What You Should Have Eaten #29

Sweet Spice-Rubbed Rib-Eyes
with Baked Sweet Potatoes and Salad

I’m writing this two days after the fact. Right before I started cooking, my computer crapped out on me. My six-month-old computer. Thank God for system restore points though, right?

I can’t remember what drink I made. It was sweet and forgettable. I know there was sweet white vermouth, red vermouth and a dash of orange bitters. There might have been some sherry, too. I finished with a bottle of Atwater Vanilla Java Porter. It was a very good beer.

I was nervous about this recipe. Not that it was difficult to prepare, just that I’ve not had much luck with getting a decent amount of charcoal going, at least enough to evenly cook throughout the grill. I can get it to start well enough because of these starter sticks I use, but the flame doesn’t spread all that quickly. I’m going to pick up a charcoal chimney starter thingamajig (wow, MS Word’s spell check recognizes thingamajig) this weekend.

I used chili powder instead of chile powder. I’ll always go the less-spicy route.

The biggest complaint I had about the potatoes was that as they cooked they leaked all over the oven. I need to clean it out now, and I just did that a few weeks ago. They were delicious, though, and I didn’t have to dress them up with anything.

The steaks turned out wonderfully. A smidge pink on the inside, very juicy, and the rub meant that no sauce was necessary. I’m usually a Heinz 57 guy, but these were great all by their lonesome. The kids (well, two of them) even ate their steak. Hell, one of them cleaned her plate. It surprised the hell out of me, but I was extremely pleased.