It seems like I spent the whole day yesterday cooking.  I didn’t, but I did work for my food.  I got a late start to the market, about 2, but got some luscious short ribs.  As soon as I got home I had to start chopping veggies and garlic, dredging and browning ribs, sauteeing, then adding everything to the pot with the broth.   We had a couple of cups of homemade beef broth in the freezer, but I supplemented it with Swanson’s.  I ain’t proud.

Then I could rest up for an hour and a half while everything bubbled away (about 4:30). I cleaned up the worst of the kitchen mess, then went to sit out in the back with Min and read a little.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, as I said yesterday, the first we’d had in awhile.  Today’s another fine day.  I enjoyed sitting in the sun.  (And my apologies to those of you enduring a late in the season snowstorm.)

About a half hour before serving time I added some sliced shrooms to the pot, then got the wheat noodles on to boil.  If I do say so myself, the meal was worth all the work.  Just delicious.  Below’s the recipe if you’re interested.  I got it from allrecipes.com and modified a bit.  It wasn’t all that hard, just a lot of prep work up front, but no more than if you made this in a crock pot.  I also use more onions and garlic then is called for here because I’m a barbarian who likes to punch up the flavor, and I may have added more celery and carrots as well.  Okay, so maybe my wrist got a little heavy on the wine, too.  I also added the mushrooms in the last half hour of cooking because I like mushrooms in stuff like this, dammit.

Smothered Beef Short Ribs

  1. 1/2 cup olive oil
  2. 4 pounds beef short ribs
  3. salt and pepper to taste
  4. 1 cup all-purpose flour (I use wheat flour as it adds a really nice dimension to the flavor)
  5. 2 cups chopped onions
  6. 1 cup chopped celery
  7. 1 cup chopped carrots
  8. 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  9. 3 bay leaves
  10. 1 tablespoon dried thyme
  11. 1 cup red wine
  12. 8 cups beef stock
  13. 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Heat the oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Season the ribs with salt and pepper to taste and dredge them in flour. Fry the ribs in the oil in small batches, adding oil as needed, to sear the meat. This should take 2 to 3 minutes per batch. Set ribs aside.

In the same pot, add the onions and saute for 2 minutes. Add the celery and carrots and saute for 1 more minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and then stir in the garlic, bay leaves and thyme and cook for 1 more minute.

Deglaze the pot with the red wine, scraping up all the bits on the bottom. Add the stock, bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer. Add the ribs and continue to simmer for 2 hours, until the sauce thickens. Stir in the parsley and serve.