I flew in Friday night from Atlanta for work and got home late. Saturday was spent running errands and then Saturday night was a family party for Teddy's cousin Casey's birthday. We spent a lot of the party talking and catching up. Teddy was of course downstairs playing games with the kids most of the time. :) It was good to see the extended family since we hadn't seen them all since Christmas.
Sunday I had lunch with some friends and then came home and made some delicious short rib stew. I sort of made up the recipe based on one I saw Brian Boitano (yes, that's the ice skater) demo on the Today show Saturday morning.
I couldn't find his recipe on line, so I took what he said on the show and went off memory to put it together. You'll have to excuse my lack of exactness with the recipe as this is how I cook, I rarely measure and go more on how it looks and tastes.
Ingredients:
5 short ribs
5 - 6 good size carrots peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 bunch of celery cleaned and chopped into bite size pieces
1 onion (I use vidalia) peeled and chopped into bite size pieces
1 red bell pepper cleaned and chopped
4 cloves of garlic roughly chopped
4 red potatos peeled and chopped (soak in water until ready to include)
1 container of baby portibello mushrooms cleanned and chopped
1 mini can of tomato paste
1 12 oz can of diced tomatos
1 cup or so of red wine
2 cups or so of chicken stock
1 bay leaf
4 - 5 sprigs of thyme
2 tbl of olive oil
salt & pepper (S&P) to taste
Heat the stew pot and add the olive oil.
Season then brown the short ribs on all sides and then pull out and set aside.
Add the chopped onions, carrots, celery, red bell pepper and garlic to the pot (season with S&P to taste)
Let those cook to where the onions start to become translucent and the carrots still have some crunch left.
Add the tomato paste, mix it into the veggies and let it cook a little
Add the red wine (make sure you pick up all the tasty bits on the bottom of the pot from cooking the meat and veggies with your spoon at this point to deglaze - lot's of yummy flavor)
Let the red wine cook down for a few minutes to reduce a little and concentrate it's flavor
Then add the diced tomatos and chicken stock
Mix it all in and taste it for any additional S&P needed
Then add back the short ribs, the bay leaf and thyme (I just throw the whole stem and everything from the thyme in - the leaves fall off in the cooking process and you can pick the stem out later)
Let this cook on a low heat for about 60 minutes
After the 60 minutes, add the diced potatoes.
Cook for another 30 minutes
After the 30 minutes add the mushrooms
Cook for another 30 minutes
Then it is ready!
Don't forget to pull out the bay leaf and the stems from the thyme. You also may have some bones from the short ribs floating around since the braising got them so tender they just fell right off their bone! While it was a long cooking process it was well worth it for a yummy Sunday dinner. And it was pretty easy to put together - just not a 30 minute week day meal. :)
We invited Teddy's dad over to try it since Teddy's mom went up North to see his sisters. I think he liked it. I'm not sure if I got all the components of Brian Boitano's dish, but his demo certainly inspired me to try something new. It turned out great and we have leftovers to enjoy sometime this week.
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