Heading out on the road again, but before I go ... Oysters avocado & braised short rib ravioli

I only had two nights at home between trips this week, and one of them was spent in a restaurant :-( Tonight, though, I finally got to cook on my own stove and in my own oven so I decided that I wanted to have a bit of fun.  Yes, I know that for most of you, spending most of the day picking out ingredients and cooking is not what you think of as fun, but it is for me :-)

Today, I put up a couple of courses ... I started with a cheese plate (not pictured) incorporating a couple of our current favorites Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper & Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam.

After that I started with some oysters and thought up a new fun sauce to go with them.

For this dish I built an avocado horseradish puree that I thought would sit well with oysters, neither overriding them nor blandly just providing texture.  I served it with the Marquis de Galeda Cava.  I am not going to share the full details of this sauce just yet, because it still needs a little work, but trust me that pass one was still pretty tasty.

For the main course, I went with a bit of an old favorite, and just spiced it up a little bit.  Shells & I built ravioli with roasted short rib and rainbow chard as the base, and then used the braising juice to build the ultimate sauce for this pasta dish.  I began by braising short ribs & rainbow chard with a base of beef stock, crushed tomatoes, diced red onion & diced red pepper.

Short Rib Pasta (2 servings with a little bit left over)
2.5 lbs Short Ribs (~6 ribs)
1 bunch Rainbow Chard
1 15 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 medium red pepper (diced)
1/2 red onion (diced)
16 oz Beef Stock (I used Kitchen Basics, Unsalted)
1/2 cup shredded italian cheese
Roux (1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp flour) if needed

First thing I did was preheat my oven to 350F.  I then began the dish by heating oil in a large saute pan, with a lid, to about medium high heat.  I put the ribs flesh side down for about a 30 second sear and then flipped them to bone side for another 30 seconds.  I then removed the pan from the heat and added all of the other ingredients, chard first.  I covered the pan and put it into the 350F oven ... set a timer for about 3 hours and you've got some time on your hands.

While this is cooking you'll want to make pasta dough but I can't talk to this one as it's the province of Shells ... maybe she'll write a post about it this week while I'm out of town.

After the braising is complete, remove the pan from the oven and get ready for the fun part.  Pull the short ribs out one at a time with tongs ... the bones will likely be separated ... thats ok, and put them on a plate.  If you get two with bones, keep those aside, otherwise pick the best looking two for presentation and cover them with foil on the plate after you transfer the other four to a cutting board.  Put the chard into a strainer over a plate or bowl and allow the sauce to drain out.

At this point using a knife and tongs, tear/chop the short ribs into small pieces and put in a mixing bowl.  Rough chop the chard and put that in the bowl with the cheese.  Drain the leftover juice from the rib plate and the chard bowl back into the main sauce.

Bing the pan with the sauce in it back up to a boil and begin cooking down to make a thicker sauce for your dish.  You can thicken with a little roux (Italian style with equal butter & flour( if you think it's needed.

While the sauce is cooking down begin making and cooking the pasta.

Once the pasta is complete, plate it with a short rib on top:  

Covered by the sauce and some parmesan cheese the final dish will look like this:

I'm going to be forced to eat restaurant food for the rest of the week so Shells will be posting.  Hope you take the chance to maybe make one of these dishes and eat better than I do this week.  Hope you enjoy this and have a good rest of the week!