Cooking Tips from Joshua Tree: Prime Rib Made Easy with Sous Vide

 

Prime Rib Made Easy with Sous Vide

A standing rib roast doesn’t need a holiday to be worth making — especially when prime rib goes on sale more often than people realize. Using a sous vide method, you can take a Choice-grade roast and cook it evenly, tender, and juicy with almost no stress.

If you’ve ever worried about overcooking a prime rib or drying it out, sous vide removes most of the guesswork.

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What You Need for Sous Vide Prime Rib

You’ll need a sous vide machine. They’re affordable now, and even basic models are more than capable of handling a standing rib roast.

A vacuum sealer is helpful but not required. If your roast fits in a heavy-duty freezer bag using the water displacement method, that works just fine. For very large roasts or frequent use, a vacuum sealer makes things easier but isn’t mandatory.

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Choosing the Right Prime Rib Roast

During the holidays, my local supermarket had standing rib roasts on sale — Choice grade at $7.99 per pound. That’s a solid mid-range option, but the marbling isn’t as forgiving as Prime grade.

Prime rib with less marbling dries out more easily in traditional oven cooks. Sous vide solves that problem by cooking the meat in a sealed, temperature-controlled environment, minimizing moisture loss.

Even cooked to medium, a sous vide prime rib stays tender and juicy from edge to edge.

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Preparing the Prime Rib (Important Step)

For this cook, I used two roasts — one about 9 pounds and another around 7 pounds. Because of their size, I removed the ribs so they would fit properly in the bags.

Very important: salt the prime rib liberally one day before cooking and leave it uncovered in the refrigerator.
This dry-brining step allows the salt to penetrate the meat, improves flavor, and helps retain moisture during cooking.

Before bagging, season with your preferred rub. I kept it simple with just salt and pepper. The au jus provided plenty of flavor, so anything more felt unnecessary.

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Sous Vide Prime Rib Time and Temperature

Set the sous vide water bath to 138°F and cook the prime rib for 12 hours. This temperature brings the roast to a consistent medium while keeping the meat evenly cooked throughout.

After 12 hours, reduce the temperature to 130°F to hold the roast without continuing to cook it. This is especially useful if you’re transporting the roast or waiting to serve.

For travel, wrap the bagged roast in towels and place it in a cooler to maintain temperature.

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Searing and Serving the Prime Rib

When ready to serve, preheat the oven to broil. Remove the roast from the bag and pat it completely dry with paper towels. Drying the surface is essential for achieving a good sear.

Broil the prime rib for a few minutes until a crust forms, watching closely to avoid over-browning.

One benefit of sous vide prime rib is that you’re not cutting into a screaming-hot roast. Slicing immediately just to show off how juicy it is usually results in juices pooling on the cutting board.

Personally, I think that’s ego.

If the roast is cooked properly, it will stay juicy without the theatrics. Serve with hot au jus and slice calmly — the results speak for themselves.

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Why Sous Vide Is Ideal for Prime Rib

Sous vide cooking removes timing stress, prevents overcooking, and delivers consistent results even with Choice-grade meat. Whether it’s for a holiday, a family gathering, or just because prime rib is on sale, this method makes a traditionally intimidating roast straightforward and repeatable.

Another Campfire Story from Joshua Tree: Amityville — America’s Most Haunted House

Another campfire story from Joshua Tree… Tonight, we leave the desert behind and travel east — far from open skies and quiet highways — to a modest house tucked along the canals of Long Island, New York. At first glance, it looks ordinary. A family home. White siding. Dark shutters. A calm neighborhood. But inside this house, something happened that would permanently change how America talks about hauntings. This is the story of Amityville — often called America’s Most Haunted House. In November of 1974, six members of the DeFeo family were found murdered in their beds. The crime alone was horrifying enough. But what followed would turn a tragedy into a legend. Just over a year later, the Lutz family moved into the home. They didn’t last a month. What they claimed to experience still divides believers and skeptics to this day. Unexplained noises in the night. Cold spots that followed them from room to room. Doors slamming without warning. Voices. Apparitions. And a growing sense that something inside the house wanted them gone. Some say the activity was psychological — trauma layered on trauma. Others believe the house itself was altered by what happened there, becoming something more than wood and walls. And then there are the details that refuse to sit quietly. The identical stories told independently. The strange timing of events. The lingering reports from later occupants — long after the spotlight faded. In tonight’s video, we explore the murders, the alleged hauntings, the investigations, and the controversies that followed. We look at what can be verified, what remains disputed, and why this single house became the blueprint for modern American haunted-house mythology. Is Amityville a case of mass suggestion? A haunting rooted in violence? Or something darker — a place permanently marked by what occurred within it? Decades later, the house still draws attention. Still sparks arguments. Still refuses to fade into history. Because whether you believe the stories or not, Amityville represents something deeper — the idea that some places remember. And sometimes, they don’t forget. Watch the full breakdown in the video below, and decide for yourself what truly happened inside America’s most infamous haunted house. Until the next campfire…

Another Campfire Story from Joshua Tree — The Legend of La Llorona

 Another campfire story from Joshua Tree…

Tonight we wander far from the high desert, following a legend born in the riverbanks 

of Mexico and carried all the way into the canals, lakes, and dark waterways of the 

American Southwest. It’s a story almost everyone has heard — yet no one can agree on 

where it truly began.

They call her La Llorona.  

The Weeping Woman.

For centuries, travelers walking near rivers late at night have reported the same thing:  

the faint sound of a woman crying… long before they ever see her.

Some accounts say she appears in a white dress, soaked and heavy, drifting along the 

water’s edge with her head down and her hair hiding her face.  

Others swear she glides rather than walks, and that her voice echoes farther than any 

human voice should.

And the strangest part?  

The sightings haven’t stopped.

From Mexico City to New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and even pockets of California,  

people still claim to see her — not as a myth, but as a real presence that crosses 

borders, generations, and cultures.

In tonight’s video, we explore the origins of the legend, the divide between folklore 

and eyewitness reports, and the chilling modern encounters that continue to keep this 

story alive. Some are brief glimpses along lonely desert highways. Others involve cries 

that sound impossibly close… or figures that vanish as soon as they’re approached.

Why does this archetype appear in so many places?  

Why always near water?  

And why do the stories feel less like superstition — and more like something ancient 

that people are still trying to warn us about?

Whether La Llorona is a ghost, a memory, an echo, or something far stranger, one thing 

is certain: the legend refuses to fade.

And somewhere out there, along some forgotten riverbank, someone will hear her again.

Watch the full breakdown in the video below, and decide for yourself what the Weeping 

Woman truly is.

Until the next campfire…