Cooking

Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion, and sauté 8 minutes or until tender. Stir in cream of potato soup, milk, and pepper; bring to a boil. Add shrimp; reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often, 5 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink. Stir in cheese until melted. Garnish, if desired. Serve immediately. Serve with oyster crackers, if desired.

/2 pounds frozen shrimp, thawed; 1 1/2 pounds peeled crawfish tails; or 3 cups chopped cooked chicken may be substituted.

In a large bowl, beat together the sugar, oil, pumpkin and eggs.

In a medium bowl, stir together the all-purpose and whole wheat flours, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon. Fold this into the pumpkin mixture, stirring the two mixtures just to moisten the dry ingredients. Stir in the walnuts. Pour batter into a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

Bake the bread in a preheated 350º oven for about 1 hour or until a pick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean (check after 50 minutes if using mini load pans) Set the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then turn out the loaf to cool completely.

Remove roast from the refrigerator, loosely wrapped, 3 hours before cooking. Roasts should always be brought close to room temperature first, before they go in the oven.

Cookbooks often call for the excess fat to be removed. By "excess" fat they mean any fat more than an inch thick. The fat is what provides the flavor and what you are paying for with prime rib, so you want to leave it on. Your butcher should have removed any excess fat.

If your butcher hasn't already done so, cut the bones away from the roast and tie them back on to the roast with kitchen string. This will make it much easier to carve the roast, while still allowing you to stand the roast on the rib bones while cooking.

Preheat your oven to 500°F, or the highest it will go (our oven only goes up to 450°F). Generously sprinkle salt and pepper all over the roast.

Insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the roast, making sure it doesn't touch a bone. (Some meat thermometers require that you poke a hole first with a skewer, and then insert the thermometer.) Place the roast, fat side up, rib side down in a roasting pan in the oven.

After 15 minutes on 500°F, reduce the heat to 325°F. To figure out the total cooking time, allow about 13-15 minutes per pound for rare and 15-17 minutes per pound for medium rare. The actual cooking time will depend on the shape of the roast and your particular oven. A flatter roast will cook more quickly than a thicker one. So make sure to use a meat thermometer . This is not a roast to "wing it". Error on the rare side.

Roast in oven until thermometer registers 115°-120°F for rare or 125°-130°F for medium.

Check the temperature of the roast using a meat thermometer a half hour before you expect the roast to be done. For example, with a 10 pound roast, you would expect 2 1/2 hours of total cooking time (15 minutes at 500° and 2 1/4 hours at 325°). In this case, check after 2 hours of total cooking time, or 1 hour 45 minutes after you lowered the oven temp to 325°.

Once the roast has reached the desired internal temperature, remove it from oven and let rest 20 minutes, covered with aluminum foil, before carving. The roast will continue to cook while it is resting.

With a knife or scissors, cut the strings which attach the meat to the bones. Remove the bones (save for making stock for soup . Then, using a sharp carving knife, slice meat across the grain for serving, making the slices about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.

Making gravy

To make the gravy, remove the roast from the pan. Place pan on stove on medium high heat. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the drippings to a separate container. Into the 2 tablespoons of drippings in the pan stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour. Stir with a wire whisk until the flour has thickened and the gravy is smooth. Continue to cook slowly and stir constantly. Slowly add back the previously removed drippings (remove some of the fat beforehand if there is a lot of fat). In addition add either water, milk, stock, cream or beer to the gravy, enough to make 1 cup. Season the gravy with salt and pepper and herbs. (See also How to Make Gravy .)