Meat and Potatoes, Rustic-Style

It all began with an elaborate dream of short rib paradise. Adam had long dreamed of it (at least, that was all I could assume from the way he rambled about it for hours). We were preparing a grand feast for the parental units. (This post's parenthetical asides brought to by no one in particular... we'll just co-write this one).

It turns out beef short ribs are not easy to find in Minnesota. Strange... considering the large number of cows around (and we only assume they have ribs).

Preparation. We peppered the raw meat to death, along some salt and olive oil. Then we seared them in a large cast iron pot we had preheated on the grill (apparently it's important that the pot is really hot. No rhyme intended. You really just want a quick sear on them then take them off).

In the meantime, we prepared a plethora of vegetables to accompany the beef. Onions, carrots, celery, rosemary and garlic were thrown in to cook with the rendered (melted) beef drippings.    

Oh... and we also made a side dish of potatoes. They weren't too involved. We mixed wedges with olive oil, garlic salt and pepper in a cake pan and baked them.

Once the onion started to turn translucent, we added the seared short ribs back into the pot. Then we let it cook on low heat (300 degrees) for 6 hours. No kidding. Allow a day for this. Or until the meat is falling of the bone (which for us, took 6 hours).

It was worth the wait, though. The beef turned out tender and juicy, and vegetable pan sauce (below) made a great side dish to the meat! It was most excellent.

By the end of the evening, Adam had sufficiently redeemed himself in the eyes of my parents from the notorious eggless raspberry skillet cornbread incident of last summer. But that's another story. All you need to know is... add eggs to cornbread. They're essential.