Thursday, September 29, 2011

Pie for Dinner: Short Rib, Stout, and Potato Pot Pie

We eat meat...and a lot of it in this house! If anyone is a meat & potatoes kind of guy, it's my manly hubby. Throw in Fall temperatures and this picture on the cover of Martha Stewart Living...

the hubs makes the request, and this lady gets to cooking!

Here's how I made this delicious one-pot meal!

BRAISED SHORT RIB, STOUT, AND POTATO POT PIE (or pies!)
First, my little notes....
I halved the recipe that was in the magazine, and it would have been enough to serve 4 people if you had some side items. Some roasted veggies would be delish with this!

Y'all, I purchased a cheap "dutch oven" from Wal-Mart and I loved cooking in it! I wasn't ready to splurge for a big fancy one, but it might just go on my Christmas list!

I was also afraid that it would taste like beer, and I don't like anything beer-flavored. I was pleasantly surprised that it had a little bit of a kick, but not a beer taste at all!

I would advise you to start this meal about 4 and a half to 5 hours before you want to serve it. It's an all day cook, but you aren't working on it all day.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees & get out your favorite Dutch oven or slow-cooking pot!
Gather these ingredients (these amounts are for serving 4 people):

FILLING:
2 lbs. Boneless Short Ribs (I picked up some high quality ones at Richard's Meat Market in Fayetteville. YUM!)

Coarse Salt & Ground Pepper for seasoning the meat

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 T Safflower Oil (I read that it is one of the best oils for high temperatures and frying, so I went ahead and picked up a bottle of it.)

1/2 Medium Yellow Onion, Thinly sliced

2-3 Garlic Cloves (Martha says to thinly slice them. Since I use so much garlic in my kitchen & it takes me forever to handle it, I buy the giant bottle of garlic at the store & just use it. EASY!)

1 Bottle Stout Beer (I used Guiness Extra Stout)

Sprig of Rosemary

1/2 lb Cipollini Onions, peeled (Couldn't find these, so I used scallions.)

TOPPING:
2 Medium Russet Potatoes, peeled & very thinly sliced

EVOO for brushing

Coarse salt & Ground Pepper

Alright, let's get started! I tried to remember to take pictures along the way, so you could see my steps. (It always helps me!) First, you make the filling.

Make sure your oven is on at 300.
Season the short ribs with salt & pepper, then dredge them in flour.
Transfer the coated meat to a plate & set aside.
Heat the safflower oil in your dutch oven/pot over high heat.
Working in batches, brown the short ribs. This takes about a minute per side.
Using tongs, remove meat and put them back on a plate.

Reduce the heat down to medium on your stovetop.
Add the sliced yellow onion to the oil (my favorite part of this whole thing!).

Cook them until they are golden and tender. MMMM!!!
Now, throw in the garlic and cook about 2 minutes more.

It should look like this....oh.my.goodness.

After cooking the onions & garlic, add the short ribs back to the pot.
Cover with the stout beer and toss a sprig of rosemary on top.

Bring this to a simmer. It should smell SO good!

Now, cover this with the lid and transfer it to the oven.

Cook this for 2 hours.

After you've cleaned your kitchen and tossed in & changed a couple of loads of laundry, this part will be finished!
Remove the pot from the oven.
Add the cipollini onions (or scallions) to the pot.

Braise until the meat is tender and the new onions are cooked through. (About 20 minutes) I didn't really know what it meant to braise, so after some googling and YouTube watching, I just decided to put the pot over my lowest burning setting and just let it cook a tiny bit more. Right or wrong? I still don't know, but it worked!

While you are waiting, peel your potatoes and slice them as thinly as you can. You can also go ahead and bump up the oven temp to 375 degrees.


Take the meat out and shred it using 2 forks. It should fall right apart.

Season the shredded meat with a little more salt and pepper.
Now, you can divide the "filling" amongst some small, oven-proof individual serving dishes. Or, do as I did and put it all in one large dish to make one pot pie.

Top the meat with the thinly sliced potatoes by working in a circle and overlapping them by quite a bit (3/4 overlap).
Brush the potatoes with EVOO and sprinkle with salt & pepper.

Bake about 45 minutes at 375.
I took this time to clean up this sink...

The potatoes should be golden and the filling bubbling when finished.

We had to go to community group, so I snagged it out of the oven a little early, but the potatoes were done and the filling was delicious! And then, since the kitchen was cleaned up I got to love on these guys until bedtime!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Kymber's Birthday Party

This weekend was a big, busy one! On Thursday & Friday I was in Fort Smith working and enjoying my dear friend, Micah's wedding to Jarred. It was fab & I will share more on that later. When I returned home on Saturday, I had a Skype call to Kansas City to work with another designer on Jonna's KC reception. Sadly, at the precise time of that scheduled call was our sweet cousin Kymber's 2nd birthday party. Here's the birthday girl!



Dyer's Grandma and Papaw Bailey and Aunt Brooke came and picked him up and took him to the party for us so that he didn't have to miss out! Here are some of the pictures that Reba snapped and shared with us...



D & his Aunt Brooke clapping after singing happy birthday to Kymber!


Kymber got this fun tricycle with fun streamers and Dyer loved it, too! Don't you love all of her accessories? It's her birthday, so why not, right?






Here's Dyer with his Great Uncle Doyle, cousin Kymber, cousin McKenna, and Grandma Bailey!


Happy birthday sweet Kymber! We love you and pray that this new year will be full of fun, happiness, health, and growth!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Happy Birthday Alyssa!

Dyer and I went down to Fort Smith to celebrate our cousin, Alyssa, for her birthday at the end of June. She had a great swimming party and besides Drew (her brother), Dyer was the only GUY guest. I hopped in with him so he could splash around for a bit.

Here we are with the birthday girl...


And now with Drew and Katie, the siblings & our other sweet cousins!


Precious Alyssa, we love you so much! You are turning into the most beautiful young lady and we have so much fun being with you and watching you grow up! We hope you always think we're cool enough to hang around!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Gulley Park Concert & 4th of July

One of our favorite things about Fayetteville is all of the really, really fun town events! The summer Gulley Park concert series is something everyone looks forward to every summer, and even in this HOT one the people of our little hippie town roll out! We have gone a couple of times this summer, and only once have I taken my camera. Gulley Park is within a long walk from our new house, so Dyer and I have visited there quite a few times during the day this summer. It's becoming one of my very favorite outings for our days!

Dyer and Stella shared food all night, including yogurt, goldfish, and sippy cups.


Dyer & his handsome dad!


For the 4th of July we always go up to my parents' lake house with the Dyer family. It was our little man's first time on the boat and well, he didn't exactly love it, but we think it was due to the crazy circumstances. I had him in a long-sleeved rash guard shirt, shoes and a giant life vest. He was literally so miserably hot that he just sat there and stared. Poor baby. It was a quick boat ride and we turned around, his Mimi took him in, and he crashed for his nap. While D napped, I have to say that his momma was out slalom skiing like old days (sorry, no pics of that!).

Getting ready to get on board with dad...


Family before the heat took over...


Miserable baby...

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Train Station



For his first birthday, Dyer's Aunt Jonna gave him his very own train station. It's large enough for all of us to spend the night in. When we put it up for the first time in our old house, it was the moment we decided it was time to start looking for somewhere with a playroom. Dyer's most fun toys were taking over the house!

Now, in the new house we have an awesome, spacious playroom that is perfect for the train station to be up any time. The playroom is upstairs, and even has a door to close it off to the rest of the house. It's a great place for all of the toys to stay and if it's left in a mess for a day it's no big deal. Praise the maker! Here are some adorable pics of D and his dad playing in the train station in the new playroom!





Friday, September 2, 2011

Happy Birthday Scott!

Dyer's "Uncle Doctor" Scott had a birthday in mid-August and Lauren planned a fun dinner at La Huerta to celebrate!




Happy birthday Scott! We love ya, you youngin'!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Fun at the Park

We had a super low key weekend in Fayetteville a couple of weeks ago and spent part of our Saturday night letting Dyer run around at Gulley Park. They have a great little kids area, separate from the big kids, that makes me feel better about him climbing & jumping on his own. This was Mark's first time to see D climb and play at the park too!

Headed into the park with dad, then turned around for me to snap a pic. He always runs toward the camera if he sees you trying to take a picture!



RUNNING to the slides...




This shows what life is like ALL DAY with this little man. Running & climbing!



He loves to crawl through this train and "drive" it. Showing dad all the parts!



Dyer loves to pick up leaves and give them to me now. Here we are, thinking we are on our way out of the park when....a lovely dead tree with leaves all around shows up!





Finally running across the bridge & time to go home!