Elysia Piscitelli Prevails in Crock Pot Wars
The winner of the 2017 Crock Pot Wars, waged at Page Hardware & Appliance Co. in Guilford last month, is The Residences at 66 High Street, represented by Elysia Piscitelli. More than 100 tasters attended, and Page’s was able to make a $500 donation to the Guilford Food Bank as a result.
Piscitelli won with her Slow Cooker BBQ Short Ribs. Other contestants made Slow Cooker Chocolate Lava Cake, Crock Pot Lobster Bisque, “Melt in Your Mouth” Pot Roast, Pulled Pork, Tangly Lemon Chicken, Szegediner Goulash (which includes beef stew meat, sauerkraut, and caraway seeds), Chicken and Dumplings, Indian Curry Chicken, Ranch Chicken Chili, Irish Mike’s Corned Beef Crock Stock, Chili, Buffalo Chicken Chili, Slow Cooker Chicken Enchilada Soup, and Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken Mac and Cheese. Some of the recipes have been posted at pagehardware.wordpress.com under “Crock Pot Wars Recap.”
—Pem McNerney
Here’s the winning recipe:
Slow Cooker BBQ Short Ribs
Elysia Piscitelli
Ingredients
Fine sea salt
Ground black pepper, to taste
Granulated garlic powder, to taste
Onion powder, to taste
5 lbs beef short ribs
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cups of barbecue sauce of your choice
2 tablespoons of honey
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ can or bottle of Beer
Instructions
In a small bowl, mix sea salt, pepper, and garlic and onion powders. Adjust seasoning as necessary, then season ribs with the mixture.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the outside of ribs.
Place a layer of roughly chopped onions at the bottom of a slow cooker.
In separate bowl, mix together the barbecue sauce, honey, and mustard.
Add ribs a little at a time to the bowl and make sure they are well coated in the sauce.
Place ribs in the slow cooker on top of the bed of onions.
Pour beer over the top once the sauced ribs are in the slow cooker, so that the sauce mixture cascades to the onions at the bottom.
Carefully stir the ribs to combine ingredients.
Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
When done cooking, switch the slow cooker to warm setting.
Before serving, skim excess fat from the sauce (you may need to remove the ribs to do this).
When ready to eat, simply serve ribs directly from the slow cooker or transfer to a platter.