Short rib ragu

I made the short rib ragu yesterday while puttering around the house, and wow.  It came out delicious!  The meat is incredibly meltingly tender, and the sauce is thick and fatty without feeling greasy or heavy.

I made a few modifications out of necessity: my grocery store didn't have porcini mushrooms this time, so I substituted 0.75 oz of assorted dried mushrooms.  I also didn't have Worcestershire sauce, so I added a dash of tamari soy sauce and probably about a teaspoon of anchovy paste.  And I skipped the gremolata (out of laziness).

For the meat, I used about 5.5 lbs of bone-in short ribs.  I would have liked to put in more to increase the final amount of meat, but that's all that would fit in my pot!  Lacking an immersion blender I pureed the sauce in my food processor in two batches.  Finally, I ended up simmering it very gently for about 2 more hours to reduce it, in large part because that's just how long it was until we ate it.

The final product doesn't look like the picture of the recipe; mine is much more like a thick stew.  I can imagine it would be delicious served over some sort of floppy pasta (like bowties) so I'm trying to figure out a good paleo substitution.  Maybe thin blanched zucchini slices next time?  It's delicious in a bowl by itself though so I'm not thinking too hard about it!

Beef braised in coconut milk

I made this beef braised in coconut milk and was thoroughly impressed!  It came out tender and flavorful, although I think next time I might actually increase the seasonings some.  It mostly tasted like coconut and beef--delicious, but the other flavors didn't really come through.

1. Preheat the oven to 275, and cut a ~3 lb beef chuck roast into six or so pieces.  Rub them with salt and brown them well in coconut oil in a big (oven safe) Dutch oven.  You'll want to do them in batches, and reserve them on a plate to the side.  I also took a lime out of the fridge now so it would be at room temperature for later juicing.
2. Drop the heat on the Dutch oven to medium and add a chopped onion, 2 minced cloves of garlic, a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, the zest of one lime, and 2 tablespoons of curry paste.  Saute this for a few minutes to partially cook the onion, scraping the beefy bits off the bottom of the pan.  Then, add a can of coconut milk, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of Thai fish sauce.  Now, you put all your beef (and any juices) back in the pot, cover it up, and put it in the oven.  It took mine 3 hours to get to falling-apart tender.
3. Pull the pieces of beef out and put them on a cutting board to cool slightly.  Meanwhile, put the pot over medium heat and add a chopped bell pepper; simmer for a few minutes to cook it.  Add the juice of that lime, 2 chopped scallions, and 1/4 c of basil cut into thin ribbons.  Chop or shred the beef into bite size pieces and add them back in!

We made cauliflower rice and served it over that--it was perfect.  I''ll definitely be making this again!