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

Ground Beef Stroganoff

This is definitely a middle of the week sort of meal. We usually have mushrooms in the fridge, onions & garlic - well of course those are always around, plus we try to keep a few bags of ground beef from the butcher in the downstairs freezer. The quality is much higher, although it comes in 2lb bags which means lots of leftovers. Not necessarily a bad thing, at least when things turn out ok.

Ground Beef Stroganoff with mushrooms and egg noodles 

I noticed that most recipes, after googling around for a bit, seem to include either mushroom/chicken soup, beef consomme, or beef stock. We have tons of mushroom soup in the cupboard at any given time, but that is reserved for SO's famous "extravaganza" meals. Usually pork chop extravaganza. I prefer to do things a "fresher" way if I have the time, like I did today on a Sunday.  This recipe is similar to Emeril's, since I made up a batch of his "Emeril's Essence", but I omitted his suggestion of beef broth, parsley, and cheddar, and added instead some red wine, half-and-half cream, and sour cream.

Next Time: more mushrooms, maybe another veg

Me: 9/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: n/a, he had noodles and plain ground beef

Vietnamese Grilled Beef and Vermicelli

Also known as Bún bò Nam Bộ, this is a delicious dish we often would get somewhere in Chinatown and bring home for supper. The more common type is with grilled pork, but we happened to have beef on hand. As usual, SO had the good idea for this. I started off with the Canadian Living version that SO emailed me, but as usual we didn't have some of the ingredients and/or I didn't like something about the method. But changing things up is how you discover and invent, right? Well, when it works out it is good. 

There is a fair amount of prep involved here, but the cooking part is very quick. Our expectations were fairly low this first time I tried it, but wow it turned out really great. I think the key to this was the marinating of the meat. The sauce, called Nuoc Cham, is also important, but more so for the balance between acidity and the fish sauce. The little carrots you see, pickled or otherwise, I think are more for decoration. Huh, probably wrong there.

Grilled Beef and Vermicelli. The regular portion on the
right, and the slightly deconstructed version for the
fussier little guy in the family.

We didn't end up plating this in an entirely authentic manner; there is no lettuce leaves, no carrot, the beef was fast-fry instead of thicker pork, it was pan fried instead of grilled, etc.  But nonetheless, it was delicious. At least according to me and SO. Not so much according to SSO.

Next Time:  will grill some pork

Me: 10/10
SO: 10.5/10
SSO: 2/10