LAW115: Good Morning, it is a New Year

Happy 2017. I was up early again this morning, and was rewarded with a gorgeous sunrise. Today seems to be such a promising, beautiful start to the new year.

Sunrise, looking at our neighbors across the river

We spent a very quiet evening snuggled up in the Floating Empire, although it did feel, at least sound a little like a war zone at midnight. Yes, the fireworks did wake both of us up. We shared a nice bottle of Italian red wine, and the obligatory champagne with dinner, which was our current favorite beef, braised short ribs. Of course i completely blew off taking pictures, bad me, but let me tell you just how yummy it was. Beef is almost always a disappointment, flavor wise these days. It is expensive, chock full of things that are not good for you, usually not very tender, and also usually, flavorless. Unless of course you are lucky enough to have a source for organic, grass fed beef. Then of course it is too expensive to be anything but a very rare treat. Sigh. Anyway......

first sunrise of 2017, looking downriver

Braised short ribs, yum yum, meaty, beefy goodness. or as the writer of the Pioneer Woman informs us, heaven on a plate. I have to agree with her. You can check out her recipe in detail, but it is really pretty simple. Figure 2 ribs per person. Salt, pepper and flour the ribs, dice up very finely an onion, a couple of shallots, a couple of carrots. Dice up either some bacon, or pancetta, fry until crispy and the fat is rendered. Add some olive oil to the bacon grease and brown the ribs on all sides, remove the ribs from the pan, add all the veggies and saute until softish. Don't forget to scrape up all the good bits from the bottom. Add a couple of cups of a decent red wine, bring to a simmer, add an equal amount of stock, chicken or beef, taste and correct for salt and pepper, toss in a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme, pop the ribs back in, they should be just about covered. Cover and stick in a 350 oven for two hours. Just walk away. Don't mess with it. After two hours turn down the oven to 325 and let it cook for another half hour or so. At this point the meat will literally be falling off the bone, oh my! If you can stand it you really should let the meat rest for at least 20 minutes. Good luck with that! You can serve this with anything that will sop up the incredible goodness of the broth, mashed potatoes, polenta(our favorite), you get the picture. I served it with our favorite cabbage salad, a Syrian offering, featuring a heavily salted and rinsed shredded cabbage, with lots of garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. Oh my.

Intentionally Blank? Really?

This year on the Floating Empire will be bittersweet, as we expect it to be our last one living on the Empire. We are busy planning and scheming about Tesla's Revenge, our newest project and living experiment. Keep checking in with us.

Magellan is not afraid of the cat's traditional enemy, the rocker

More later,
Morgainne