slow cooking

We bought a cut of beef recently that I didn't like the first bite of and stopped eating after the second bite. It tasted stringy, like stew beef. So instead of feeding it to the cats or the trash can, I threw it in the dutch oven with some pork and a can of Coke and slow-cooked it for the next day or two.

I'm sure I don't need to start with Coke, but it's either tradition or habit at this point.

I added a chopped red onion and a can of tomato paste, plus a bunch of balsamic vinegar and hot pepper -- black and red. Got an unbelievably good (and quite spicy) barbecue out of what had been a very disappointing meal.

At this point, I like serving barbecue with egg noodles. I love egg noodles and have loved them since I was a kid, but because I only ever had them with cafeteria food, I seem to have decided that they were white-trash food and I don't think I'd had them for about 20 years. Glad to have rediscovered them. I've embraced my inner white-trashiness. (A certain Misesian expressed a certain amount of shock when he learned that I enjoy handguns and drive a big pickup truck.)

While I'm thinking about cooking, let me again recommend everything from A Taste of Thai. Tonight's dinner will be a slow-cooked (for a day and a half, so far) soupe thaï de poissons. I forgot to use celery -- maybe for the next batch. This time I'm experimenting (successfully, it seems) with 2 bunches of green onions. I find that ginger and green onions go well together. I also used an unbelievable amount of fresh ginger. Love me some fresh ginger -- in almost anything. Oh, and I forgot to mention the unbelievable amount of garlic I also used.