Cream Cheese French Toast

Tasty, different breakfast for a change! 2 pieces of good white, wheat, or my favorite sourdough bread Cream cheese Good jam (the family loves Knott's berry farm seedless boysenberry) 1 lg egg 3 tbls milk Flour Butter Powdered sugar Soften the cream cheese 1 to 2 ounces in the microwave or leave it out of the fridge long enough to be able to spread. Spread the cream cheese thinly on both pieces of the bread fill one side with the jam sandwich them. Beat the egg with the milk dip the sandwich in egg on both sides then coat with flour and fry in butter until golden brown. Cool a little before dusting with powder sugar. Enjoy!

Standing Rib Roast

When Joy gets the rib roast from the store she take it out of the plastic, rinse, dry it and cover it with paper towels. Place it in a clean non-reactive pan such as stainless steel or glass. Refrigerate for days checking and changing the paper towels daily. This process is known as dry aging. Dry aging makes most rib roasts taste like Angus beef. Rib roast or any roast that can be served medium rare Hickory smoked salt (recipe follows) Garlic slivers Pepper Olive oil Mix pepper with hickory smoked salt and rub on meat, if the roast is too dry rub with a little olive oil first. Form small slits in the roast all over and poke garlic slivers in the slits. Now the roast is ready for smoking or cooking in the oven. A great tool to have would be a remote wireless meat thermometer. You always know the internal temperature of the meat when it’s cooking with on of these handy gauges. Smoking the meat is the cooking choice Jack Daniels wood chips are wonderful but any wood chips made for a smoker are fine. Smoke meat until the temperature reads 135 degrees let the meat sit before carving for at least 15 mins. Oven cooking : Preheat the oven to 475 degrees put the roast in with the temperature gauge in and cook for 1 hour turn the oven off and et it sit for as long as 2 hours watching the temperature it will keep rising. If you notice the the temperature stops rising and it is no where near the desired 130-135 turn the oven back on at 200 degrees until the temp reaches 135. On the other hand if the meat reaches the temperature before the 2 hours is up remove the meat from the oven and always let the meat rest before carving. Hickory Smoked salt: Hickory smoked powder 2 parts, 1 part kosher salt or sea salt,1/2 part unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix ingredients together and put in a shaker container. I bought the powder on line at a spice web I also bought mesquite powder which is just as good!

Pomegranate eggplant w/tomatoes Dip (Naaz Khaatoon - Persian)

We were on our way to a Persian party and Joy wanted to bring a dish that would match the Farsi cuisine, it was a hit with pita chips. 1 large eggplant 4 medium tomatoes ½ cup pomegranate juice ½ cup sour grape juice 1 medium onion 1 teasp marjoram dried or 1 tablesp fresh ½ teasp dried mint or 2 tablesp fresh Salt and black pepper Optional : ½ cup crumbled feta cheese Cook whole eggplant in the oven at 400f for about 30 minutes. Remove and let cool, then peel and chop finely. Pour hot water over the tomatoes, then peel and chop finely. Grate onions. Add pomegranate juice, sour grape juice, salt and black peper to eggplants. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Add marjoram, mint and grated onions, mix well and remove from heat. Add tomatoes, mix and serve.

Pinakbet (Filipino dish)

Joy loves this Filipino dish that has so much flavor and so many vegetables. My mom used to make this a lot when I was growing up too. 1 lb pork meat diced (fatty with or without bones) 2 to 3 ampalaya (bitter melons seeded and cut into 3” pieces) 4 to 5 Chinese or Japanese eggplant (1 or 2 American eggplant) Okra or long beans similar to green beans 2 lg or 4 sm tomatoes 1 small diced onion 2 tbls bagoong 1 cup or more water Oil (I like olive oil extra virgin) 2 cloves garlic crushed 1 diced jalapeno chili and 2 yellow peppers Green onion Chicharones small package Brown the pork, diced onion, diced jalapeno and garlic in a heavy casserole dish or wok until onions are translucent add bagoong and water cook a couple minutes. Add eggplant ampalaya, green beans and or okra and the top layer should be fresh tomato cubes, green onion and chicharones. Cover and cook about 20 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Check the seasoning add patis or more bagoong if needed, serve with rice and is so tasty!!! Just a preference note Joy likes the pink shrimp bagoong referred to salted shrimp fry. Of course serve with rice.