Italian Braised Short Ribs in Red Wine

I love using my slow-cooker. Especially when I find a recipe with an exceptionally long cooking time such as this one. During the week I'm away from home for about 9 1/2 hours a day, and lately I've also been doing TurboFire after work in my garage "gym" which adds another hour (I try to workout in the mornings but lately I've been lacking the motivation to get up that early). So an ideal slow-cooker recipe for me is one that can go at least 10 hours, if not more. Ding Ding Ding - we have a winner with this one! On low it goes 10-12 hours. Perfect! And it calls for two cups of wine, which uses enough of the bottle to justify finishing off the rest yourself :-)

I realize that it's now grilling season, but I made this recipe a month ago when it was still cold and wet, at least where I live, and even though I'm way behind I still really wanted to blog about it.

I really like this cookbook (it was a bridal shower gift) - it's by the makers of Crock-Pot and it features more "gourmet" recipes than other slow-cooker books I've seen. Each recipe has a full page photo. I've also made their recipe for maple whiskey glazed beef brisket which was excellent. It has a lot of breakfast/brunch type recipes that I want to try someday as well.

Italian Braised Short Ribs in Red Wine
adapted from Crock-Pot Gourmet Slow Cooking Recipes
serves 4-6

Note: For this recipe, the package of short ribs we had in the freezer ended up only being about two pounds, instead of the three that the recipe called for. We went ahead with it anyway, still using the full amount of all the other ingredients. While we only had enough meat for about three servings, there was still plenty of delicious broth, onions and mushrooms leftover, so we added some cooked wild rice and turned it into a soup for a second meal later in the week. 

3 pounds beef short ribs, trimmed of excess fat
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil, plus more if needed
2 large onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 pound baby bella or cremini mushrooms, cleaned and quartered
2 cups red wine
2 cups beef broth
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

Spray the inside of a 5 1/2 quart slow-cooker with cooking spray. Season the short ribs with a little salt and pepper. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working in batches, add the ribs and brown on all sides, adding additional oil as needed. Transfer ribs to slow-cooker as they finish browning.

To the same skillet you were just using, add the onions. Cook, stirring often, for about 3-5 minutes, until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, mushrooms, wine,  broth, and Italian seasoning. Stir to combine. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook for about 3 minutes. Pour this mixture over the short ribs in the slow-cooker. Cover and cook on low for 10-12 hours or on high for 6-8 hours, or until beef is tender. Taste and season with salt and pepper as needed.

Transfer ribs, mushrooms and onions to a serving plate. Strain the remaining liquid to get a smooth sauce. Serve with mashed potatoes or polenta and drizzle the whole meal with the strained sauce.

Shredded Beef Taquitos

I wasn't really all that excited about the Superbowl this year. Unlike the majority of my extended family on my mom's side, I am not a Steeler's fan (my grandpa joked that he's still crying over their loss). My apathy about the game did not stop me from getting excited about the food, however. For some reason I really had a craving for taquitos, and I wanted to make them from scratch, for the first time, ever.

For the filling, I decided I wanted to do shredded beef, an obvious choice for us, seeing as we have so much on hand these days. A quick google search for a good taquito recipe introduced me to one of my new favorite food blogs: Life's Ambrosia. She had it all figured out: directions on how to make the taquitos and a recipe for cooking a beef roast in a slow cooker to get the shredded beef. Perfect! I compared her recipe to a few others and decided I liked her method the best.

Some recipes want you to roll the taquitos and then fry them in oil - tasty, for sure, but not the healthiest method. Others have you simply microwave the tortillas, roll, then bake. From what I read, however, microwaving did not make them pliable enough - so the tortillas tore as you tried to roll them.

It seems that this recipe had the best of both worlds: first, you lightly fry the tortillas in a small amount of oil (just like my grandma does when she makes shells for tacos!) making them perfectly pliable, then you roll them up with the meat, and bake for a bit in the oven. The taquitos were nice and crispy, and not too oily.

The meat filling was great. I cooked a 5-pound roast the day before the game in the slow cooker and shredded it with two forks. I realize this seems like a lot of meat, but since I was going to all this trouble, I wanted to make it worth my while and make a big batch of taquitos, plus this way we would have leftover meat. Once I assembled all the taquitos (I made about 30), I baked a small tray of them to eat that night, and froze the rest, unbaked, for future meals. We used the rest of the meat for sandwiches later on in the week.

Shredded Beef Taquitos
adapted from Life's Ambrosia
makes about 30 taquitos

Notes: These would be just as good filled with cooked chicken or pork.

Canola or vegetable oil (as needed, should have at least 1/2 cup on hand)
30, 6-inch corn tortillas (yellow or white)
4 cups cooked beef, shredded (recipe follows)

Optional toppings:
Cheddar cheese, shredded
Guacamole

If baking the taquitos right away, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Heat a couple tablespoons of the oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When hot, carefully fry the tortillas, one at a time, about 30 seconds per side. Drain on paper bags, like my grandma does, or paper towels. You just want to fry them enough to get them really soft and pliable, not crisp.

Once you've fried about half of the tortillas, you can turn off the heat for now, and start filling and rolling them. I had to do batches because I ran out of room on the counter to drain my tortillas.

To fill the taquitos, place about 2 tablespoons of the meat onto the tortilla and roll tightly closed. Be careful not to overfill or it might not close very well. Lay them side-by-side, tightly together on a baking sheet so they stay rolled up while you assemble the rest.

Finish frying, filling, and rolling the rest of the tortillas.

If baking all or some of the taquitos right away, arrange them on a baking sheet with a little space between each one. If any threaten to unroll, secure with a toothpick. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. The ends will get browned and the meat sticking out of the ends will look a little crispy.  

Optional: Remove baking sheet from the oven, and sprinkle taquitos with cheese. Broil until the cheese is melted and bubbly, then remove from the oven and serve with guacamole.  

To freeze: Arrange rolled, unbaked taquitos on a baking sheet with some space between them. Freeze for about an hour, then pile them into freezer bags and freeze. Bake, straight from frozen, at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Add shredded cheese and broil if desired. 

Roast Beef in the Slow Cooker
adapted from Life's Ambrosia
makes all the shredded beef you could ever want, and then some

Notes: Since I used a larger roast than she did, I increased all the spice measurements. Other than that, I did not really change anything.

1 (5 lb.) beef roast, trim fat if desired
1 1/2 tablespoons salt (I used Kosher)
1 1/2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons chili powder
2 teaspoons granulated garlic
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons oregano
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups beef broth
2 cups water (or more as needed to cover)
1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
4 cloves garlic, peeled

Mix together the salt, pepper, chili powder, granulated garlic, cumin, and oregano. Rub onto all surfaces of the roast.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Brown the roast on all sides, 4-5 minutes per side. Put the roast into the slow cooker. Add the onions, garlic cloves, broth and water. The roast should be almost all the way covered, if not completely covered with liquid. Put the lid on and cook on high for about 8 hours.

Remove roast from slow cooker and shred with two forks.

Chicken Tacos with Rice and Beans

I don't feel like anything we made tonight could qualify as a "recipe", yet I was really happy with the end result.  

When I was home for lunch today, I put two chicken breasts in the slow cooker, along with about 16 ounces of salsa.  I put it on low and went back to work (My mom told me about this method for cooking chicken, by the way).  When I got home, I shredded the chicken with two forks right in the slow cooker and then stirred it all up.  

Next, I put a tiny pat of butter in a pan, then added about a cup of frozen corn and cooked that for a bit, and added some salt.  Then I threw in some leftover black beans (about half a cup).  Then I decided it needed a little something extra so I added a good sprinkling of chili powder and cumin and cooked for another minute or two. 

I scooped the beans and corn into a bowl, then added a tiny bit more butter to the same pan.  I sprinkled a heaping teaspoon of tumeric over the melted butter and stirred it around for about 30 seconds, then added about a cup of leftover white rice and kept stirring until the color was evenly distributed and the rice was warmed through.  I loved the yellow hue of the rice and the butter and tumeric added a nice flavor.  It satisfied my urge to have a "special looking" rice side dish but also my desire to not work very hard for that result.

By the way, I was really not trying to be fancy with the plating of the meal here; it is easier to fill the tacos if you first put rice and beans on either side to hold them up!  

All in all, a good meal to bid farewell to the last of my pack of Foster Farms chicken.  It was cheap, but I can't buy that kind of chicken anymore with a clear conscious, darn it.  Luckily, since that chicken lasted us about 6 months, it shows that we really don't cook with it that much anyway.  Most things we usually would use chicken for anyway (burritos, tacos, enchiladas, salads, etc)  can easily be modified to use beans, tempeh, or tofu instead (case in point: while in college I once ordered a pasta dish for dinner at our dining hall and I was about halfway through eating it when I realized that what I thought were pieces of chicken were actually pieces of tofu, so apparently it makes no difference to me).