You can tell from these columns that I’m the kind of professor who doesn’t give out low grades very often. If I were on a reality show panel, I’d be the always-nice judge, I guess.
But it is hard to send a cookbook into the give-away pile when I’ve twice followed its lead and ended up with a pretty good meal. I’m still on the fence about Second Helpings in the sense that very little in it inspires me to use it, but I have to acknowledge that what it does offer is very reliable. I should frankly have tested a couple of the vegetable sides in the book, which are far more interesting than most of the meat-based entrees.
In terms of what I was saying about the difference between slow-cooked oven braising and any form of Insta-pot cookery, these short ribs definitely confirmed the point and earned their way into being the leftovers of the week. (I’m trying to think now about how to reuse them in a way that isn’t too boring…) In any event, at least for me, this is an inversion of the classic “I don’t make that at home, I wait and have it in a restaurant” line. This is something I only want to make at home, since most restaurants don’t do it honestly.
I decided not to make farro or anything else heavy, since I ended up putting some small potatoes in the vegetables with the short ribs and that felt like enough carb/starch on the side. So I made a quick tomato-cucumber-sweet pepper-mint salad with very nearly the last of the tomatoes from our garden (picked off as green, ripening slowly inside). With a possible freeze coming tonight, I went and pulled off all the remaining chili peppers and some of the last thyme and rosemary as well.
Perfect food for tonight