib roast – approx 8 lbs

paprika

kosher salt

pepper

Bring roast to room temperature.  Preheat oven to 500.  Season liberally with salt, pepper, and paprika.  Cook roast at 500 for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 325.  Cook about 15 minutes per pound, until meat reaches 135 degrees for medium rare.  Let rest 15 minutes, then cut down towards bone, then down bone to release meat.

Pour off all fat from roasting pan, then add 2 cups water to pan drippings to create your au jus, scraping up any brown bits.  Add any meat juices left from slicing meat, bring to a boil, then reduce two minutes.  Season to taste and serve with prime rib for dipping.

Costco has a great price on whole beef tenderloins.  You have to trim them yourself.  If the idea of trimming raw beef makes you want to run to the hills screaming like it does to my mother, then you can pay a butcher more to handle that for you.  I chose the biggest tenderloin they had, just over 7lbs.  After trimming, it was probably 6lbs.  We did go through all the tenderloin at the party, as is usually the case with tenderloin.  I would guess I sliced it to about 36 sandwich slices.  I counted at the time, but of course with the crazy time lines, I forgot my actual count.

Really watch your meat temperatures on this recipe.  I can not extol the virtues of a meat and an oven thermometer enough.  My oven is awful, dial setting at least 50 degrees off from my oven thermometer.  And even after correcting and verifying that, I often find wild differences in cooking times from recipes.  Medium rare beef needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 135.  Another beauty of cooking a whole tenderloin is you get different degrees of doneness within the same roast.  My mother and sister border on the well done side of things and my father and I prefer the medium rare end of the spectrum.  This method works well for us, but if you are looking to serve only medium rare, I would recommend checking the temperature in the smaller and thicker ends, then cutting your roast and removing the smaller half when it reaches 135 then continuing to cook the thicker end until it reaches 135.

Beef Tenderloin Sandwiches

Whole beef tenderloin, trimmed, room temperature

olive oil

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Rub tenderloin with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper.  Cook tenderloin about 30 minutes, check internal temperature, then roast should finish within about 5 minutes more or so.  Cook to an internal temperature of 135 for medium rare.

Whipped Horseradish Cream

1/2 c. Heavy Whipping Cream

3 tbsp prepared horseradish

Whip cream with wire whisk until it forms soft peaks.  Add horseradish and stir to combine.

Blue Cheese Sauce

1/4 lb. crumbled blue cheese

2/3 c. sour cream

1/3 c. fresh whipped cream

3 tsp worcestershire

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Combine ingredients and season to taste.