Anything Marsala is comfort food for me. Today it is short ribs. Can’t wait for dinner tonight!
Happy Mother’s day y’all or more like Merry Christmas from Colorado… Are you kidding me. One week of solid rain and topped off on Saturday night with a giant Spring blizzard. It was really bad last night friends, so bad in fact that we had to nix dinner plans and hunker down and stay home. Good thing that I had to negotiate a real estate contract otherwise I probably would have lost my mind. One thing to know about us Colorado folk, we are wusses when it comes to horrible weather. We complain like crazy when we don’t see the sun for two days. You can only imagine what it’s like when we have seven days and no sun. I am pretty certain that alcohol sales were up this past week, at least they were in my house…. But the good news, the sun is out (yeah) and one big melt off is happening. It’s gonna be in the 70’s this week so I am done complaining and now I can get my vegetables in the garden! I am so excited as this is the latest that I have planted my cold weather plants in years.
So last night’s dinner is going to be tonight’s instead. The last comfort winter food of the season and seemed appropriate given the snow storm and all. Cold winter weather and I happened to have all the ingredients in my house! (When does that ever happen)? My parents were visiting friends in Northern California and are finally able to get over the Colorado Passes after a longer than normal drive back. They didn’t believe how bad it was because the drive through Utah was beautiful and dry as a bone, then they hit Grand Junction last night and had to stop. They will arrive this afternoon and I’m going to bring the short ribs up to Evergreen as a little surprise. Mom doesn’t need to cook, getting dinner reservations would be nearly impossible to get and Marsala short ribs are better than brunch anyway! I am so happy I get to share this with my folks tonight! Enjoy!
- 1 1/2-2 pounds boneless short ribs
- Olive oil
- 1 large onion diced
- 1 pound button mushrooms, sliced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 3/4 cup Marsala wine
- 2 tsp marjoram
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 4 cups chicken broth (preferably homemade)
- 1 pound carrots (optional)
- parsley
- In a large dutch oven, coat the bottom liberally with olive oil. Heat to medium high. Season the short ribs with a little salt and pepper and in small batches brown on both sides. Remove and set aside.
- Add the onions and mushrooms and cook for about five minutes or until the onions become transparent and the mushrooms start to release some liquid. Add the garlic, marjoram, bay leaves, salt and pepper.
- Stir in the Marsala wine and scrape up any brown bits that sick to the bottom of the pan.
- Put the meat back in the pan and cover with chicken broth. Bring to a boil and place the pot in a pre-heated 350 degree oven.
- Cook for two hours and add the carrots and cook for one hour more (if not adding carrots, three hours cooking time).
Oh my! That’s a lot of snow! Wet heavy crap…
Trees snapped everywhere. Such a sad sight and a giant mess for a lot of people to clean up.
My outdoor garden isn’t so lucky. Actually I am quite sad. My Peonies (with over 50 buds) is gone. Boo.
They say never to plant before Mother’s Day. I couldn’t help myself, only in pots that I could bring in though!
Coming home from my folks and this BIG beautiful boy was on the road in Upper Bear Creek. So cool to be so close! They got less snow than us! Go figure!