Sunday Dinner

I am married to a man who believes that certain foods should only be served on certain days. It’s taken me better than 12 years of marriage to figure out this system of what we can eat and when. For example, sloppy joes = Friday dinner.  Anything fancier does not qualify for a “Friday dinner”. Spaghetti and Meatballs??? Definitely a Sunday Dinner. Steak and Potatoes? Saturday? Yep! Tuesday? No way. You get the idea. So, I’m always trying to figure out the best thing to cook on any given day.

Recently, I was watching Giada DeLaurentis’ show on the Food Network when I saw her make braised short ribs with penne pasta. I immediately thought to myself, “Yes!! This is a Sunday Dinner”. So, once I had my vegetables for this week, I made my way up to What’s Your Beef in Waxhaw to pick up my meat! 4 lbs of (amazing) short ribs later, I had put together a Sunday dinner worthy of Scott’s discriminating palate… minus the zucchini served on the side. He managed to eat a few of those, mixed in with two helpings of his pasta!

The recipe calls for 1 cup of red wine, such as a cabernet sauvignon. I’m a firm believer in only cooking with what you’d drink, so I picked up some of this wine at the Teeter, and I would highly recommend. It went wonderfully with dinner!

Here’s Giada’s recipe, followed by pictures of the final product! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/penne-with-braised-short-ribs-recipe/index.html

The zucchini I just trimmed by halving, slicing lengthwise and trimming some of the seeds. The best way to ensure you do not end up with mush zucchini is to salt them about 10 minutes before you cook them up. I sauteed them quickly over high heat and finished them of with some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Both of the kids loved them, as did I!

   

So I managed to use up a all the tomatoes and a good bit of the zucchini from last week’s box. Next up, the collards!