Boneless Short Ribs, What to Do?

A few weeks ago I picked up some boneless beef short ribs on special. I had no idea what to do with them, but at half off, I couldn’t resist. In the end I decided that my crock pot would be the way to go. I have several slow cooking cookbooks from my mother (who was also the source of my crock pot) and I decided to leaf through them and see what struck my fancy.

I found a likely candidate in my Better Homes and Gardens Crockery Cookbook (1994). The Beef and Vegetables in Red Wine Sauce sounded appealing and I had most of the ingredients on hand, well mostly, more on that later.

Beef and Vegetables in Red Wine Sauce

1 ½ pounds boneless beef bottom round steak, cut into 1-inch cubes*
1 tablespoon cooking oil (olive oil works just fine)
2 medium carrots, cut into 1/2 – inch pieces**
2 stalks celery, cut into ½-inch pieces***
1 cup quartered fresh mushrooms
½ cup sliced green onions****
3 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
1 14 ½-ounce can Italian-style stewed tomatoes*****
1 cup beef broth
½ cup dry red wine, white wine or beef broth (?) Use red.
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning, crushed
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf

1) Trim fat from meat; cut into 1-inch cubes. In a large skillet brown beef, half at a time, in hot oil. Drain off fat.

2) Transfer beef to a 3 ½- or 4-quart crockery cooker. Add carrots, celery, mushrooms, and green onions. Sprinkle with tapioca.

3) Combine undrained tomatoes, beef broth, wine or broth, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Pour over vegetables and meat.

4) Cover; cook on low-heat setting for 8 to 10 hours or on high heat setting for 4 to 5 hours. Discard bay leaf. Serve over hot cooked noodles. Makes 6 to 8 servings.

*Beef short ribs (duh!)
**peeled baby carrots cut into thirds
***I omitted the celery because: 1. My hubby can’t eat it and 2. I don’t like it cooked.
****Regular onions, because I didn’t have any green ones on hand.
*****1 28-ounce can of Italian style whole peeled tomatoes (again because that is what I had).

It was mighty tasty, even with all the modifications. In fact it was so good I made it again for Meryl’s birthday. And here it is, the next day on rice, because we ate all the noodles.


Beef&veggies
Originally uploaded by Teckelcar.

This one is definitely a keeper and is being added into regular rotation. Buying odd cuts of meat seems to be a good thing for me to do. It forces me to come up with new dishes.