Weekend Dinner Finale

You would think a big gooey cheese salad followed by a bowl of piping hot onion soup would be enough for dinner on a snowy freezing day, but then you would be wrong.  The man of the house wanted, you guessed it, meat.  Sad thing is I actually understand - it's not easy to come down off a hamburger high you know, these things have to be eased into.

Keeping with the winter weather theme, I made a short rib braise with roasted potatoes and carrots using a recipe I adapted from the Zuni Cafe cookbook's Short Ribs Braised in Chimney Ale. 

The book recommends salting the ribs a day or two in advance, but I know from experience that when your husband whines about eating only vegetables for dinner and you have to make a quick decision, that an hour in advance works too.  Brown the ribs in a heavy pot or dutch oven.  Remove the ribs and add one sliced onion, 6 sliced button mushrooms, 2 bay leaves and cracked pepper.  Nestle the ribs back in and then add equal parts veal stock and Heineken beer until it comes partially up the side of the ribs.  Simmer covered with a tight fitting lid for two hours or so until the meat is very tender.

Then just before serving, take the ribs out and brush them with Dijon mustard and then broil them until the mustard is lightly browned.  Very simple, but don't let that fool you.  The dish was surprisingly good.

And no there was no typo, this was the finale for the night.  There wasn't even a tiny bit of space left for dessert.  So I made that on Sunday.