For Christmas vacation I flew out to Wyoming with India, my 12-year old daughter, a few days earlier than the rest of the family as her vacation started earlier than everyone else’s did. We thought we’d go out and do a little Christmas preparation ahead of time.

As can often be the case, flying into Wyoming in the winter can have it’s challenges. We got diverted Salt Lake City on the leg from Dallas to Jackson because of a storm, and then went back to Jackson only to circle for a few hours and still were unable to land. Diverted back to Salt Lake City for the night, this is an excerpt from an email I sent to my husband and a few friends at the end of this day:

“Having one on of the longest days of my life I was not willing to wait in the ridiculously long line of people waiting for more information (that would no doubt turn ugly quickly on the poor American Airlines representatives that had absolutely no control over what had happened to us). I felt fortunate to have traveled enough with Jim to have learned the ropes of proper traveling. We immediately bypassed the long information-waiting line and I got Jim on the phone where he booked us a hotel room. While he was doing that I got on the “Open-Table” app on my iPhone and searched the area for the best local foodie restaurant and booked a reservation there. We took a cab to the restaurant content with a confirmed hotel reservation made by Jim.

The restaurant made up for the whole day’s bad experiences. If you are ever in the Salt Lake City area you must go and eat at the Copper Onion. We sat at the ‘chef’s counter’ where we were right in front of the chefs watching them prepare all the meals and chatting with them. The food was off-the-hook delicious. I started with shredded beef short ribs stuffed in piquillo peppers on a sofrito sauce. Each bite was more delicious than the last and I literally felt like crying and the sheer deliciousness of it.”

The email continued with the events of that day and the next day. But the point here is that I was bound and determined to re-create this little plate of deliciousness.

Voila.

Success.

Deliciousness on a plate.

I started with my Braised Beef Short Rib recipe.

Then I found a sofrito recipe online that I adjusted a little bit.

Then for fun I sent my husband out to the grocery store in search of a jar of piquillo peppers along with all of the ingredients listed in the original sofrito recipe. He did a good job for a man that rarely goes to the grocery store. However, some of the ingredients in the original sofrito recipe even had the mexicans working at the local Whole Foods shaking their heads having no idea what the item was, so I adjusted it to make it easier to shop for. Please also note that on the grocery list I requested a red bell pepper as the recipe indicated. Jim came home with a orange pepper. When asked about this he said that the sign above them said ‘red bell peppers’, so even though they were clearly orange, he bought it anyway. Hence, there’s a little more orange and a little less red that the properly sourced sofrito would have.


Mise en place all of your ingredients.

I’m realizing as I’m putting this post together that the tomatoes are missing from the mise en place shot. Guess what? They’re also missing from the Sofrito! I don’t know where they went when I was preparing this, but I suppose that’s why my sofrito turned out so green! All of this goes to show that everyone makes mistakes. The sofrito was still delicious, but if you try it – add the tomatoes.

Sofrito

Original recipe by Daisy Martinez of DaisyCooks.com. Recipe adjusted by Crafty Farm Girl, January, 2011.

Makes about 4 cups.

• 16 to 20 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 medium Spanish onions, cut into large chunks
• 4 Italian frying peppers or cubanelle peppers, cored, seeded & cut into large chunks
• 1-1/2 large bunches cilantro, washed & dried
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• 4 ripe plum tomatoes, cored and cut into chunks
• 1 large red bell pepper, cored, seeded and cut into large chunksSalt & pepper to taste

Because I wanted the garlic chopped pretty finely, I added that first. In the work bowl of a food processor process until fairly finely ground. Add the onion and cubanelle or Italian peppers in the work bowl of a food processor until coarsely chopped. Add the remaining ingredients one at a time and process until smooth.

The sofrito will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. It also freezes beautifully. Freeze sofrito in ½ cup batches in sealable plastic bags.

Now to create the stuffed peppers. You’ll need a jar of piquillo peppers. Jim found them at Trader Joes, but I’m sure they’re available at most grocery stores that have a good selection of ethnic foods.

Piquillo Peppers Stuffed with Short RIbs on Sofrito

• 1 recipe Braised Beef Short Ribs.
• Jarred Piquillo Peppers (Note: If you use the whole recipe of the short ribs you will probably require 2-3 jars of the piquillo peppers and will probably get about 20-26 stuffed peppers. If you just want a few appetizers, eat the short ribs for a meal and then use the leftovers to create some small plates. That’s what I did and I got about 8 stuffed peppers with the leftovers.)
• Sofrito (above)

Rinse and wash the peppers in cool water and drain & blot with paper towels to dry them.



Now I used the leftover shredded short ribs from the night before. Whether you make the short ribs just for this or use make a little extra of the recipe and use the extras for this dish, warm the shredded short ribs in the microwave, stirring occasionally until it’s heated through. I gently heated the sofrito in a pan — just enough to warm it up but not enough to dry out all of the juice. Get your plates ready. Then, take a pepper in your hand and open it up. With a fork take the short rib meat, a little at a time, and stuff it into the pepper. You want to stuff it in pretty hard to fill in nicely, but not so hard that you bust open the pepper.



Lay the stuffed peppers as you finish them back onto the paper towels. When you have stuffed them all lay your plates out and lay down a bed of the sofrito. Place the peppers on the sofrito. Now, I would say that a man a serving of 3 stuffed peppers would probably be best. I way happy with two on my plate. The peppers are fairly large. One would be too few. Four would be too many. You be the judge.



Now let me add here by that the time you’re done stuffing and plating, everything is going to be lukewarm if not cold. You could place the plates in a low oven (like 200 degrees F) for a little while, or what I did was to warm each plate in the microwave on power 7 for about 1-1/2 minutes.

Deliciousness on a Plate