wine braised beef short ribs

every year we buy a side of beef, if not a whole beef. either from the fair or from some friends of ours that still have a small cattle operation. we're down to the very last of last year's meat and i found at the back of the freezer a package labeled "strips for bbq" that turned out to be short ribs. there are few things in life that can compare to correctly cooked osso bocco but, bold though it may be, i think short ribs, braised slowly, can do it. so, we've discussed dutch ovens and this is a job for the old dutch, placed over low heat. pre heat the oven to 300 degrees while you're at it. into said dutch goes 1/2 an apple (core and all) roughly chopped, 4 cloves of garlic smashed and cut in half (don't worry about taking the papers off), 1/2 an onion chopped, 1 table spoon dried rosemary, one teaspoon whole pepper corns, 1 and 1/2 cups pinot noir, one table spoon of Bragg liquid aminos or soy sauce, and the beef. add enough water to cover the beef completely, but not by much. make sure you nestle the beef down into the liquid so that the bits of veggies etc. are mostly over and around the meat. now, pop it into the oven for about 3 hours, turn the meat over and cook for another 2 or 3 hours until the fluid is reduced by about half. pull the ribs out of the pot and cover them with foil. strain the broth, pressing all the juice from the strained bits. personally i ran mine through a stock separator to remove most of the fat from the top, then put it in a sauce pan with another pinch of dried rosemary and simmer until it's again reduced by about half. stir in one table spoon of brown sugar, when it is completely dissolved add your chopped mushrooms. i used a crimini, but since i don't eat mushrooms you may be correct in thinking that some other sort would be best. i leave it to you. cook them until soft. remove from the heat and stir in a little pat of butter at the last minute, pour over the ribs and serve. if you try this out, please let me know what you think!

as an addendum: if you want sweeter meat add the brown sugar to the braising liquid at the beginning of the process, watch that it doesn't burn or scorch though. you may have to give it the occasional stir while it's in the oven.