For this recipe, I browned the ribs, a few at a time, in a fry pan with a little bit of olive oil and butter. Once they were browned, I removed them from the pan and put them into the crock pot.
Next I deglazed the pan with some port wine, let the wine cook down to an essence and then sautéed the onions, garlic and fennel in a little olive oil. I added all this to the crock pot on top of the ribs.
I then sautéed the mushrooms that my daughter de-stemmed, cleaned and sliced in half. These were added to the pot.
With the sautéing done, I added a can of diced tomatoes and ¾ cup of brown stock to the crock pot and seasoned everything with salt and pepper.
Add the cover and let it cook until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.
After removing the fat that floated to the top and congealed, we reheated the short ribs and sauce in a large sauce pot on the stove over low heat.