Bacon Bourbon Beef

After brunch recently, we had a large quantity of bacon left over. Since we don't usually have bacon in the morning, we figured we should use it for dinner. A little bit of searching, and we found this recipe for beef tenderloin steaks with smoky bacon bourbon sauce. It sounded great, but when we got to the store, we found that the short ribs looked fantastic, so got those instead. (My wife also really liked the apple fritter, but that's a different story.) Of course, short ribs necessitate a different cooking method from tenderloin.

What I did is take the ribs and brown them in a skillet. I put them in the slow cooker with the ingredients for the sauce, deglazed the pan with water, and added that to the slow cooker as well. I added some rosemary, because I like rosemary, and a chipotle pepper to give it a bit of heat and some additional smokiness. We left it on low for about seven hours.

It turned out great! Fork-tender, of course, but with a really good flavor to it. There was a bit of heat from the chipotle, but not much, and it added some complexity and balanced well with the bourbon. The asparagus made a really nice complement to the meat. When I do this again, which I think I will, I want to try reducing the liquid to make a sauce, as I think that would make it even better.