We get a lot of compliments from customers about how they enjoy cooking our beef products. I enjoy hearing all the comments, but I always have to smile when we get one about how much they like our beef roasts. I can always pretty much tell that person is close to my age and grew up in much the same home environment that I did.
When I was growing up in Alvin, Texas, my brother and sisters and I always knew what our Sunday menu was going to be. It was roast beef although my mother on occasion threw us off and went with chicken instead.
We weren't unique. I guess from after World War II until deep in the 1960s, most American families enjoyed a special meal almost every Sunday usually centered around roast.
That routine had a lasting impact on me. Even today I enjoy a good roast with brown gravy more than any other home-cooked meal. Same thing if I'm eating at someone else's home. I usually get really excited if they cook roast with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions and brown gravy. It's my ideal home meal.
I don't know exactly why a good roast has that effect. I just know those were special days and whenever I eat roast today it just takes me back to when I was a kid growing up. Perhaps it does the same for you. E-mail me with your thoughts on your favorite family meal.
Mom's Roast
The Ranch Week by Ruth Ryan
Not long after the Christmas day leftovers are all gone, it’s time to head to our South Texas ranch.
We started the ranch tradition when Nolan was playing ball. Professional baseball players are either in training or in competition from late February to late October. Children are in school from August to June. So the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day was the only time when Nolan and our sons, Reid and Reese, and our daughter, Wendy, all had nothing on their schedules at the same time.
Reid, Reese, Wendy and Nolan all enjoy deer hunting. I love being outdoors just as much. So this week became an important part of our life because we all appreciate everything to do with ranching. Today, we are fortunate to be joined in this special week by our children’s spouses and our grandchildren. And it’s not unusual for someone to bring along a friend or two.
When you have a big group for a week doing activities like working cattle or hunting, you need to plan your meals in advance. And we also ask everyone at the ranch to contribute something to the menu so no one person is always in the kitchen.
One of our newest traditions during this week is a great beef and venison chili that Reese makes. Another dish we always look forward to is an excellent tortilla soup that one of my daughters-in-law makes. But most importantly, this week is a great time for anyone with a new recipe to try out. Of the half dozen or so new recipes we sample during the week, we all get great ideas to take home to our own kitchens. If you like cooking, like all of us do, it’s almost like an extended Christmas.
We hope you enjoy these next few days with your loved ones and treasure the time with your family! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
A Special Gift by Ruth Ryan
I’m sometimes asked what has been our most memorable Christmas. That’s a hard one to say because we were a baseball family for 27 years as Nolan traveled around the nation with his team for much of the year. So when it came to Christmas, the best gift anyone received wasn’t wrapped. It was the fact that we all spent time together.
But there is one Christmas that really stands out — and not necessarily for the right reasons. It was when our kids were younger and we were still living in Alvin and Nolan and I decided to really splurge on them.
So we bought 3-wheelers for them to drive around the ranch. I still don’t know what possessed us to do it. I remember looking out the window and seeing the kids zipping down and around the barn, then the house, next over the pastures, then around the house again.
It was an exciting Christmas for the kids to say the least, but it caused me so much worry we retired the 3-wheelers. And from that time to now, we’ve emphasized our special Christmases over our more memorable ones. I’m sure most mothers out there do the same.
Our Christmas Traditions by Ruth Ryan
Merry Christmas, everyone!
This is Ruth Ryan and I’ve asked Nolan for some space on his blog during the Christmas season to answer some questions about our family’s holiday food traditions.
When I think of true traditions, I think about growing up in East Texas. Every Christmas, my mom and dad, Ingrid and Larry Holdorff, celebrated their Scandinavian heritage with food. They invited their relatives, neighbors and fellow church members to our house for snacks and conversation. Their snacks were a smorgasbord of their native foods including smoked herring, pickled beef and Swedish breads.
It wasn’t exactly the menu a young girl growing up in Texas would have chosen. But looking back, it is so wonderful that my parents carried on centuries-old traditions of their ancestors. Another of my family’s traditions took place every Christmas morning. My dad would make Swedish pancakes using cooking techniques that he learned from his Norwegian grandmother. He’d serve them complete with imported lingonberry jelly.
Nolan’s side of the family also had great traditions. His mother, Martha Ryan, was renowned in their home of Alvin, Texas, for the pies she prepared during the holidays. People came from far and wide for a visit and a slice of pecan and pumpkin pie.
Once Nolan and I started our family, we established our family dinner on Christmas eve. Every year, I’ll prepare a beef tenderloin, but sometimes we’ll also serve ham or turkey with all the fixings. For dessert, we enjoy the same pumpkin and pecan recipes that my mother-in-law’s made.
Now that our children have families of their own, the ones who live in the area return to their homes to celebrate Christmas morning. Then everyone comes back to our house later Christmas day. I’m so grateful that several years before my father passed away, our son Reese took the time to learn the Swedish pancakes recipe from his grandfather. Reese makes sure a plate of our traditional breakfast treat still greets family members as they arrive for the Christmas day family brunch.
So what we celebrate today is a blend of what Nolan and I experienced growing up with some additions of our own. We are so fortunate to our children want to carry on in that same spirit. I'll add additional posts this month so tune in for more Ryan family traditions.
The Best Daily Special
Steak is important because it makes ordering off a menu quick and easy. That's something I place a high premium on as much as I travel. And I guess the reason for that goes back to my roots.
When I was a kid, we rarely ate out. Our meals were eaten at home and cooked by my mother. We might go to a restaurant once a year, and when we did it was a big deal. My brother, sisters and I knew that we had to be on our best behavior in public. We didn't dare act up.
I remember the first year I left Texas at 18 after signing to play baseball out of high school. All the sudden I was in Marion, VA, playing minor league ball and having to eat lunch every day at a restaurant. It was a small town and none of the players had a car, so we always walked together down the street to a restaurant. It was your typical small town café with a counter and booths, and all of us gathered there at the same time every day.
I can remember the challenges of deciding what I wanted to eat so I could order. I just never had those kinds of food choices before. At home, when Mom cooked, you ate whatever was put on the table. Now, all of the sudden, I had to select. My solution was usually just to order whatever the daily special was.
It wasn't until I made it into the big leagues in New York in the late 1960s that I began to eat steak regularly when I dined out. In those days, steak restaurants in New York all were named after someone famous, and it was a big deal to go to one of them. But eating steak completed my desire to simplify the process of eating out. I could choose steak time after time without spending a lot of time looking over the menu. It didn't hurt that I also loved steak.
That preference for simplifying the process passed to my children as they grew up and started making their own food choices in restaurants. I really didn't realize that had happened until my young son Reese went on a vacation with some neighbors from Alvin.
They stopped for lunch the first day, and he surprised our friends by ordering steak off the menu! He thought everyone ate steak at a restaurant during lunch because that's the way he'd been raised.
I apologized for not telling him differently, but I couldn't fault Reese. He knew as a kid what I didn't learn until I was an adult: Steak is the best daily special in the world.
My Secrets to Perfect Grilling
When the weather is good, I grill a lot because it's a quick and easy way to prepare a meal. I prefer to cook over wood coals, and my two favorite woods, mesquite and pecan, are readily available throughout Texas year-round. The downside to using wood rather than charcoal is that you have to plan ahead. You have to light the wood, let it catch fire and then wait until it burns down to coals before you can start grilling. So wood takes a little longer than charcoal, which is always a great second choice.
As the wood burns down into coals, I get the steaks ready by applying a rub. My special rub includes sea salt, coarse ground pepper, minced fresh garlic and dried oregano. I want to tell you: Put that on there, and it just doesn't get any better. I also like the Italian Grilling Rub in the recipe section on my website.
I like my steaks medium rare so I cook them about 5 to 6 minutes per side and turn them just once. The best tool to determine doneness is an instant-read meat thermometer. For medium rare, you want the internal temperature to read 140 to 145 degrees F and medium is 160 degrees F.
I like cold steak leftovers, so I always cook a few more steaks on the grill than I need for that meal. My family will either put the remaining steaks in a salad the next day or eat them in steak sandwiches.
Those are my secrets to perfect beef cooked on the home grill. I've got a different preference when I eat at a restaurant. But I'll save that for a future piece.
The Perfect Steakhouse Steak
While I love to cook, I do enjoy a good steak in a restaurant now and then. For me a good steak is essential to making restaurant dining pleasurable. Steak just has better flavor than any other protein that we can eat.
When I’m cooking a steak at home, I choose the ribeye. But a long time ago, I decided to order the filet whenever I ate at a steakhouse. The filet is from the tenderloin and the tenderloin is the leanest and tenderest of all beef cuts. Choosing this single cut solved two issues for me: I didn’t spend a lot of time reading the menu, and I’d always be satisfied with the combination of taste and tenderness when the steak arrived at my table. That’s because most steakhouse chefs have deep experience at cooking this thick premium steak perfectly.
I like the filet served with a side dish of creamed spinach and, if we’re drinking wine, I like the Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is a longtime personal favorite of mine and I think it is ideal to complement the flavor of beef.
One of my favorite restaurants to enjoy filet and creamed spinach is The Little Rhein Steakhouse in San Antonio. This restaurant has been on the San Antonio River for as long as I can remember, and I’ll get over there to eat at least three or four times a year. I’ve always enjoyed sitting in the outside dining area overlooking the river on a fall or spring evening.
Feel free to use my ordering strategy with your favorite steak the next time you’re at your local steakhouse. And if you’re ever in San Antonio, check out the Little Rhein. It really brings together all the sights and sensations of the Alamo City.