We had some old friends over for cigars, drinks and dinner last night. When I say "old" I mean they are really old, like 80 something. Seriously... They were the first couple that we met when we drove up here looking at our little 10 acres of Lookout Mountain brow property and we've been friends ever since.

So we invited them over for braised short ribs in the middle of the week, because that's what retired people do... We ain't got no place to be the next day!

I had picked up some very well marbled short ribs at the store a while ago and have been wanting to cook them ever since and last night was a good excuse. I cook these similar to the way I cook oxtails.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

I season them with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and red pepper flakes, then I sear them in my cast iron Dutch oven for about 3 minutes per side.
Next take them out of the pan, and add in chopped carrot, celery, onion and fresh garlic.
When that all gets a little tender pour in about 1/4 cup of a good red wine and deglaze the pan.
Add in some diced tomatoes and a heaping teaspoon of Better than Bullion. Stir all that up and get it to a simmer.
Add all the meat back in there tucking them all in to what's going to be a delicious sauce in a few hours.

You don't want these covered, you only want these partially in the sauce.

Cook them for about 4 hours or until you can stick a fork in them, twist it and the meat starts to come apart.

Place the lid on slightly ajar so they don't just steam in there, you want some hot oven air circulating around in that Dutch oven, plus you want the whole cabin smelling like you have died and gone to beef heaven.

Mrs. Irish made some roasted garlic mashed potatoes and Bettina made green beans, pecan pie and homemade pecan ice cream (Sorry boys no pics of the pecan pie and ice cream.)

Nicely marbled...




Browning a few at a time...




Mrs. Irish is a veggie choppin' machine, and she made me a nice little bouquet of herbs from her herb garden...




Ready to serve with all that delicious sauce...




A plate just about anybody would love. It was better than eating a steak.

Would smash

My kind of meal. About the only thing I would add would be shrooms.

One of my favorites. Very nice meal!!

X2

Very nice!!!!

Wow. I love making those and yours is making me hungry!! Where does the rosemary and tyme come in?

Very nice!

That looks fantastic. Love short ribs Whenever I would eat At Coopers Hawk restaurant that is one of my favorite rotation menu items. They had a short rib sandwich with tomato soup that’s pretty good too.

Top notch, looks great

Damn that looks good! Well done Irish.

Never disappoints. Excellent!

I stuffed it in there when I put the meat back in the pot before I put it all in the oven.

About halfway through, I pull the pot out of the oven and turn over the meat and tuck it all back in the sauce.

Thanks guys. It was a fun meal to make, to eat and to share with friends.

It's cool that you can put it on and basically forget about it while you and you friends just hang out. Plus when everyone shows up and steps in the cabin the first thing they say is, "It smells so good in here!"

OH MY!

This is incredible looking!