Prime rib roasting on a cold spring day...

After a week of spring-like weather, we're back to winter weather - on the first day of spring! To bring some comfort to my family's bellies, I decided to make a prime rib roast, along with mashed potatoes, gravy and salad.

Making a roast seems like a lot of work, but in fact, it's just time. All you have to do is figure out how long you need to roast the meat for, season it, and then pop it into the oven. An hour or so later (or longer, if you've got a large piece of meat) - voila! Perfectly medium-rare, prime rib roast.

In today's case, the prime rib roast was 4.38 pounds. For medium rare, the calculations are 17-20 minutes per pound at 330. It took me about 1.5 hours.

Here's my seasoning recipe:
- Dijon mustard (option)
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 Tbs sea salt

- Let the prime rib roast warm up to room temperature before you start working with it; otherwise, you'll need to increase your roasting temperature.
- Take the garlic and slice each clove into 2-3 pieces
- Where there are natural folds of the meat (fat, etc), and put the garlic into the meat
- Take the salt and likely coat the entire outside of the roast
- This is optional, but take a pastry brush and coat the outside of the roast with dijon mustard (this helps to keep the roast moist); you can also add rosemary to the mixture
- Pre-heat the oven, and when it hits 330C, put the roast in
- After the roast is done, take it out and cover the roast for 20 minutes (this process is called tenting, and helps keep the roast moist by letting the juices in the meat settle) - DO NOT cut into the roast until it's done.

After waiting 20 minutes, I like to cut into the meat and use some of the juices that have come out to make a gravy.

I'm not a big fan of instant gravy - it just tastes off. If you're boiling vegetables, save the water (as it is now technically a broth) and use it as the base for your gravy.

- Bring the vegetable stock to a boil (you can also take 3 cups of water and add a beef bouillon cube)
- When it boils, pour in the meat juices
- Take 1 tbs of corn starch (or 1.5 tbs if you like a thicker gravy) and add about 2 tbs of cold water
- Mix the corn starch and water together until the cornstarch no longer sticks
- Pour this mixture into the boiling pot - being careful to stir / whisk the bubbling mixture (whisking reduces the chances of the gravy being lumpy)
- The gravy will start to thicken - once it does, take if off the heat

And...that's my prime rib roast recipe...simple, huh?