Kendra's Kitchen Creations: Ribs Slow Cooked to Perfection

Slow-Cooked Short Ribs
delicious ribs slow cooked to perfection

Alright, so I made these quite some time ago. But I stared at them in my cookbook for a solid 3 months before making them. Why? I do not know. So as I sit here, inside on yet another insanely hot day in Arizona I figured I should get off my ass and write a blog post. I've been incredibly lazy with it lately. I don't know why. Well, actually I do. I started a new job a month and a half ago and I jumped into a new relationship with an amazing guy. So forgive me if I've been spending more time in the kitchen with him cooking and not taking as many pictures. No fear, I'm getting back into it,because I miss my blog.

As the summer heat sets in here in Arizona, I really look for ways to cook my delicious food without heating up my whole house. My BBQ and slow-cooker are my saviors now. Instead of using my oven I get in the habit of slow cooking it all or using the BBQ. So this recipe makes about 12 servings, or well the one in my cookbook did. I cut it in about half when I made these, I didn't need to feed 12 people. Really I just needed to feed myself and my dad because he came over the next day for left-overs. I think my brother ate some too, actually I'm pretty sure he did. Anyways....here's what you'll need to get these started! Keep in mind this is cutting everything in half down to about 4-6 servings.

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2-3 pounds boneless beef short ribs

3 Tablespoons of butter

1/2 large white onion, chopped

3/4 cup Beef Broth

1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar

1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 cup chili sauce

1/4 cup ketchup

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

3-4 garlic cloves, minced or crushed

1 teaspoon chili powder

OK so the first thing you're going to do is grab a large resealable bag, toss the flour, salt, and pepper in it and shake it around a bit to get everything all nice and mixed up.

Toss the ribs in there in batches and coat them in the flour. Once that's done you can discard any left over flour mix, but I don't think there will be much if any left over if you've coated them properly.

Do they look like that? Excellent! Now grab a large skillet and brown the ribs for a couple minutes on each side in the 3 tablespoons of butter. Browning the ribs is a really smart thing to do when you're slow cooking meats. Helps lock in flavor and what not.

They look delicious already don't they? Yeah I thought so too. Well once you've browned them toss them in a 3-4 quart slow cooker (use a 6 quart or larger slow cooker if you're doubling the amounts I gave here to make the "full" recipe).

I'm serious. Set those aside, we got lots of work to do on that BBQ sauce they're going to cook in!!

Grab all those other ingredients listed. Yes ALL of them you're going to need them. Remember that skillet you browned the beef in? You didn't clean it did you? I hope not, because you're going to use that to make the sauce.

Toss everything into the skillet. All of it, ketchup, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, beef broth, Worcestershire sauce, spices, chili sauce...the onion, it all goes into the skillet.

Cook and stir everything together, then bring the sauce to a boil. Let it boil for a couple of minutes to let the flavors come together. Once that's all set pour the sauce over the ribs in your slow-cooker.

Now for the hard part. Set the ribs to cook for about 6-8 hours. Cook them on low for however long it takes for the meat to be really tender. Mine were falling apart, in a good way, they were so tender. 6-8 hours is a long time to wait for food, I know, so you can amuse yourself while the ribs cook. Me? I made whole wheat dinner rolls from scratch, and also Scalloped potatoes. It helped pass the time. Hell, throw a salad in there too! Make a complete meal!

Yep....still cooking....patience is a virtue you know...

Have a beer it'll help pass the time...

Amazing. Yes? Well believe me, if you could smell it you'd be saying it was amazing. Trust me on this one, trusting me in the kitchen is something you can do easily. Once the 6-8 hours of slow cooked torture is over you can enjoy these!! Yay!! Clean up is a breeze too since you only used 1 skillet and probably 1 knife and cutting board. So simple!