I love preparing meals and hosting friends and family in my home. A few years ago we started the tradition of cooking Father’s Day dinner for my dad instead of going out and landed on prime rib as the main course. I made chocolate lava cake for the first time and it became a requested favorite of my dad & sister. Last year my sister made an amazing brisket, but this year we brought back the prime rib tradition. Father’s Day menu consisted of prime rib, homemade mac and cheese, roasted potatoes, various roasted veggies, asparagus, and lava cake with vanilla ice cream.
I couldn’t find the prime rib recipe I’ve used previously so I went to google. After comparing several recipes I decided to go with this one and use the recommendations in the top rated comment for turning the oven to 275 after half an hour and off with half an hour left. This resulted in a more medium than medium rare, but it was still delicious. I rubbed it with olive oil and used Herbs de Provence and salt to season. I didn’t have any beef broth for the recommended au jus so we improvised a sauce with the drippings by thickening with flour and adding red wine.
My boyfriend and I have an epic Pinterest food board that we love to save recipes for trying when we’re off prep. He recently sent me a Brie Mac & Cheese recipe so I decided to make a version for this dinner. Our local grocery did not have Havarti cheese so I subbed Gouda. I snuck a bite (sorry coach) and it was DELICOUS. I will definitely be repeating this recipe in the future. I skipped the bread crumbs and did the whole thing on the stove top. We prefer a creamier mac and cheese so skipping the oven was perfect for us.
In the past I’ve done my lava cakes in ramekins, but we had 12 people for dinner on Saturday so I went looking for a recipe that was made using a muffin tin. I like to make the mix a little ahead of time, store in the fridge, and take out about half an hour before baking (generally as people are sitting down to eat their meal). This way you can have all of your baking cleaned up and enjoy dinner with the rest of the group while still having a delicious dessert timely. I found this recipe easy to make, but the transfer after baking was much more difficult due to having to transfer twice. Also, just a side note, the recipe made more batter than would fit in the 12 muffin tins.
In the future I’ll be investing in additional ramekins for larger dinner parties. I like dark chocolate so I did a mix of semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips. It went perfectly with bluebell vanilla ice cream.
My sister made delicious roasted potatoes and veggies. I still have another show coming up, but coach scripted me a cheat for this special family meal. He even allowed for one lava cake… I had three (sorry coach!). Once I had a taste and we had two left (everyone else was stuffed from dinner) I couldn’t resist! I have found it’s easier to be 100% consistent than 98%.
I’m excited for this next NPC show, but I’m also looking forward to completing my reverse diet process so I can get back to hosting dinner parties more regularly with family and friends. I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who “loves to cook,” but I get so much joy from watching people I love enjoy a meal or treat I prepared for them. It makes the whole process, from researching recipes, grocery shopping, to cooking and plating an enjoyable experience.
Believe Grow Glow 