Short Ribs and Mashed Turnips

Our local mid town Hispanic Market had an ad in the mid town paper with short ribs on sale....cheap. Never one to pass up a bargain (ask anyone) I stopped after work and picked up 4 pounds of beefy heaven for Sunday dinner. Now, the last time I made these they were fatty and not a lot of meat and just Ok but this time they had a crazy amount of meat and looked great. I have looked up a bunch of recipes including the ultimate recipes but I think I going to settle for a more traditional approach and use my Beef Bourguignon recipe for the greater part.

Tonight I browned the ribs in a bit of their own fat and settled them into the crock pot on a bed of onions for a early morning start. To this I added a few strips of bacon, a few cloves of crushed garlic, some thyme and 3 bay leaves and into the fridge for the night. Tomorrow I shall begin the process with 4 cups of beef broth, a splash of red wine and a long slow cook.

To the rendered fat I added a 1/2 cup of flour and made a nice copper penny colored roux. I set that aside for thickening unless I decide to make a buerre manie instead.  I hope these live up to my expectations but darn they look good.

I will serve this tomorrow over a bed of mashed turnips. I know, sounds so gross to the basic turnip hater but these are great as a mashed spud substitute and they have a very unique clean flavor I love. If it weren't for the sugar spike, spuds are always my first choice but things as they are, I am always looking for a carb substitute and these are crazy good. A few mushrooms added late in the cooking tomorrow and we will have a feast to match our cold snap (the heat is on today).

Finished Short Ribs in a beefy gravy with mushrooms. Delicious but a lot like pot roast and more work. I'll stick to a pot roast next time.

Lean meaty ribs

Dirty Martini's at Bravo Cucina Italiano

I found out that I love a nice Dirty Vodka Martini. Now generally I prefer top grade vodka but every Wednesday, at the newly opened Bravo's here in the metro, they have $5 Martinis made with Sobieski Vodka. I have to admit it was a great martini. Paired with a few Gorgonzola stuffed olives and I was in heaven. I sided that with a nice Caesar salad and a bowl of Lobster Bisque and Wednesday just became my new favorite day of the week.

Ok the restaurant is very new and they are working out some kinks. I had a second martini (I told you I liked them) and made arrangements for my lovely bride to drive. Thes econd one arrived on a tray with a Raspberry Martini meant ofr another table. There was a raspberry seed in my glass and I could taste raspberry ( I have a very good taster) so perhaps the shaker was not as cclean as it could have been. I did not send it back but I will if it happens again.  Overall the place is great and we sat outside, wonderful!

Teriyaki glazed Back Ribs

I had to make these again for my pal Matt. We were headed to their house to watch the game and having some late dinner type tail gate food. Earlier in the day I pulled a package of the ribs from the freezer cause Matt liked them so much the last time. I was making chicken wings anyway so the oven was already on.

This recipe is from the link I gave earlier to Tyler Florence's Ultimate show.

First, prep the ribs. I remove the membrane on the bone side and give them a good coat of 5 spice powder, salt (easy you're using Soy Sauce later) and pepper. Into the oven on a foil lined pan at 300 for a good 3 hours.

For the glaze:

1 cup low sodium Soy Sauce
1 cup grapefruit juice
1/4 c Hoisin Sauce
3 T ketchup
3 T rice vinegar
1 Red chili split
2 garlic cloves smashed
2 inch piece of ginger smashed

I used my Ginger Garlic paste from the Indian store and it worked just fine.

Put this all in a pot to boil then simmer for 20 minutes till its thickened and reduced. This is also great for Salmon but baste the ribs in this and return to the oven for 10 minutes, baste again, bake again then remove. Watch them as the sauce will burn if you let it. The result are fantastic mahogany colored ribs that taste great.  Garnish with green onion and sesame seed if desired.

The game turned out OK, we won but not sure we should have and Lori made some of the best stuff too. Stromboli and stacked meats and cheese and olives on skewers. The hit of the night was some Cajun Shrimp dip Lori had made. So good.

A slow cooking week for us....

I had made a whole batch of Chili Colorado Burritos and enchiladas but none of the kids were available to eat so we froze them all for a later date. I set aside a bowl of chili for Brenda but that did not even get eaten. We have been preoccupied with the deck removal and patio installation porject. Seems to be taking longer than we expected and our daily routine is interrupted and my grill is barely accessible so I have not been cooking as usual. We are learning to cook for two now and the fridge does not seem nearly so full. Any leftovers that I plan for lunch sometimes get taken for an after work dinner if one of the kids has been doing multiple shifts. Twelve hour nights can take its toll.

Since we are still in the early stages of empty nest syndrome, I feel a little obligated to have enought for stop by company and just in case situations. They are getting less and less but for someone who loves to cook, its tough scaling back. I am definitely a large scale cooker, the bigger the better and I really love doing multiple meals at the same time. On Saturday I had made a few pizzas, the crust is really quite nice lately so I must have turned a corner, chicken wings and started the Chili Colorado for burritos. Seemed like the kitchen was a mess all day though.  Mackenzie came over after the game but wasn't hungry so we had lots to snack on for the rest of the weekend.

I did get a Natural Gas installation on the patio and converted the new grill to Natural Gas so I am excited about that part of the project. We were a little diappointed to not find patio furniture this late in the year and my search for the perfect outdoor lighting has been a bust so far but gives me something to plan for all winter.

Not quite done yet

Painting Progress

Last few days have been strengthing the proplasmos, beginning to apply features and round out faces.

Eating Omaha...Dinker's Bar

I have not been to Dinker's in years and I am not sure anything has changed...but I didn't see a Foosball table so maybe it has. A great little bar in South Omaha close to where I grew up and spent some evenings there with friends in my 20's. Perhaps a few too many evenings.
Touted as Omaha's Best Burger just recently in the local paper, Matt has been there for lunch a few times and remarked the crowd is Mercedes to trucks with ladders for the lunch crowd.
The food is great, the burgers fresh and patted out to order with some amazing combinations. I had the Buffalo Blue Cheese burger, Brenda enjoyed a Jalepeno Burger, Lori had a Patty Melt and Matt had a BlueJay Burger. All of them were delicious with fries or onion rings.
None of us tried the Haystack Burger famous for its fried egg topping (and the winning burger BTW) but frankly it looked like a heart attack waiting to happen. A few pitchers of beer and we were well satisfied. Cash only though so beware and you order yourself but the food is delivered.

Zucchini Curry

- submitted by Dahlia on 09-16-2008  (Zucchini Sabzi, Zucchini Kurma) Ingredients Zucchini - 2 Onion - 1 (finely chopped) Tomato - 2 (finely chopped or pureed) Ginger garlic paste - 1 tblsp Green Chiles - 2 (finely chopped) Corriander-cumin powder - 1 tsp Chili powder - 1 tsp (or as needed) Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp Garam Masala - 1/4 tsp Mustard seeds - 1/4 tsp Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp Cilantro - for garnish Salt - as needed Oil - 2 tblsp

- submitted by Dahlia on 09-16-2008

Method 1. Chop the zucchini into big chunks. Heat 1 tblsp of oil in a pan and shallow fry the pieces. Keep it aside. 2. Remove the zucchini pieces from the pan, add an additional tblsp of oil and splutter the mustard and cumin seeds. 3. Saute the onions with the green chiles for 10 minutes until they turn nice golden brown. 4. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry for a minute. 5. Add the tomato pieces/puree and let the mixture cook for atleast 10 minutes until the  tomatoes are pulpy. 6. Add all the dry spice powders- chili powder, corriander-cumin powder , turmeric powder, garam masala powder and salt. 7. Add the zucchini pieces and required water. Bring the gravy to a boil . 8. Simmer the gravy till oil floats on top. Check for seasoning and adjust if needed. 9. Finally, add finely chopped cilantro and switch off. Serve hot with any roti varieties or rice. Tips & Variation      - You can also roast 3 tblsp of grated coconut, make a fine paste of it and add to the gravy. This gives nice thickness and taste to the curry. (Here is Ivygourd curry made in a similar way.)      - Another variation is to add 1/2 cup of coconut milk to the gravy at the end and just heat it through.      - You can also substitute zucchini with other vegetables like ivygourd (tindoora, kovakai) or any dried beans (lima beans, kidney beans, butter beans etc).

 http://simpleindianrecipes.com

Shrimps and veggies

I had about 9 nice large roasting shrimps in the freezer and a bit of cauliflower, some fresh zucchinis, canned spuds and a desire to make that Indian vegetable dish again. The shrimp were easy,  just roasted in a shallow pan with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper at 350 for 15 minutes or less.

I had picked up my missing spices at the local market. They had a whole section of bulk spices cheap, so I used a little brown mustard seed and cumin seed and followed the recipe I posted earlier (yes Virginia, I actually use my own blog!) Tasty.

Sunday Dinner

We just arrived from a roadtrip to visit Brenda's folks in Loomis Ne (pop 382) and returned with a box load of squash, cucumbers, beets and tomatoes.  From the road, I asked Ben to put some ribs in for Chinese spareribs (again) since he and the others had not yet tried them. They were fragrancing up the house as we walked in. So with all the fresh veggies and a few leftovers from last week, a stir fry dish was in order to compliment the ribs.

I have broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash and snow peas. A few green onions and some garlic will round out the dish I am sure.

Proplasmos....the first layers

 

After the gilding the painting begins. First layers are called 'sankir' or 'proplasmos' and set the foundation for the icon. Laying in the raw underlayment, it will be painted over several times to make a more opaque layer before the highlights begin. This stage looks a bit random and colors are tried and painter over until the right mix is achieved then the highlights begin and shapes become round and folds appear. It's a process.