beef short ribs

Beef short ribs are something I've always wanted to try cooking but either couldn't find them, couldn't AFFORD them, or was intimidated by them. The stars aligned today, though - short ribs were in stock, they were on sale, and I wasn't afraid to throw them in the crock pot and see what happened!

What happened was this, and it was so, SO good:

mmm, beef!

The fact that I was ever intimidated by short ribs is really kind of laughable, given how dead easy these were to make and how well they turned out. I guess I was thinking they'd be sinewy and tough, but they turned out fall-apart tender and full of amazing beefy goodness.



I started by seasoning the ribs with salt and pepper and searing them off in a hot pan. The ribs then went into the crock pot with a large onion, a couple carrots, a couple stalks of celery, and five or six cloves of garlic, all chopped roughly. I added a bay leaf, a little allspice (like half a teaspoon), and about a quarter cup of dried porcini mushrooms that I crumbled. I deglazed the searing pan with some beef stock, then dumped that into the crock pot along with a couple more cups of beef stock. I probably ended up using about 3 cups of stock plus a cup or so of water. It all cooked on low for about six hours, then sat on "warm" until I got home a couple hours after that.


When I got home, I steamed some green beans, fished the ribs out, and took a stick blender to the liquid and softened veg left in the crock to make a velvety sauce to spoon over the ribs. Super quick, really easy, and OMG YUMMY.

Also, a side-note - you may notice the bottles of Shed Mountain Ale in the background. If you're somewhere where it's available and you like brown ale, you should definitely try it. It went with my short ribs wonderfully and I can definitely see it being a compliment to any kind of roasted or grilled beef or pork. It's kind of heavy-duty with an ABV of 7.4%, but it doesn't taste "boozy" like some higher-alcohol beers tend to. I don't usually write about beer here, but I enjoyed the Mountain Ale enough that I'm giving it a shout out...so that should tell you something.

braised ox tail

Today I was talking about how excited I was to get home to my slow cooker full of oxtail, and a friend mentioned that she found oxtail quite intimidating. I totally understand - oxtail is pretty weird-looking, and thinking about eating...well...a tail...squicks some people out. Plus, I think many people worry that like other offal, oxtail needs to have a lot of stuff done to it in order to make it edible That's happily not the case, though! Oxtail is VERY beginner friendly - you can braise it in a slow cooker, on the stove-top or even in the oven with very little effort at all. 

When oxtail is braised or roasted, the connective tissue running through the meat and cartilage between the bones eventually melts down. All that collagen gives the meat a silky, luxurious texture and a wonderful boost of umami. Plus, the gelatin that results from the melted collagen is full of natural glutamates, which are essential for healing a leaky gut and keeping a NON-leaky gut healthy, among other things.

A bowl of yum.

If you Google "oxtail recipes", you'll see some very Italian recipes, some Chinese ones, Jamaican ones, and plenty of others if you want to dig. It's good with the meat shredded and served over mashed potatoes, noodles or polenta (if you eat those things), but it's also wonderful just scooped out of the slow cooker in stew fashion. I cooked these oxtails for about seven hours on a bed of leeks, onion, carrot and garlic, then blended up the softened veg with the braising liquid and used that for the stew base. Easily my favorite iteration of oxtail so far.

This recipe is Paleo and Whole30 compliant. Enjoy! 

Slow Cooker Oxtail Stew

2 pkgs oxtail (my pkgs were about 1.5lb each)

2 large leeks

1 medium white onion

2 medium carrots, chopped or shredded

2 tbsp tomato paste (I like Cento, because it has no added sugar or weird stuff)

4-6 cloves of garlic (or more, if you're a garlic fiend like me)

1 bay leaf

2 cups of beef stock (if you're not doing a W30, you could use red wine to great effect! Water also works just fine)

1 tbsp bacon fat

salt and pepper to taste

1. Rinse oxtail segments and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper. In a large pan over medium-high heat, melt bacon fat. Once fat is melted, add oxtail segments and sear for a few minutes each side. You may need to work in batches - you don't want to crowd the meat in the pan too much because it will start to steam. 

2. While meat is searing, clean and chop the leeks, onion, carrot and garlic. Add all the veg to the slow cooker crock. Add in the tomato paste and give a stir to combine. 

3. When meat is seared, add the segments to the slow cooker, right on top of the veg. Using a little of your chosen cooking liquid, deglaze the pan you seared the meat in, being sure to scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom. 

4. Add the deglazed pan juices to the slow cooker along with the rest of the cooking liquid and the bay leaf. Set slow cooker to low, cover and allow to cook for 6-7 hours. Meat is done when it starts to fall off the bone / fall apart with gentle prodding.  I usually start checking mine at 5 hours...slow cookers vary!

5. When meat is cooked, use a slotted spoon to pull it out of the slow cooker. There will be some little round bones, about nickle- to quarter-sized - make sure you get them all out! This part can be a little painstaking, but it's worth it. Remove bay leaf and discard.

6. If you'd like, use a spoon to skim off some of the fat from the braising liquid (or use a fat separator thingy if you're fancy). If you've got plenty of time before you want to eat, the easiest way to do this is to put the liquid in the fridge or freezer for a little while to let the fat solidify, then just pop it off all in one layer. If you don't have time for that, just skimming with a spoon will do. Once you've got the liquid to your desired level of un-fattiness (technical term), spoon into a blender or food processor, or use an immersion blender (this is what I do) to puree the cooked veg and braising liquid. You could even skip the blending and just eat the cooked veg as-is, but I like the texture of the puree.

7. Spoon desired amount of puree into serving bowls. Add chunks of oxtail meat - it should pretty much fall apart when you take it off the bones, but if it doesn't (or if you want it finer than chunks), you can always use two forks to shred it. 

beef with onions, garlic, carrots and allspice

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I threw a beef chuck roast in the crock pot with a handful of baby carrots (wish I'd had more, honestly...but I ran out), half a sliced onion, three sliced cloves of garlic, some allspice, salt, pepper, a bottle of beer and a cup or so of water. I let it simmer on low all day. When it was done, the beef was literally fall-apart tender. The allspice gives the meat a nice hint of warmness. Not heat, really...but just a warm spicy note. I steamed some broccoli to go with it, which was a nice match. Yummy!

crock-pot pork roast, and bonus chili!

I was given a piece of pork loin roast rather unexpectedly on Sunday evening. It was still about half-frozen when I got it, so I let it sit in the fridge overnight to thaw. This morning, I fired up the crock pot and made a little spice rub for the meat out of paprika, cayenne, cumin, brown sugar, black pepper, oregano, salt, and a little garlic powder. I rubbed the meat with the mixture, then put it in the crock pot fat-side-up and added 1/2 a cup of water and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.

When I got home tonight, the smell in the house was amazing. It turned out that the liquid in the crock pot had all but boiled away, so next time I'll use more. I took the meat out and shredded it with forks. Well, I basically just helped it continue to fall apart, honestly...it's not like it took much effort to shred.

This is what it looked like:



The darker bits you see there are where the spice rub cooked onto the outside of the roast for hours and hours, and those bits in particular are spicy, slightly sweet, and crunchy / chewy. Oh, and FREAKING AMAZING. The rub created almost a bark akin to real barbecue, and it was super tasty.

After the meat was all shredded, I made a quick batch of chili by added the meat to 2 big cans of chopped tomatoes, a can of shelled beans, a can of white beans, and a little more apple cider vinegar. I let the chili simmer while I mixed up and baked a quick batch of corn muffins to go with it. The finished product looked like this:



Yum!

crock-pot pulled pork, and what to do with it

Mmm, pork! I love it, any which way it's prepared. This is one of my favorites - BBQ-flavored, loaded with onions and garlic, smothered in sticky sauce. It doesn't necessarily look pretty but the smell while it's cooking will drive you nuts, and it tastes like...like...well hell, it tastes like BBQ pork...what's better than that?!




To make pulled pork, I use my crock-pot. I know it's not technically barbecue as such, and I don't claim that it tastes quite the same as real smoked pork shoulder (excuse me, I'm drooling at the thought), but it's super easy and nearly entirely hands-off. I use pork tenderloin because it's leaner, but you can just as easily do this with pretty much any type of pork roast. Boneless is easier to shred later on, but bone-in will give you a little more porky porkness. Oink!

I threw 2 tenderloins in the crockpot, then pretty finely chopped one large yellow onion and threw that on top. Next came 6 cloves of garlic, chopped. I took half a bottle of prepared barbecue sauce and slowly whisked in 1 12oz bottle of Long Trail Double-Bag beer. I like the Double Bag because it has a bitterness to it that cuts through the sweet of the barbecue sauce nicely. To the sauce / beer mixture, I added 3 TBSP of brown sugar, 3 TBSP cider vinegar, and a dash of cayenne pepper. I whisked that till it was combined, then dumped over the meat, onions and garlic, and shook the crock a little to coat everything. The lid went on, I put it on high for 4 hours (though you can put it on low and leave it for as long as 8-10 hours with absolutely no problem...in fact it will likely taste better if you leave it that long), and I walked away.

Four hours later, I opened it up and pulled out the chunks of pork. It was falling apart every which way, and that's perfect. I shredded the meat with two forks and put it aside in a bowl. I wanted as much of the onion and garlic out of the sauce as possible, so I placed a mesh strainer over a pot and dumped the sauce through it. All the strained out onions and garlic went directly back into the shredded meat, while the pot of sauce was set on medium-high to reduce down for about 10-15 minutes (and for the love of all that's holy, make sure you use a big enough pot because if that stuff boils over you're going to have the mess to end all messes. Just sayin'!).

Once the sauce was to my liking, I took it off the heat and added a few ladles of it into the shredded meat and onion mixture. I mixed thoroughly, and kept adding more sauce, a little at a time, till I got the consistency I was looking for (shown in picture above, of course).

I decided as I was finishing the pork that I wanted to make tacos with it. I laid out some tortillas, smeared them with a little sour cream, plonked a few spoon fulls of the pork onto them, then added strips of green pepper, some roughly chopped cherry tomatoes, and a sprinkle of extra sharp cheddar. It could have used some chopped avocado, but I didn't have any.




I served these with nice cold bottled of Double-Bag. YUM!