Braised Short Ribs

Easy Braised Short Ribs

Braising a tough cut of meat over a long period of time makes the meat deep, rich and delicious. With a small amount of preparation and a long cooking time these are easy to make and warms you up on those cold winter days. Make extra! You’ll want them for leftovers, you can make a ragu out of them, a pot pie or even a Shepherds pie for quick weeknight dinners. You’ll get more flavor out of the short ribs if they are on the bone, they will fall right off the bone after their long slow cooking so they’ll be easy to remove.

Serves 4

Olive oil
1/3 cup flour (or more as needed)
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
4 pounds short ribs on the bone
1 brown onion, chopped
1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
2 stalks celery, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste (double concentrate from a tube-found in the ‘Italian’ section
2 tablespoons flour
¼ cup dry red wine
1 qt. beef stock, may use chicken stock
1 bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme, 2 sprigs Italian parsley tied together in cheesecloth

Heat oven to 350°.

Mix flour, salt and pepper together in a shallow bowl or on a plate.

Heat a large Dutch oven over medium high heat; add enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan.

Dry short ribs well and dredge in the flour mixture, shake off the excess and place the meaty side into the hot oil. Do not crowd the meat in the pan or it will not brown properly. This is the most important step in braising so take your time. Remove the ribs, set aside and continue until all ribs are browned.

In the same pan, add more oil as necessary, add onions, carrots, celery to the pan and sauté until lightly browned.

Add tomato paste and stir to coat all the vegetables and cook the paste a little, about 2 minutes.

Add flour and stirring constantly cook for another 5 minutes without burning. The flour may turn a little dark but that’s fine.

Add the dry red wine to the pan and scrape the bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pan. Let reduce and thicken slightly. Remove from the heat.

Return the ribs to the pan, cover with stock and add the bouquet garni. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and bake for 3 hours. Remove bouquet garni.

Juices may be thickened into gravy with a beurre maníe, roux or cornstarch slurry.

Beurre Manie, Roux, Cornstarch Slurry

Beurre Manie

Mix together equal parts softened butter and flour until it looks like thick butter and all the flour is incorporated.

Roux

Melt 2 Tb. butter in a pan, add 2 Tb. flour, whisk together and cook until lightly browned

Cornstarch Slurry

2 parts cold water mixed with 1 part cornstarch

Whisk any of these into your hot liquid, stirring until thickened. Don't over-cook the cornstarch slurry or it will start to break down and become thin again.

Book Signing & Wine Tasting

11 / 17 / 1511 / 17 / 15

Saturday & Sunday, Nov. 21 ~ 22 Events!

DON’T MISS THIS WEEKEND
IN TEMECULA!
Mary Platis, Author of Cooking Techniques & Recipes with Olive Oil &
Chef Debbi, Author of ‘What’s In Your Pantry’
are teaming up to bring you
Cooking From The Pantry Series!

First stop
Temecula Olive Oil Co.
Temecula tasting Room
Cooking Class Demo-Wine Tasting & Book Signing
Sat. Nov. 21st
12 – 2 $45.00

Menu
Mediterranean Vegetables in Olive Oil
Fresh Tomato Risotto
Baby Beets and Brussels sprouts Salad
Turkey Rollatini with White Wine, Porcini Mushroom Pan Sauce
Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake with Vanilla & Fig Balsamic Compote

For Temecula Reservations please call:
951-693-0607

Second stop

Sunday, Nov 22nd
Book Signing and Wine Tasting 12 ~ 2

Holiday Gifts to Make

11 / 5 / 15

Sat. Nov. 7th
10 – 11 a.m. Free

How to Make Gifts from the Garden

Chef Debbi will also have some seasonal spices and holiday botanicals
Pick up a copy of ‘What’s In Your Pantry’ for holiday gift giving
A great hostess gift!

Join us for some conversation and a tasty bite!

The Plant Stand
2972-A Century Place
(In the back)
Costa Mesa, Ca
(714) 966-0797

Pumpkin Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake

10 / 18 / 1511 / 20 / 15

I served this last night at The Aquarium of the Pacific’s Sea Fare fund raising event and it was declared by the President of the Aquarium ‘the best food at the event’. Now that was very nice of him but there was some really tasty food there from local restaurants. It was a wonderful event with music, food and wine and lots of grateful fishes. Thanks to everyone who came out and those who stopped by my booth, I’m happy you enjoyed the cake! And you can learn how to make this cake and more at my cooking classes here in Seal Beach at Temecula Olive Oil‘s tasting room, click on Nov. for the upcoming menu!

Pumpkin Olive Oil Cake

Try different flavored olive oils for this cake. Orange, lemon or a lightly flavored olive oil, don’t use a big heavy tasting oil as it will overpower the pumpkin and spice in the cake.
You could make this cake into a sheet cake, round cakes or even cupcakes; just remember to adjust the cooking time.

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup olive oil
3 eggs
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin (or 2 cups freshly roasted sugar pumpkin)
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 package cream cheese, room temperature
1 splash of vanilla, optional

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves.

Combine sugar and oil in a large bowl with a rubber spatula until blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add flour mixture to egg mixture alternately with pumpkin in three batches, beating

well after each addition.

Transfer to a greased Bundt cake pan.

Bake 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

Cool for approximately 10-15 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack.

Remove pan carefully from cake and cool completely.

Easy Cream Cheese Frosting

Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, and beat at low speed until sugar is incorporated.

Increase speed to medium high and beat until frosting is light and whipped, about 3 to 4 minutes. Use to top cookies, cupcakes, or cakes

Cooking Class

10 / 18 / 1510 / 18 / 15

Temecula Olive Oil Co., Seal Beach

November Class

Thur. Nov. 12th

6:30-8:30 (approximately)

Smoked Trout Canapés with Pickled Onions and Mascarpone

Pomegranate, Bacon and Brussels Sprouts Salad

Braciole

Italian Stuffed Beef Rolls

Mushroom Bolognese

Chocolate Raspberry Linzertorte

10 – 20% off on all purchases the night of the class

Class Sponsored by

NOW TAKING RESERVATIONS!

Seal Beach Tasting Room By Reservation only, call: 562-296-5421

Classes are $45; Pre Paid Reservations only

Feel free to BYOB

Easy Artisan Bread

9 / 22 / 159 / 22 / 15

Debbi's Artisan Bread

3 cups lukewarm water
1½ tablespoons granulated yeast (2 packets)
1½ tablespoons kosher or other coarse salt
6½ cups unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose white flour

Add yeast and salt to the water in a 5-quart bowl or, preferably, in a resealable, lidded (not airtight) plastic food container or food-grade bucket

Mix in the flour—kneading is unnecessary: Add all of the flour at once.

Mix with a wooden spoon, a high-capacity food processor (14 cups or larger) fitted with the dough attachment, or a heavy-duty stand mixer fitted with the dough hook until the mixture is uniform. If you’re hand-mixing and it becomes too difficult to incorporate all the flour with the spoon, you can reach into your mixing vessel with very wet hands and press the mixture together. Don’t knead! It isn’t necessary. You’re finished when everything is uniformly moist, without dry patches. This step is in a matter of minutes, and will yield a dough that is wet and loose enough to conform to the shape of its container.

(I placed dough onto parchment paper and baked it on parchment in a Dutch oven.)

Cover with a lid (not airtight) or a towel. Do not use screw-topped bottles or Mason jars, which could explode from the trapped gases. Lidded plastic buckets designed for dough storage are readily available. Allow the mixture to rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse (or at least flattens on the top), approximately 2 hours. Longer rising times, up to about 5 hours, will not harm the result. You can use a portion of the dough any time after this period. Fully refrigerated wet dough is less sticky and is easier to work with than dough at room temperature. So, the first time you try our method, it’s best to refrigerate the dough overnight (or at least 3 hours), before shaping a loaf.

BAKING

Cut a piece of parchment paper a little bigger than a notebook size of paper, dust with a little flour.

Dust the surface of your refrigerated dough with flour. Pull up and cut off a 1-pound (grapefruit-size) piece of dough, using a serrated knife. Hold the mass of dough in your hands and add a little more flour as needed so it won’t stick to your hands. It will be very sticky. Gently stretch the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter-turn as you go. Most of the dusting flour will fall off; it’s not intended to be incorporated into the dough. The bottom of the loaf may appear to be a collection of bunched ends, but it will flatten out and adhere during resting and baking. The correctly shaped final product will be smooth and cohesive. The entire process should take no more than 30 to 60 seconds.

Rest the loaf and let it rise on the parchment. Allow the loaf to rest for about 40 minutes (it doesn’t need to be covered during. the rest period). Depending on the age of the dough, you may not see much rise during this period; more rising will occur during baking (“oven spring”).

Twenty minutes before baking, preheat the oven to 450°F, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray for holding water on any other shelf that won’t interfere with the rising bread.

Debbi's notes: I take a 2 qt. Le Crueset (or any stone-ware or cast iron) Dutch oven and put it in the oven with the lid (make sure if the knob on the lid top is plastic to wrap it in tin foil so it doesn't melt). Let it preheat with the oven. When the oven is hot and the dough is ready pick up the parchment paper and plop it into the hot Dutch oven pan, Put the lid back on and carefully slide it into the oven. Alternatively you could slide the dough, still on the parchment paper, onto a pizza or baking stone that you heated with the oven.

Dust and slash: Unless otherwise indicated in a specific recipe, dust the top of the loaf liberally with flour, which will allow the slashing knife to pass without sticking. Slash a ¼-inch-deep cross, “scallop,” or tic-tac toe pattern into the top, using a serrated bread knife.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned and firm to the touch. Because you’ve used wet dough, there is little risk of drying out the interior, despite the dark crust. When you remove the loaf from the oven, it will audibly crackle, or “sing,” when initially exposed to room-temperature air. Allow to cool completely, preferably on a wire cooling rack, for best flavor, texture, and slicing. The perfect crust may initially soften, but will firm up again when cooled.

I found that it may take more than 30 minutes to bake, up to 40 to completely bake the inside. If you can use a hot pad and turn the bread over in your hand, tap the bottom of the loaf with your finger, it should make a hollow sound. If it's still a little soft, return it to the oven for a few minutes.

Store the remaining dough in the refrigerator in your lidded (not airtight) container and use it over the next 14 days: You’ll find that even one day’s storage improves the flavor and texture of your bread. This maturation continues over the 14-day storage period. Refrigerate unused dough in a lidded storage container (again, not airtight). If you mixed your dough in this container, you’ve avoided some cleanup. Cut off and shape more loaves as you need them. We often have several types of dough storing in the refrigerator at once. The dough can also be frozen in 1-pound portions in an airtight container and defrosted overnight in the refrigerator prior to baking day.

FOR PIZZA:

Pinch off a palm sized piece of dough, shape into a round, rectangular or square shape. Dough is sticky so keep some extra flour nearby, dust your hands as necessary to shape the dough. If the dough starts to snap back you should let it rest for a few minutes and then resume shaping.

Place onto parchment paper, a dusted pizza peel or the bottom of a dusted baking sheet. You can use anything you want providing the pizza can slip right off onto the rack.

If you are baking in an oven, preheat your oven to 500° or as high as it will go. Top the dough with anything you like, slid it into the hot oven and bake for 12-14 minutes.

If you are grilling dough, preheat bbq to high. Slide dough onto rack and cook 5-10 minutes on one side. Remove from grill, top the cooked side and return to the grill. Close the lid so the toppings will cook evenly.

Francois, Zoe; Hertzberg, Jeff , MD (2007-11-13). Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking (pp. 26-27). Macmillan. Kindle Edition.

Simple Cold Pasta Salad

8 / 18 / 15

On these dog days of summer, even here at the beach, this is one of my favorite go-to recipes. It’s quick and easy, you don’t have to turn on any heat, even to cook the pasta, and you can use bits and pieces of left overs from your refrigerator pantry.

Some of my typical summer refrigerator pantry items are, cheese, olives, tomatoes (home grown, of course), cucumbers, peppers and the like. Most often there will be some lemon chicken left over as well. All are perfect additions to this salad. First the pasta, no need to boil a big pot of water, we’ll use the microwave!

Pour your dry pasta, something curly is best to hold all the wonderful dressing in it’s little nooks, into a microwave safe bowl. Cover with cool water by 1″, make sure the container is big enough that the water and pasta won’t boil over. You’ll want to cook your pasta for about 5 minutes longer than the directions guide you on the box. Test the pasta for doneness and cook a little longer if necessary. Drain well and rinse quickly with cool water. Do not add dressing to the warm pasta as it will just soak it all up and be mushy. Stir the pasta occasionally as it cools to keep it from sticking together. You could cook the pasta ahead of time and chill it before you make the salad. If this is the case, toss the cooled pasta with a little olive oil before refrigerating. Now you’re ready to proceed with the salad.

In actuality, from this point on you could chop and dice almost anything you find in you refrigerator but here’s my stand by recipe.

Summer Pasta Salad

1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 cup olive oil, approximately
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoon fresh basil, torn
1/2 cup diced cucumber
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
1/2 cup diced red bell pepper
1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/4 cup sliced black olives
1/2 cup crumbled or diced cheese, mozzarella, chedderella, goat cheese or any you prefer
1 ½ cup cooked pasta

For dressing, mix together vinegar, Dijon, salt, pepper, and garlic powder and whisk until it comes together. While continually whisking slowly add olive oil to taste. Set aside.

Mix together remaining ingredients and toss with dressing. Serve cold.

Summer Salads

6 / 29 / 156 / 29 / 15

My summer pantry is usually a little lighter than my winter pantry as I use far more fresh ingredients, mostly from my kitchen garden. The French Nicoise Salad is one of my favorites and I like using whatever fresh veggies I find at the local farmers market or in my garden. As in most cases, the quality of ingredients that you use are directly reflected in the finished dish, therefore buy the best that you can afford. I use Italian tuna in olive oil; I love the Genova brand from Italy. Please don’t use all white tuna packed in water, as it has no flavor, better to leave it out. I drain most of the oil from the canned tuna, reserving it for use in making the salad dressing.

Another way to dress up the dish for a hot summer evening entree is to grill some fresh tuna or shrimp from your fishmonger. This recipe makes a beautifully plated salad for a buffet table but can be individually plated as well. Be creative and use what you have on hand.

Summer Nicoise Salad

This salad is great for adapting to whatever you find in your pantry and/or refrigerator. Left over vegetables from last night’s dinner work great; keep your pantry stocked with jars of olives, tuna, hearts of palm, baby corn or a myriad of other staples. Change the tuna; use bay shrimp, scallops, last nights chicken or steak. A great salad to stretch your creative talents!

Vinaigrette:
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 small shallot -- minced
1 tablespoon Italian parsley -- chopped
Salt and pepper -- to taste
3/4 cup olive oil, use drained oil from tuna and add more olive oil as needed
Salad:
2 cans Italian tuna -- packed in olive oil, drained and flaked with a fork
Salt and pepper -- to taste
1/4 pound haricot vert -- blanched, cooled and dried well
4 new potatoes -- boiled
2 medium plum tomatoes -- cut into quarters
3 eggs, cooked~see recipe
1/2 cup nicoise olives
3 cups mixed baby greens

Make the vinaigrette:

In a large bowl make the vinaigrette by whisking together the vinegar and

Dijon mustard. Add shallot, parsley and salt and pepper. Drizzle olive oil, while whisking into vinegar mixture. Re-season if necessary.

Blanch the beans in boiling salted water, drain, and chill.

Cook the potatoes in salted water just until they are tender through, about 15 minutes. Drain. Peel them, if desired, as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

Hard boil eggs by covering eggs with cold water, bring to a boil, remove from heat, cover and time for 15 minutes, plunge into ice water and chill.

Drain tuna, leaving a small amount of oil clinging to fish, and reserving drained oil, flake tuna into a medium mixing bowl.

Toss mixed greens with enough vinaigrette to coat. Season with salt and pepper.

Plate salad by putting a mound of tuna in the center of the mixed greens and surround with remaining ingredients, drizzle a little dressing over vegetables and serve extra dressing on the side.

Save any remaining vinaigrette and store in glass jar, refrigerated for up to 4 weeks.

Hawaiian Luau Feast

6 / 4 / 156 / 4 / 15

Summer is almost here and if you can’t visit the Islands we can certainly take some of the traditional Hawaiian foods and tweak them to our recipes and summer picnics. Our next cooking class uses many of these ingredients and we show you ways to incorporate them into your backyard parties.

While we can’t host a traditional luau in the tasting room we can enjoy a luau type picnic with foods of the Islands. In ancient Hawaii men and women ate their meals separately but in 1819 King Kamehameha removed all religious laws and taboos and men and women began eating together, creating the first luau feast.

The name luau refers to a dish made with chicken wrapped in taro leaves (luau), and baked in coconut milk; it’s served with slightly salty, smoky Kalua pig (pork). Kalua means ‘the hole’ and refers to the pit (an imu oven) the pig is cooked in. Simply put, the pig is steamed over a long period of time and is similar to a smoky pulled pork dish.

We’ll be doing our Kalua pork in a pressure cooker but the flavors will be able to develop while we talk and prepare other side dishes that use traditional Hawaiian ingredients. We might even be able to talk Tammy into a little hula (we know she can)!

Join us in the Temecula Olive Oil Tasting Room, Seal Beach for our fun little Hawaiian party. Learn a little about Hawaiian tradition and a conversation about cooking with pressure cookers!

Click here to see full menu

Our class goes off next week! Thursday, June 11th 6:30 p.m.Make your reservation today!

For Reservations Call (562) 296-5421

Artichoke Dip

3 / 5 / 153 / 28 / 15

Walt's Wharf Artichoke Dip

Adapted slightly from Walt’s Wharf recipe.

1/4 cup sesame oil
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons local honey
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons sea salt
4 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
1 cup mayo

Mix all ingredients together until well blended. Taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary for your taste. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Chef Debbi

Why You Should Grow Your Own Organic Potatoes

2 / 17 / 15

The Potato: One of EWG’s Dirty Dozen

By: Connie Rosemont (Only Organic)

The potato is a great food – calorie-dense and rich in nutrients like vitamin B6, vitamin C, potassium and manganese. It is America’s largest vegetable crop: the average American consumes 29 pounds of French fries a year and 142 pounds of potatoes overall.

Alas, the conventional potato tests positive for 35 different pesticides — more pesticides by weight than any other vegetable, according to EWG’s 2014 Dirty Dozen List. Some of these pesticides remain even after peeling and washing. Pesticides found on potatoes by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program include:

— Six known or probable carcinogens

— 12 suspected hormone disruptors

— Seven neurotoxins

— Six developmental or reproductive toxins

— Nine honeybee toxins

More potatoes aren’t organic because of production challenges, says Nate Lewis, Crop and Livestock specialist with the Organic Trade Association.

Farmers who raise conventional potatoes take a “kill-down” step just before harvest, spraying their potato fields with an herbicide that kills all the green leafy vegetation. With the leaves gone, the potato goes into a finishing-off process that thickens the skin, rendering it less susceptible to injury and blemishes.

After farmers harvest conventional potatoes, they warehouse them for up to nine months and ship them, as retailers and processing centers need them. Conventional producers apply post-harvest fungicides and sprouting inhibitors during storage to retard the spread of small blemishes and bad spots from one potato. Not surprisingly, these pesticides applied during storage show up most frequently on residue tests.

Organic standards enforced by the USDA bar organic farmers from using most field and storage pesticides. Organic farmers must work harder to store their potatoes for months without fungicides and sprout inhibitors. As a result, they face significantly larger hurdles than conventional producers in large-scale potato farming.

The hurdles of raising storage crops organically on a large scale might consign organic potatoes always to a small niche market. However, buying organic potatoes means that those farmers who decide to try organic potatoes will find a market for their efforts.

Citrus Olive Oil Cake

1 / 6 / 151 / 6 / 15

Most fruits and vegetables have a season, a time when they are picked and rushed to the market to maintain flavor and nutrition but when one talks about citrus it can be very confusing. Citrus ‘season’ really runs all year long with different varieties ripening at different times. During the summer months we have delicious Valencia oranges and Star Ruby Grapefruit, but you’ll find most citrus in season from fall until late spring.

In the market right now you’ll find Navel, Cara Cara and Moro Oranges, delicious Meyer Lemons and my favorite produce guru, Robert Schueller of Melissa’s Produce, recommends the Cocktail Grapefruit, Key Limes and Kishu tangerines! And all of us tangerines freaks know that come March those Ojai Pixie Tangerines start coming our way! The best of the best……

Other than eating juicy, sweet citrus out of hand or in a dish our friends at Temecula Olive Oil crush seasonal citrus fruit, Blood Oranges or Meyer Lemons, at the same time they press their olives. While the Blood Orange Olive Oil is available year round, Meyer Lemon Olive Oil is seasonal usually beginning in early spring. If you see it on their shelves don’t hesitate, this oil sells out every year! I’ve used both Blood Orange and Meyer Lemon Olive Oil in this cake and each one is distinct and fabulous.

For those of you who can’t conceive of using an olive oil in a cake I urge to try this recipe, not only is it easy, it’s delicious. I like serving it with a little chopped citrus on the side or a handful of fresh raspberries.

Click here for the recipe