Christiiiiina's Baby Back Riiibs

Have I told you that I love ribs?

They're my favorite and what I always chose for my birthday dinner growing up.

If they happen to be ribs from JK's back home in NC they're hands down the best food I've eaten and my death row meal choice.

I am preferable to a dry rub version, sans sauce, while Johnny loves his covered in sauce. Tonight I cut a rack of baby back ribs in half and cooked each half to our liking.

To make my rub I used:

onion powder
garlic powder
celery salt
black pepper
paprika
brown sugar

First I rinsed the ribs and cut them in half. My half was coated with a light shmear of spicy brown mustard and then the dry rub pressed in and shmeared around.

Johnny's half received a coating of applewood smoked barbeque sauce. A vinegar tang with the sweetness of apples, it even had some small chunks of apples in it. Really delicious!

Raise your oven rack up and turn the broiler on. Put the ribs on a foil-lined baking pan and let each side brown under the broiler for about 5 minutes. The outside of the ribs will crackle and sizzle, with a few spots of brown and black.

Remove the ribs from the oven, lower the rack back to normal, and lower the oven temperature to 250°.

Next, put the foil-lined baking sheet on the 2nd rack, spray a light coating of non-stick spray on the top rack, and place the ribs directly on the oven rack. Set the timer for 35 minutes and walk away.

Once the timer goes off, flip the ribs, and apply another coat of sauce, if using. Set the timer for another 35 minutes.

After the timer goes off the second time, flip the ribs again, apply the last layer of sauce and turn the broiler back on for the last 5 minutes.

Remove the ribs from the oven and allow them to rest a few minutes.

Turn upside down for easy cutting, and slice between each bone to separate the ribs. They should be really tender and juicy on the inside with a delicious char on the outside.

These were served alongside Trader Joe's teeny tiny potatoes and brussel sprouts. Both recipes to come in the next two posts!

BBQ Pomegranate Ribs

Crossing things off my Freezer Meat Challenge list I realized that I hit all the safe and easy things first. I have been avoiding the larger items like racks of ribs and whole chickens because they just seem intimidating to me.

Throwing caution to the wind, I thawed the pork spare ribs, drawing inspiration from this month's copy of Taste of Home magazine. Slow cooker ribs are on the cover and I've cooked them before successfully, and gosh dang it I could do it again!

I won't even bother posting their recipe because the only things I did similiar was use barbecue sauce and something fruity, that was all the boost I needed to get me started down the creative path of dinner prep.

BBQ Pomegranate Ribs in the Slow Cooker

1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 18oz. bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's Hot n Spicy sauce
2 8oz. bottles POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
~2 lbs. pork ribs

First, I sprayed the crock pot (this is very helpful in the cleaning process). Then I dumped in the onion, garlic and black pepper. I found the barbecue sauce in the fridge and dumped it in after tasting a small bit on my finger to see if I liked it. By the time I'd dumped it in, the heat on my tongue had started to grow and have a little burn to it. That's when I noticed it was the Hot n Spicy sauce. Eeep! How to tone it down? I didn't want to use cherry preserves like the magazine recipe, so I grabbed the beautiful POM bottles! I dumped the first one in, tasted, and it was much improved. The 2nd bottle I dumped in the barbecue bottle and shook to rinse it out and get all the flavor out. I whisked everything together and the taste was fantastic! Still a nice kick from the barbecue sauce, and a delicious fresh, tart burst from the POM.

Last, I trimmed the pork ribs of excess fat and cut them into individual rib sections and threw them in the sauce. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, until meat is tender.

I cooked mine on low for about 6 hours and they were juicy and tender. Unfortunately, I turned it on high for an hour with the lid off to try and thicken up the sauce, that had become pretty watery, and the meat dried out a little bit. I'd recommend just sticking to the low and slow method, ignoring the sauce because it still coats all the ribs and gives them DELICIOUS flavor.

Johnny and I almost finished a whole ~2 lb. rack ourselves, despite them being a little dried out. The sauce was really tasty and I would have never thought to add something fruity to hide in the background, but now I think it'll become a habit of mine! Cooking in the crockpot kept them juicy and eliminates the fear of the sugars in the BBQ sauce and POM from catching fire on the grill and charring too much.

Slow Cooker Ginger-Soy Short Ribs

That title keeps going, believe it or not. Robin Miller is a fan of really, really long titles. This is the last of her recipes on my planned menu. Some we will be revisiting, others we will not.

This is highly altered, so I'll post the original recipe first, in case you're interested and then just describe how I threw it together below.

4 carrots, chopped
2 leeks, rinsed well and chopped
3 pounds bone-in beef short ribs, fat trimmed
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup sherry
1/2 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups instant brown rice
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup chopped scallions
2 tablespoons minced pickled jalepenos
1 teaspoon lime zest

Heat a large Dutch oven and arrange carrots and leeks on the bottom. Season ribs all over with salt and pepper and place over vegetables. In a medium bowl, whisk together brother, sherry, soy sauce, honey, vinegar, ginger and garlic. Pour mixture over ribs. Cover and braise for 3 to 4 hours. This can also be done in a slow cooker - just cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
Cook rice according to package directions. While still hot, stir in cilantro, scallions, jalepenos and lime zest. Season to taste, with salt and pepper.

OK. That is way intense for me. So, here's what I did:

I cut up 6 carrots and 1 small onion and threw them in the bottom of the crock pot. I then cut, trimmed and rinsed normal beef ribs and placed them over the vegetables.

I minced 3 cloves of garlic and about 2 tablespoons of ginger and mixed that with about 1/3 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/4 cup white wine and dumped it over everything. I seasoned with black pepper because I figured there would be more than enough salt with the soy sauce. I also threw in a vegetable stock bouillion and about a cup or so of water.

This cooked on low for about 6 to 7 hours and smelled awesome when I walked in the door from work. On the stove I cooked up a box of Rice a Roni's whole grain blend of something or another. It took 24 minutes, so I turned the crock pot to just warm while this simmered away.

The end result were tender carrots infused with ginger, falling off the bone, tender, juicy ribs, and a nutty blend of grains cheated from a box start!


I also received my prizes in the mail from winning Biz's contest! I'm really looking forward to trying them, especially the Goddess one! Thanks!!