Oxtail Stew

The last two nights were filled with leftovers and cheater meals, like McCormick spice mix chicken wings. But today I am finally trying something new, which means I need to follow a recipe. Actually, I'm combining two recipes I found for Oxtail Soup/Stew; one from Stephanie O-Dea's Make it Fast, Cook it Slow, and the other from Vol. 14, #3 of Renaissance Magazine, along with a few additions of my own.
My husband went on leave Friday afternoon and will be home for two whole weeks! So he watched the baby this morning while I got an early start on this recipe, which will take two days.
I thought it would be pretty cheap to prepare, assuming ox tails were a beef part about as desirable as tongue or hock, but I was wrong. I got 2 1/3 pounds of ox tails at just over $10, given them being $4 something per pound! Both the recipes I had called for 3 pounds of ox tails, but I'm a cheapskate so I altered the recipes to approximate the amount of meat I actually had available. I'm using my 7 quart Crock Pot (the lid on which broke yesterday and is now being held together by super glue until I buy a new crock pot today).

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds ox tails
1 pound (or about 7) carrots, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
5-6 small red potatoes, cut into inch chunks
1 1/2 stalks celery, sliced down the middle then chopped
12 oz. worth of canned diced tomatoes
1 cup dry white wine (like Chardonnay)
1 can low sodium beef broth
2-3 Tbsp olive oil
3 green onions or 2 leeks, chopped into rings (leaving out the last inch or two of dark green)
3 fat garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning (or, barring that, a few shakes worth to cover the meat of parsley, rubbed sage, basil, and oregano)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cumin (I only had cumin seed so I ground the 1/2 tsp up with my mortar and pestle)
3 sprigs rosemary
a sprig of fresh oregano, if you have it
sea salt
black pepper

Pour the olive oil into the bottom of the Crock Pot and rub it around with your fingers to cover the bottom. Rinse off the ox tails then plop them in on top of the olive oil. Cover with all the ground spices and 2 of the sprigs of rosemary, as well as a few shakes of sea salt and pepper. Pour in the beef broth, wine, and spread the tomatoes on top of all that. Add the vegetables and top with a few more shakes of sea salt and pepper. Break up the last sprig of rosemary and pull the leaves off the fresh oregano and scatter over the top.
Cover and cook on high for 5 hours, then turn off and let cool. Put the crock pot (just the ceramic part) into the refrigerator overnight to let the fat congeal and rise to the surface. In the morning, scrape off the fat (and throw out), then put the pot back into the heating element and cook on low for 6-8 hours to reheat and allow the flavors to mesh and the meat to get nice and tender.

Second Day: Skim the fat off the top, trying to get around the vegetables as best you can, then start it up again on low.
End result: Bloody delicious! The meat was falling off the bone...yum!