Ribs... interrupted

First of all, how the heck have I gone almost a month without a post?!?! Yikes!
Sorry!

Anyways, last week I was inspired to make braised short ribs. For 2 reasons.
One- my friend Rob from work kept talking about them, and how amazing they (and his) are.
Two- I went to dinner with my friend Sue and she ordered them, which of course I tried a bite of, and I fell in love. Completely.
So the decision was made. I will make some!
And, with Hurricane Sandy on her way, I figured it would be a nice food to eat during the storm.
So I began....

Ribs, chopped onions, diced carrots (no, scratch the carrots, I forgot to buy them), red wine, beef broth, thyme, salt, pepper, Olive Oil (or bacon fat if you are smart enough to have some like I do).

Step one: Coat the ribs with salt, pepper & thyme, then sear the beef in the bottom of a nice dutch oven (in either bacon fat or oil) until is it crispy and brown. Take your time with this step! It may take 10-15 minutes. And don't over crowd the meat- do it in a couple batches if you need to (I did).
Once the meat is browned, remove it from the pan and set aside on a plate.

Step two: add the onions and carrots (if you have them) to the pan so that they soak up all the yummy stuff that the beef left at the bottom of the pan.

Once they are cooked a bit, add a cup or two of red wine (depending on your taste, and the size of your pot) and about 6-8 cups of beef broth (again, depending on the size of your pot).

 

After all that is happy, it's time to add the beef back to the mix (I guess this would be step 4. I lost count). Add them to the pot with the rib-down if you can, then cover and pop into a 325* oven for about 3 1/2 hours. If your lid isn't oven safe, or if you don't have one, just cover the pot tightly with foil.

 When they are done, you will have some amazingly tender, fall-off-the-bone pieces of meat that will be simply heavenly.
And (as suggested by my friend Rob) if you want to take things to another level, you can reduce the sauce (I will definitely be doing that next time!!!!)

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed this one (I know I did!).
Oh, and I should note that when the ribs had an hour left to cook I lost power thanks to Hurricane Sandy, so I packed the pot into a hot foods bag and took them to my parents house to finish (hence the title of this post).
Luckilymy mom had some yummy veggies and rice cooking, so we had a nice feast during the storm. :)

 

 

 



Stuffed

When god gives you peppers, stuff them. That's what I always say. Er, at least, that's what I say now.
You see, I had a ton of peppers from the garden and I had no idea what to do with them, so I decided to stuff them.
Although, that was not my initial plan.

My initial plan was to make some sauce with all the tomatoes I had.

 

 

Then I thought, hey, I have a small package of hamburg in the freezer. I should brown that and add it to the sauce. So I did.

Then I thought, oh, I have a little bit of rice in the cabinet. Why not cook that too, then stuff all the peppers with everything I just cooked? So that's what I did next. I cooked some rice.



Then I thought, well, while I am trying to use stuff up, I might as well add in the summer squash and eggplant that I have too. So, I did.

Then, I remembered I had some smoked mozzarella, so I decided to chop that up and add it to the peppers as well.

Once everything was chopped, I mixed it all together (with a little salt & pepper too of course).

Next, I prepped the peppers. To do this, simply cut around the stems and pull the top off. This way you get all the seeds.

Oh, and if the bottom of the pepper isn't totally flat, carefully slice a little off, but make sure not to cut a hole in the bottom of the pepper.

Next up, stuff and bake. I like to hit them with some serious heat so the peppers roast, so I put them ion a 425 oven for about 25 minutes.

That's it! Next step is enjoy!

See you soon!

xoxo

Family Dinner

Hi folks, welcome back!
Tonight I had my family over for dinner. I haven't had them over in a while, and my brother's girlfriend's birthday was a week ago, so we had a lot to celebrate.
And as of last night I had no idea what I was going to make.
But I got some inspiration from a movie I watched- Ratatouille. So I decided to make exactly that- ratatouille. And, for a nice Sunday dinner I thought roast beef (beef tenderloin to be exact) and roasted potatoes would be nice. And I hoped that all three would go together as a meal. I guess we'd find out.
Oh, and I also made an ice cream pie for dessert. I'll save that for the end.
To Begin: ratatouille.
I researched this a bit, and after finding several very complex French versions, I came across a very simple one from one of my favorite websites (and it's inspired by the movie's recipe): Smitten Kitchen.
So here goes.
Begin with a base of tomato puree, then add chopped onion, minced garlic and a tablespoon of olive oil and mix together.

Next, thinly slice zucchini, summer squash, red pepper and Italian eggplant (these are much smaller than regular eggplant). and begin layering them on top of the sauce in a ring, starting from the outside and working towards the center.

 Season with fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme or even basil would be good), salt, pepper, and a tablespoon of olive oil. Cover with parchment paper 9cut to fit inside the dish) and bake at 375 for 45 minutes (although I roasted them at 425 with the other things I was cooking today).

Next up- roasted potatoes. Roasted fingerling potatoes to be exact.

These are just really fun little potatoes that come in a few different colors. Like yellow, red and purple. I like them better than whole potatoes for really no other reason than they are cute and colorful.

Now, you can simply just wash and roast them, but I peeled them a bit and cut the larger ones so that all the potatoes were roughly uniform in size.

Then I drizzled them with a small amount of olive oil and some garlic, salt, pepper and thyme and tossed them into a roasting pan. These roasted at 425 for about an hour.



And finally, the beef. Beef tenderloin. Yum!

I was hoping to get a large one, but the market only had two 3-pounders, so that's what I got.

Now, a lot of people like to pan sear the beef before oven roasting it, which I recommend too, but I just had too much going on today so I skipped that step. Instead I rubbed the meat with a little olive oil and some salt & pepper, then I roasted them at 425 for about 50 minutes.

Now, if you have been paying attention, you would know that all three things I made are all going to cook at 425, all for about an hour, so luckily I could put them all in the oven together. I just waited a little while to put the vegetables in so that everything would be done at the same time.

This is super important when cooking, if not the most important- always time out your meal so that everything is done at the same time. My mother taught me this when I was younger, and it is one of the most important cooking tips I ever learned.

Now, in typical Carrie fashion, when I am cooking for company I Always Forget to take pictures when everything is done!!! Luckily tonight before we finished everything I remembered and snapped a few shots. Sorry they aren't the greatest, but you get the gist.

And p.s.: this meal was so good (if I may say so!).

    

 

Ok, as promised, here's dessert.

Per my brother, his girlfriend likes ice cream cake. And if it could be vanilla and maybe pumpkin too, that would be even better.

Challenge accepted.

Ingredients: vanilla ice cream, pumpkin ice cream, mini vanilla wafer cookies, vanilla wafer cookie crust, whipped topping and caramel sundae topping.

Let the ice cream get very soft (but not melted!) and mix it in a bowl so its the consistency of soft-serve ice cream. And do one layer of Ice cream at a time, freezing between layers (this step is Very Important!!!)

Layer one: vanilla. Topped with caramel sauce and crushed cookies.

(sorry for the lack of photos of this step)

Layer two: pumpkin. Topped with Cool Whip.

Then I decorated that with a ring of the cookies, filled with a dollop of caramel.

That's it! And, it was Super Delicious!!!

Ok kids, that's all for me tonight. Hope you enjoyed this one- I know I did!!!

See you soon.

Love, Me.