Slow cooked ribs, Hasselback potatoes, and Avocado Spinach salad

This was the Mother's Day meal for SO.  Inspiration came from a number of sources. The night before we had fabulous Maui Ribs at our friends' place - they recently came back from Hawaii, and were inspired themselves to serve them up. The got the ribs cross-cut at the local Chinese superstore, marinated them for a long time, and then grilled them. Very tasty. Anyway, we felt like having ribs again.

The second source was our local butcher, which we love. Great quality, and good prices. Often you have to buy things in largish batches, if not Costco size. So we came home with 3 x 2 packs of pork back ribs, meaning 6 full racks in all. They went into the freezer except for 1 two pack.

Finally, the third source (not really inspiration but necessity) was our new bbq. It is not a super high end affair, but is big and shiny, and has lots of burners and features. The problem is, it has a higher output then my last one, so I suspect I don't have the correct diameter of pipe for the natural gas supply. If you put one burner on it looks strong, but put all four on an they look like they are simmering. This would be a bad thing. No more high heat searing (aha! except I have a searing burner, which I haven't tried yet), although I will get a licensed dude to come take a look eventually. ALL this to say, it has forced me to cook things long and slow.  Which of course is perfect for ribs.

Slow cooked ribs

I've always been a bit afraid of ribs. I've tried many ways of cooking and they all turned out horribly. Tried boiling them first (bad idea), baking (not so good), slow cooker (worst idea EVER), and most bbq attempts did not turn out. So I was reticent to proceed.  Which method then?  I never usually have to go further than my "Big Weber book of Grilling", it is pretty awesome. So I pretty much followed their "Kansas City style ribs" recipe. I didn't like the "mop" very much (see here for a difference between "mop" and "baste"), mostly because of the unnecessary celery bits, other than that the ribs turned out awesome. I ended up cooking them almost perfectly for the first time in my life. I was pretty stoked. It was pushing 2.5 hours at around maybe 275 F.  How do you tell if they are done?  Here is an interesting link at the Amazing Ribs website.

Part 2 - I've been noticing these Hasselback potato recipes all over the interweb lately, so I thought I'd wing it and try it.  Now, SO is a potato expert, cooker and eater. So I was unsure about the venture. But I wanted it to be a surprise none-the-less, so I gave it a whirl and it also turned out very nicely.

Hasselback Potatoes, with bacon and cheese

Part 3 - Needed a salad to go with the meat.  I've been really into spinach lately, not sure why. Usually simple sliced mushrooms on top. I've also been into avocado, because of the great taste and health benefits, and because it is gosh darn fun to cut up. I love it when it just pops out of the skin in one whole piece.

Avocado-spinach salad with olives and mini sweet tomatoes

Next Time: I would stick with the rub on the ribs, but maybe try a different baste. I under cooked the potatoes by probably 10 minutes, and it needed a bit more cheese. The salad was fine.

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 7/10

Easy Sunday Afternoon in-the-oven Ribs

I was a bit wary when SO suggested ribs for Sunday. She has all the good ideas in the family, but our track record for ribs lately hasn't been stellar.  Well we had a few disastrous mishaps in any case.  Oh well, let's try again. At our local grocery I got 2 large racks of side ribs for around $20, not too bad. We actually had the slow cooker out when she suggested doing them in the oven before leaving for the day to traipse around to the musem and the movies with SSO and his "date". A girl. Not a date he insists, but a "birthday present" since he missed her birthday party the week before. How does a 7 year old even know what a date is anyway? Anyhoo. So oven it will be.  Let's just wing it, how bad could it be?

Easy Ribs in the oven

Well you know, it actually turned out awesome! I had trouble removing them from the roaster because they were falling apart like crazy. I decided to try and do them with as little work as possible, partly because I wanted to see if they'd turn out ok that way, and partly because it was supposed to be my do-nothing-because-it's-Father's-Day day. Nevermind that Father's Day was last Sunday. Things get delayed for camping, is all.  So instead of cutting up onions, mixing up fancy spices and bbq sauces, basting every 20 minutes like some recipes would have you do, it was a stick in big roasting pan with a bottle of bbq sauce and cook for 5 hours. Not much else. I ended up mixing the bbq sauce with a bit of water, some ketchup, some Sriracha hot sauce and the rest of another bottle of bbq sauce I had in the fridge. A little fresh vegetable medley of whatever I had in the fridge, plus some 10 minute rice, and that's it. Sometimes the whole KISS principle actually works, and I'm not refering to Rock and Rolling all night...

Next time: Not much different, actually. Maybe I'd try making a fully home-made bbq sauce.

Me: 8/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: 5/10