Just about any meat can taste perfect if braised and seasoned properly. Plus, it’s easy. You don’t have to do much once it’s cooking, yet when it’s done, you have a tender, beautiful piece of meat. Add some vegetables and homemade mashed potatoes and wow, what a meal!

Braised Short Ribs with Roasted Vegetables:

6 Short Ribs (2 – 2.5 lbs – watch those sales!) – $4.98
10-15 button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced – $.50
1 pkg baby carrots – $.99
2 celery stalks, cleaned and sliced – $.25
1/2 white onion, diced – $.20
1 Tbsps Olive Oil – pantry
2 tsps Salt – pantry
1 tsp fresh ground Pepper – pantry
1 tsp garlic powder – pantry
1/2 cup flour – pantry
1 to 1 1/2 cups beef broth (you can use water or wine and add seasoning or bouillon)

COST: $6.92

Season flour with 1/2 of your salt and pepper and all of the garlic powder. Dredge each short rib (all sides) with seasoned flour. Add a little oil to a deep sauce pan or dutch oven and brown ribs over medium to high heat. Once browned, remove ribs and add onion, stir and cook for just a moment or two, scraping all the yummy bits off the pan. Now add wine or broth and bring liquid to boil. Once to boil, return ribs to liquid, cover and reduce to very slow simmer. Cook for 2 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place carrots, celery and mushroom in baking/casserole dish, spread out. Using tongs, carefully place ribs on top of veggies and then pour liquid/drippings over all the veggies and short ribs. Cover with foil and roast for 1 more hour.

During this time, you can prepare mashed potatoes and gravy.

Homemade Mashed Potatoes:

6 russet potatoes, peeled and diced – $1.50
1 cup of half and half – $.45
3-4 Tbsps butter – $.50
1 tsp of salt – pantry
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 pkg gravy mix – $.49

COST: $2.94

I keep my mashed potatoes simple. Sometimes I do add some garlic or cheddar, but for this meal, I wanted the ribs to stand out, so plain potatoes were the perfect choice!

Directions:  Place diced potatoes to a large pot with enough water to cover them by an inch or so. Add salt and bring to a boil. Cook until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork. (NO more than 12-15. You don’t want soup!)

Now, drain potatoes and return them to the pot. Mash by hand with a potato masher/ricer. When you have desired texture, add butter, half & half, salt and pepper. Mash again to mix well and serve with simple gravy.

Speaking of gravy. I wanted to use my drippings, but sometimes gravy made from just drippings can lack flavor, or be too fatty. What I did was use a package gravy, but instead of adding water, I adding liquid from the braised ribs. It was awesome! A tad salty, so I added a bit of water in the end. Worked out great! Full of flavor and very simple.

GRAND TOTAL: $9.86