Anniversary dinner

On vacation with family. Showing some love and appreciation for the holiday digs and Jen's parents 44th anniversary.


Around here (somewhere in Florida) there is little by way of good shopping. "The Boys" is one exception, a family run Italian market that has everything one could want by way of fresh produce, Italian deli and cheese plus all the great pantry items one would expect.

Main lobsters on sale, excellent olive oil, crusty peasant bread, good herbs and veggies, some special ingredients and off to the kitchen. Stopped off at the supermarket for a standing rib roast for four.

Time to cook for a big dinner. Started cocktail hour with the lobster salad (shown above). Boiled and picked lobster meat, mayo, lemon zest, parsley and chive. We had to start on something because the rib roast in the oven was filling the room with good aromas making us very very hungry.

The main course was a standing rib roast marinated for 6 hours with a fresh made rosemary, lemon, garlic sea salt rub. I seared it on the grill and then into a low oven for 2 hours. Pulled it out at 130F and poured over some lemon juice and olive oil. Let sit till 135F and rested for 15 minutes. Nice crust, super juicy pink meat and just so damned good.




This tomato salad simply made with pitted green olives with celery, marinated artichoke hearts, some chopped parsley, chili anchovies. Squeeze over some lemon juice and a bit of olive oil. An easy dish to put together.

We rounded out the meal with Tuscan beans (canned) slow baked with garlic cloves, diced tomatoes, fresh herbs and olive oil with a bread crumb crust. After 2 hours the beans were creamy and the crust added a nice textural balance.

Dessert was to be my favorite Chocolate salame but we were too full to enjoy it. Maybe today.