I am the one that spends the most amount of time in the house thinking about food. What I mean is coming up with the meals, shopping for the meals and making the meals. Probably why I have a food blog, well partly why I have a food blog; I just really love food.
Last weekend my husband and I were away so my daughter who was home with the dog pulled out several of her favorite cookbooks and took over for the week. She came up with a game plan and also shopped for the weeks worth of dinners with one night ordering take out. If you think about it and are fortunate to eat 3 meals a day. breakfast, lunch and dinner for a year that is 1,095 meals to plan for. That is a lot of thinking, planning, buying and making. I know it really isn’t that high of a number. No one is making something unique every day, every meal. We all have a meal or two or twelve that we eat several times a month. I mean who opens a box of cereal with the intent of having one bowl only.
I was very nice to not have to think, plan or purchase dinner last week. Two of the meals I will be sharing with you over the next week or so. One was she has made before and we all love. The last one while it was good I believe it will be a one and done. Though we do tend to learn and discuss how we would make it different next time.

crispy short rib carnitas and slaw
Ingredients
Carnitas
- 3 pounds bone in short ribs
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 orange juiced
- 2 limes 1 1/2 juiced save the other half for slaw
- 5 garlic cloves unpeeled
Slaw
- 3 cups red cabbage finely shredded
- 1 carrot peeled, coarsely grated
- 2 scallions
- 1/4 cup cilantro roughly chopped
- kosher salt
- 1 dollop mayonnaise
- dash hot sauce (optional)
Instructions
Short Ribs
- preheat the oven to 275'F. Combine the salt and chili powder in a small dish. Spread this mixture all over the short ribs. Arrange the ribs in a dutch oven or similar as long as the dish is taller than the ribs. Pour the orange juice and lime in the bottom of the dish, scatter the garlic around the ribs. Cover the dish with the cover or tightly with tinfoil. Bake slowly for 2-2 1/2 hours. The meat should be tender, the fat rendered. The meat should be starting to separate from the bones.
- Remove the cover and increase the heat to 425'F. Basting the ribs with the pan juices once or twice for 15-20 minutes. You want the edges crispy and browned.
Slaw - make while waiting for the ribs to finish
- Toss the cabbage, carrot, salt and lime juice together in a bowl. Set aside for 5 or so minutes, the slaw will be easier to work with. Stir in the scallions, then the mayo and hot sauce if you are using it, adjust the seasoning and then add the cilantro.
finishing up the ribs
- Discard the bones, pick off any large chunks of fat, then lightly shred the meat into a dish. pouring the extra pan juices over it.
- You can squeeze the garlic out into a small dish and smear on the tortilla or save for later
Assembling
- heat the corn tortillas for 20-30 seconds on each side. Pile a small amount of shredded short rib meat on top. either add slaw to the top or on the side. If desired top with chopped white onion, cilantro, squeeze of lime. you do you!