Beef Short Ribs - Locally

Bringing together all of the local ingredients for this dish has been a great learning experience for me and one that is having a lasting effect. While I've always loved shopping at the farmers' market, I'm now making a point to pass up produce at the market and waiting for my weekend market. It's not convenient, but it's one of the little changes I can make while trying to be a conscience eater.

All this effort has the added benefit of tasting delicious. The short ribs were amazing, I'm certain due to the high quality ingredients and the higher quotient of homemade goods that went into making them. The only thing I would change for the next round is doubling the recipe. They tasted even better the next day and I would have loved to have more on hand.

Beef Short Ribs - Locally

Serves 2

2 pounds J&J Grass-fed, California Short Ribs

3 T Tutta California Olive Oil

1 onion

2 carrots

3 celery stalks

4 cloves garlic

1/2 t salt

2 T local tomato paste

3 T Tutta California Cabernet Vinegar

2 -4 cups local chicken stock

4 thyme sprigs

2 California bay leaves

Preheat oven to 325*

Season short ribs with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a dutch oven and brown short ribs on all sides. Remove short ribs to a plate. Cut celery, carrots and onion into chunks and add to a food processor with the garlic. Process until well-blended and almost paste-like. Place vegetable mixture in the dutch oven along with the salt and tomato paste and saute until vegetables begin to soften. Stir in two cups of the stock along with the vinegar, thyme and bay leaves. Nestle the short rib pieces in the vegetable mixture, adding more stock until the ribs are completely submerged. Cover and place in the oven for 2 - 3 hours until the meat is falling off the bone. Remove the thyme and bay leaves and discard. Serve the ribs with some of the cooking liquid and polenta. Enjoy!

Chicken Stock - Locally

I had no idea that the most valuable lesson I would learn about cooking would also be one of the simplest. Stock is the base for so many soups, sauces, braises and other dishes and from what I've read of Rulhman's experience at CIA, it's the first thing you learn at culinary school. You probably know how much you rely on it because of the number of containers of stock you go through, but do you know how easy it is to make at home? I had heard countless times from cookbooks and TV Chefs how important it is to make your own stock and what a difference it makes in flavor, but had never really taken them seriously. That's not to say I didn't believe them, just that I didn't think it was realistic for someone with a full-time job to make their own stock. How wrong I was.

It turns out that with a little bit of prep work, you can have stock made in an afternoon with most of that time being spent on unmonitored simmering. Even better, that one afternoon can provide you with enough stock to stick in the freezer to last a few months (as long as you're not making vast amounts of soup). If the idea of butchering a chicken at home is off-putting or if you're interested in making beef stock, talk to your local butcher about buying bones for stock. In most cases, they'll be happy to oblige.

Please keep in mind that this recipe is simply a guide. The water will vary according to how many bones you have and the aromatics should be adjusted to your personal taste. Since this is another piece to my short rib recipe with all local ingredients, I made sure that all of my vegetables were California grown by going to my farmers' market. I also took the time to search out fresh California bay leaves, as well as cage-free, locally raised chickens, etc. Don't feel like you have to go to those lengths if you're not as excited about cooking locally as I am!

Chicken Stock

Bones from two chickens

3 litres of water

2 onions, quartered

3 carrots, cut into 2-3 sections

3 celery stalks with leaves attached if you've got them, cut into 2-3 sections

3 thyme sprigs

2 bay leaves

4 peppercorns

The chicken bones should be relatively clean. Place them in the bottom of a large stock pot and cover with water. Add the onions, carrots and celery. I leave the leaves on my celery to act as a distiller. I have no idea if it actually works, but I get the sense that they help to soak up impurities that would otherwise need to be skimmed off as the stock simmers. Bring the mixture just to a boil and reduce the heat to simmer. Cook for 4 - 5 hours, checking the pot every 30 - 60 minutes to make sure it has not come up to a boil. All you want is a gentle simmer. Wrap the bay leaves, thyme and peppercorns in cheesecloth and add them to the stock for the last 30 minutes. 

After 4 - 5 hours of simmering, drain the stock and discard the vegetables and bones. At this point you can either painstakingly skim the surface to remove fat, or you can pour cooled stock into storage containers and place them in the fridge. After a few hours the fat will have risen to the top and solidified and you can simply scoop it out. Freeze whatever stock you aren't going to use within a few days. After defrosting, I always bring my stock up to a boil before using. Enjoy!

Tomato Paste - Locally

On a recent Saturday morning I happened upon on a farmers' market that I had not been to before. I'm very lucky that in my general area there are multiple markets on every day of the week. My biggest complaint about the markets closest to me is that they never seem to have any protein. I can load up on produce or bread, but when it comes to my other staples, I always end up at the grocery store on my way home. I was thrilled when, walking through this new market, I discovered eggs, cage-free chickens, grass-fed beef and even locally harvested shellfish. I was in heaven. My first instinct was to immediately move so I could be within walking distance of my new favorite market, but after taking a moment to calm down, I set about getting the week's supplies.

My biggest sin at the market is buying something because I'm taken in by how great it looked or how fresh it was, but with no plan on how actually to use it. I either end up not using it or having to go back to the store to buy everything else I need to make whatever it is I have decided to create with said fresh item. This go around it was two pounds of short ribs. Having happened upon the market with so much protein, I just couldn't leave without getting some.

Shopping at the new farmers' market got me thinking more about locally grown food. I always prefer to buy my produce at farmers' markets because I absolutely agree with trying to use locally grown and produced food whenever possible, but I never really took it beyond produce. This market opened up the idea that I could do more than just get local produce. With that in mind, I set about creating a new short rib recipe using only locally grown or produced food in the recipe.

Finding local produce was easy. I didn't have to look further than my local farmers' markets. The first place I ran into some trouble was with locating locally produced tomato paste. It quickly became clear that I would have to make my own. After browsing the internet for some time, I found this method that turns 5 pounds of tomatoes into about a 1/2 cup of paste. It certainly isn't the economical way (with time or money) to get tomato paste, but the flavor was absolutely better and, it was from locally grown ingredients. Problem solved. Check back in a few days to see the stock I made to use as a braising liquid.

Tomato Paste

Yield approximately 1/2 cup

5 pounds tomatoes

2 T olive oil

salt to taste

Preheat oven to 350*

Chop the tomatoes. Uniformity is not important as the tomatoes will be passed through a food mill shortly. Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan and add the chopped tomatoes. Simmer for 4 - 5 minutes until the tomatoes are releasing their juices. Pass the tomatoes through a food mill fitted with the smallest disc. If necessary, take the tomato pulp still in the bowl of the food mill and return it to the saute pan to help it break down some more and release its juices. Once all the tomatoes have been processed, place the tomato liquid in a half-sheet pan (rimmed cookie sheet) and place in the oven for four hours. stir the mixture every hour until a tomato paste texture has been achieved. If storing in the fridge, pour olive oil into the container to cover the paste for storage. Enjoy!