Happy Birthday America! 

Our friends got together yesterday to eat fried foods, red, white and blue themed fruit plates and fun summer cocktails yesterday in Pacific Beach. We also had pie which meant we were lucky enough to have pie for breakfast. No judging America. It was amazing. 

On this last day of our three day holiday we’re gonna go out with a bang – slow cooked boneless beef ribs. The versions we make cooks low and slow all day then we take the juices, remove the fat and turn it into a gravy. We then serve it with buttered egg noodles with a touch of sour cream. We are so grateful for this country and all the delicious food we have available to us so let’s honor that and make a knock it out of the park dinner. Let’s get cookin’! 

The Goods

• 3-4 lbs boneless short ribs (Today we got ours from Costco)
• 2 lbs carrots, peeled and diced 
• 1 large white onion, sliced 
• 1 1/2 c beef broth (3/4 c for slow cooker, rest for gravy after if needed) 
• Seasoning: S&P, Garlic Powder
• Worchestshire 
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour 
• Side: egg noodles, butter, sour cream 

Beef Cooking Time

Plug in your slow cooker and turn to Low. 

  
Cut your ribs into chunks (each long piece we cut into thirds) and put into a large bowl. Add a good amount of S&P, about 2 teaspoons garlic powder, 6 dashes of Worchestshire and one swirl of olive oil. Mix to combine and well coat each piece. Let this hang out in the fridge for up to an hour or as little as 10 min. 

  
Peel and dice your carrots and add to the slow cooker. 

  
Slice your onions and add to slow cooker.

  
Combine with the carrots and add S&P.

Add your beef on top. 

  
Add in 3/4 c beef stock.

Put on the lid and forget about it for 10 hours.

When all cooked remove the meat.

  
Strain the juice into a fat seperator and return the meat to the slow cooker and put on “warm”.

  
In a sauce pan over Med-Hi heat add in the butter and when melted whisk in the flour. We’re making a roux kids! Cook for a bit to get that flour taste out (yuck). 

  
When it’s golden brown and bubbly add in your strained/fat separated delicious beef juices. Keep whisking!  You’ll see it start to thicken and bubble. At that point feel free to reduce the heat and give her a stir once in a while. If needed add some of the left over beef stock to increase the volume if you’d like more gravy.

  
Add a couple dashes of Worchestshire sauce for added salt. 

Boil up some water and cook the egg noodles. 

Drain, add back to the pot. Add in a couple of pads of butter and 1/2 c sour cream.

Serve while all of it is hot. 

  
Enjoy everyone! 

xoxo Shawna 

Oh man! San Diego has had this very odd week of hot-humid-monsoonal weather that is just not treating my my hair well. And even though we end up a poufy haired sweaty mess that’s no excuse not to eat well. Tonight I’m doing something easy that’s paired with the hubby’s favorite rice – Rice Pilaf! Or at least my version of it. It’s a snap and is so cost effective. One bag of rice and one box of spaghetti go really far! So pour a big cold glass of water….or other beverage and let’s whip up a quick chicken and rice dish. 

The Goods

• 1 lb chicken tenders or thin breasts (if you have regular chicken breasts you can place them between wax or Saran Wrap and give it a good whack with a cast iron skillet or the flat size of a meat tenderizer to flatten)
• 1 c Flour
• 1 c breadcrumbs 
• 1 egg
• Cholula or other hot sauce 
• pepper jack cheese, shredded 
• 2 c water 
• 1 c long grain rice
• 1 tablespoon butter 
• 1 chicken bouillon cube 
• 10 or so spaghetti noodles (dried) 
• Garlic powder, paprika, S&P

Let’s make din-din…

Lay out three smaller dishes. In one place your flour and season with garlic powder, paprika and S&P.

  
In the second dish crack one egg, add about a tablespoon of water and wisk with a fork. Season with about 6 dashes of cholula and S&P.

  
In the last dish place your breadcrumbs.

  
Take one chicken piece and first dip it into the flour, shake off excess, dip next into the egg mixture and lastly into breadcrumbs. Make sure both sides are coated well.

Place onto a baking sheet and sprinkle each with paprika.

  
Next, you’ll want to start the rice (skip down a step) and when it gets boiling throw the chicken in the oven. 
Bake for 15 min (about the same time the rice needs). Just when they hit 165 degrees F remove the pan and sprinkle with pepper jack cheese. Return to oven and cook 2 min more. 

  
Now the rice! 

In a sauce pot add your butter and just a splash of olive oil. Break up your spaghetti into smaller pieces and brown up in the butter/oil.

  
Once it starts to turn brown drop in your bouillon cube, your water and rice and cover. Simmer until rice is just cooked. 

  
Check it towards the end. If the rice is too chewy then add a splash of warm water and recover to continue the cooking. 

  
Serve your sassy chicken and homemade rice pilaf with applesauce for dipping (another Captain favorite) and enjoy! 

  
xoxo Shawna 

Hello from Sunny San Diego.

If you haven’t been able to tell from the last couple of posts it’s flipping hot down here! We live about 5 min from the coast and have multiple ceilings fans which have been running non stop for the past several days. No, we don’t have A/C. You don’t really need it until you get East of I-15 but boy am I starting to reconsider the option. Maybe I can find a nice A/C company who would be willing to barter their services in exchange for food. One can dream. But right now there is no time for cooling off – it’s pizza time!

We love pizza in this house and today we are making a fancy pizza for the middle of the week. This pizza has a buttery garlic crust, homemade white sauce, hearty sausage and sauteed veggies. Yumo!

Alright, enough with the chit chat. It’s pizza time…

The Goods

• 3 links of your fav sausage (I got mine straight from the butcher and today it was mild sausage – no fennel)
• 1 small onion (any color will do), thinly sliced
• 1 yellow bell pepper, cored and thinly sliced
• 1 Boboli thin crust premade pizza dough
• 4 tablespoons butter (2 for pizza crust, 2 for white sauce)
• 4 tablespoons garlic (2 for pizza crust, 2 for white sauce)
• 2 tablespoons white flour
• 1 cup milk (we used reduced fat)
• S&P
• Garlic Powder
• Shredded Mozzarella
• Hot Pepper Flakes

Pre heat your oven to 450 degrees F.

First, carefully slice down the middle of each sausage and remove it from the casing.

In a pan add a little bit of olive oil and cook up your sausage. Use a wooden spoon to break up the sausage into medium size chunks. We are going for rustic here. You aren’t on a cooking show trying to win money with your knife skills. You don’t have to impress anyone – we are all friends here. Chunky it is.

Cook until all the pink is gone (and internal temp is 165). Remove from pan and drain on paper towels to remove excess fat.

In the same pan (hello delicious sausage flavored oil) add in sliced onion and bell pepper. Reduce heat to Medium and cook, stirring often, for 20 min. Make sure to add some more olive oil if you see it starting to dry out. Reduce the heat if it’s cooking too fast. (Super cool trick: if it’s REALLY going too fast, add 1/2 cup water and put a lid on it and it’ll help steam the veggies and prevent them from browning further.)

You want the most delicious sauteed veggies. Here is the thing – I really REALLY do not like raw onions. I know, that’s almost crazy since I am not only 1/4 Mexican but also slightly obsessed with all kinds of salsa. But honestly, if they aren’t finely chopped in a salsa I can’t stomach it. I also do not like burned onions. I like perfectly just wilted, just browned veggies. Yum.

Let’s make the white sauce. In a sauce pan add in 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons of garlic over med-hi heat.

Once melted add in the flour and whisk whisk whisk!

You want to “cook out” the flour flavor but do not burn the mixture. If you do, you basically have to start over and if you were like me you juuuuuust had enough flour for this dish so no burning.

Once you let the brown gooey mixture cook for about 60 seconds add in 1 cup milk and stir. Let it come up to a bubble and now hit it with salt. Technically this is a white sauce so if you have white pepper that would be awesome. I omitted pepper this go around.

You’ll see the sauce thicken. At that point remove from the stove and set aside. Now let’s assemble the pizza.

Melt the remaining butter in a small dish and using a brush or spoon spread the butter over the pizza crust. Now sprinkle garlic powder all over.

Next spread the white sauce all over, then sausage and veggies then finally mozzarella and hot pepper flakes (if you want).

Bake for about 10 min until your desired level of cheese brownness.

This makes a great week night treat – or fancy it up with an arugula salad with balsamic/olive oil dressing and have some friends over. However you slice it you’re guaranteed to love it.

Enjoy!

xoxo Shawna