I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

.........................., just not with every Christmas card I write. Don't you just love that song?
Truthfully, I am dreaming of a white Christmas, and with good cause this year. It's the Christmas card part that doesn't work for me. For the first time in my entire adult life I did not send out Christmas cards. Earlier in the month I was feeling extremely stressed with tons of things to do so I just decided that was one task I was going to take off the table. Oddly, just making that one small concession helped. Now, of course, all the things that I was stressing about are finally done and I feel sad that I let this holiday tradition slip by. I have resolved not to let this happen again. I am usually excessively organized, lists, lists and more lists, but somehow the holidays got all jumbled up this year. I'm really not sure why.

Now a days Ronnie and I share a very quite Christmas Eve at home. I am working on the menu, which always includes a beef tenderloin. This year I think I am going with a coffee rub recipe that I came across several months ago and filed away for Christmas. Now, I know you have heard me talk about how much Ronnie and I both hate coffee, so perhaps it seems a bit strange to know I am about to use a dry rub containing ground coffee beans on an expensive cut of beef. Truth is, I have had coffee encrusted steaks (actually once it was a rib eye and once it was a pork loin) a couple of times in restaurants and you would never know it was coffee. The taste is a bit hard to describe, but oh sooooo good.
If you haven't decided just what to fix just might want to give this a try.

Coffee Encrusted Beef Tenderloin

One 2-pound beef tenderloin, trimmed of fat and silver skin

Rub:

1/4 cup finely ground coffee beans

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 Tbsp. chili powder

2 Tbsp. paprika

2 tsp. sage,

1 tsp. onion powder

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 Onion - Quartered

Remove meat from refrigerator 1 hour before roasting. Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Fold over thin end of meat and tie with string.

In a small bowl, combine spice rub ingredients. Rub meat generously with the spice mixture. Let meat stand for 15 minutes and repeat rub.

Place meat on a rack in a roasting pan; arrange quartered onions around meat. Do not cover. Place in oven. Turn oven down to 400 degrees F. Roast for 30 to 40 minutes, or until internal temperature of roast is 130 degrees F for rare to 145 degrees F for medium. Remove from oven; let meat rest for at least 20 minutes before slicing. Serve with Coffee Gravy.

2 cups beef stock

1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. instant coffee

1/2 tsp. dried thyme

1/4 tsp. seasoned salt

2 Tbsp. cornstarch

1/4 cup water

3 Tbsp. butter

Salt and pepper

In a medium saucepan, combine broth, Worcestershire sauce, coffee , dried thyme and seasoned salt and bring to boil. Reduce heat to simmer.In a small bowl, dissolve cornstarch in the water and whisk until smooth. Stir into broth mixture. Cook until gravy has thickened. Cut butter in small pieces and stir in. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

So, Until Tomorrow..............

S~~~