A Holiday Tale: A Beginner's Guide to Cooking a Boneless Ribeye Roast

By now, your home is a mess. Toys, clothes and other presents are strewn about. You've got stacks of cookies on your counter and a Christmas tree that is dropping a needle every second.

As I sit at my computer in my robe typing away, my clock reminds me that I have another Christmas celebration in less than two hours. For this one, I will prepare my French Warm Lentil and Kale Salad, but that is a story for another day.


My mom kept hinting around that she would like prime rib by sending me online recipes of prime rib. This marked our 12th Christmas without Dad. He used to make bone-in prime rib on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. He would make a big one, weighing in about 10 to 12 pounds.

I read the recipes she sent, and they frightened me a little. All of this math for a per pound of cooking wanted me to run for the hills. I would never commit, and two days before Christmas, I still did not know what I would prepare for Christmas dinner.  I pulled countless recipe books from my pantry and thought maybe I would attempt some type of tenderloin, either beef or pork. When I went grocery shopping, I took two cookbooks to Lowes Food, and they sat in the cart while I looked at meat. There was not a beef tenderloin in sight for less than $80.

My wallet spoke. Boneless ribeye roasts were on a significant sale. A four-pound boneless ribeye roast was marked down from $52 to $32.  I flipped through my cookbooks, and I surfed the internet on Lowes free wi-fi and decided I would try it. It would be the meat entree along with sides of corn pudding, macaroni, and cheese, southern butterbeans, green beans, and rolls.




On Christmas Day, I took Andy for a walk and stopped by Mom's house around noon. She asked me why I was not in the kitchen cooking. And then panicked because I was not preparing our meal.  She told me my roast would not be done and then proceeded to tell me that when I have guests over nothing is ever ready on time.

The funny twist in this Christmas tale is that my Dad did all the cooking in my home when I grew up. My mom never enjoyed cooking and never took on the role of cook in our family. She is not Martha Stewart. She does home decor well, but cooking is not her thing. Her culinary talent is driving up in a restaurant parking lot.


Now if my Dad would have been alive to tell me that my roast needed to be in the oven, then I would have listened, but I knew he would not tell me that a four-pound roast with the goal of medium-rare would need to be in the oven at noon to serve at by 5 p.m.

I rubbed my roast with kosher salt, garlic, and black pepper and put my oven at 350 degrees. Some of the recipes I read said a roast needed to be 135 degrees to be rare, which averaged about 14 minutes per pound.  But in hindsight, the Angus Beef Website has the best degree chart, which I think is more accurate.

I sat my timer for 56 minutes then tested my roast. It was not even close to rare at that point, so I began cooking it at 30-minute intervals. Eighty minutes had the roast at rare. I ended up cooking mine for two hours, and it cooked between medium-rare and medium.  Next time, I will work to keep it more medium-rare, but it was cooked perfectly for my Mom.

My Simple Recipe
4 Pound Boneless Ribeye Roast
Salt
Garlic
Black Pepper
Heat oven to 350 degrees

Begin checking your roast at an hour. A roast needs to be 135 degrees to be rare.  Medium-rare will clock in around the hour and half mark.  Practice makes perfect. 

I wanted to squeeze in one more story before the new year. I wish all of you a very Happy New Year! Thanks for reading and being part of my family.