Fool-Proof Baby Back Ribs Recipe

This recipe is incredibly easy and delicious, but keep in mind that cooking time is 2 hours.

We made this recipe with two different flavors of Grumpy’s BBQ sauce. The ‘Good night loving’ Texas Style and the ‘Bold XX’ Kansas City Style. The Tasters (Me, my husband, my mother-in-law, and my nephew) were divided in our favorites. However we all agreed that the Texas style is a bit spicier (but oh so delicious, yes you guessed it, my favorite was the Texas style). We still have two more flavors of Grumpy’s BBQ sauces to try, but so far I’m impressed with them, very, very delicious.

Serves 2-3 if you’re hungry

Ingredients:

• 1 Tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 Tablespoon chili powder

(If you don’t have any chili powder, you can make your own by mixing 1 teaspoon paprika, 2 teaspoons cumin, 1 teaspoon cayenne, 1 teaspoon oregano, 2 teaspoons garlic powder)

• 1 Tablespoon paprika
• A bit of salt and pepper
• 3 Pounds baby back ribs
• 1 Cup Grumpy’s BBQ Sauce
• Wood chips for smoking

Step 1: Preparation

Start up the BBQ. Because we are smoking the ribs in this recipe, we used a charcoal bbq, but if your bbq can’t smoke, don’t worry, even unsmoked these ribs are very tasty. The coals should be placed as far to one side of the bbq as possible. The ribs will be going on the opposite side, as far from the heat as possible, we want them to cook slowly.

Soak the wood chips. It’s important to soak the wood chips until they are fully saturated this is so they don’t catch on fire and burn up when they’re put on the hot coals. We want smoke, not flames. Ours were more sawdust than chips, so they only needed half an hour, but if you have larger chunks you may need to soak them for an hour.

Step 2: Removing the Membrane

To get delicious tender ribs, the important first step is to remove the membrane on the back side. Turn the rack so the boney side is facing up. Using either your fingers or a butter knife, pry up a bit of the membrane at one side of the rack. (picture 1)

Pull the membrane that you have pried up, you want to pull it across the ribs, removing all the membrane. If you’re lucky it will come off in one piece! The membrane can be quite slippery, so if you’re having trouble gripping it try using a paper towel.  (picture 2)

Two racks with membranes removed. (picture 3)

Step 3: The Rub

Mix together the cumin, chili powder, paprika, salt, and pepper in a bowl.

Sprinkle the rub onto both sides of the rack, you don’t have to use all of it.

NOTE: Be careful to only lightly rub the mixture into the meat. If you rub it in too vigorously the flavor becomes very intense.

Step 4: The first hour – Smoking

Make sure the coals are stacked at one side of the bbq and are white hot.

Bring your ribs and soaked wood chips to the bbq. Drain off as much water as you can from the wood chips

Remove the grate and put the wood chips on the hot coals. Use your hands to do this, and squeeze out excess water before putting the chips on the coals. Replace the grate.

Place the ribs on the grate, as far from the coals as possible. Since they will be cooking for a total of 2 hours, we don’t want the coals to be cooking them directly. Make sure the ribs are meaty side up.

Put the lid on the grill, make sure it is positioned so the vents are on the same side as the meat, this way the smoke has to pass over the meat to escape.

Adjust the vent opening so it is only ¼ open, and enjoy the smoke show.

Leave the bbq for one hour. Do not open the lid to peek!

Step 5: The second hour – Basting

Now that you’ve patiently waited one hour, remove the grill lid.

For this second hour you need to baste every 15 minutes with your chosen BBQ Sauce (as I mentioned in the introduction, we used two different Grumpy’s BBQ Sauces, their ‘Goodnight Loving’ Texas Style and their ‘Bold XX’ Kansas City style. Both of them were incredibly delicious, I liked the Texas style best, however my husband disagrees and thinks the Kansas City one has the edge.)

After the last basting, leave the ribs on the bbq for 5 more minutes (make sure to put the lid back on). Then remove and prepare to eat!

Serve the ribs with a nice green salad, such as our Bacon Lettuce, Avocado, and Tomato Salad, french fries, or both!

David B. May 2nd, 2010

Posted In: Recipes

Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, and Tomato (BLAT) Salad

This fresh and flavorful BLAT salad is perfect as a light meal or a side dish. At the moment it is probably my favorite and most common lunch meal. The ingredients seem to change each time I make it, but some of my favorite variations are: feta instead of cheddar, halved olives (kalamata preferably), button mushrooms halved and cooked in a frying pan with some butter and salt.

This recipe is part of our Memorial Day Menu.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

These ingredient quantities are very loose, feel free to vary them depending on what you have available, personal preference, and the amount of people you’re serving.

Makes 4 large servings (it’s so good that a small serving just isn’t enough)

• 8-10 slices of bacon – Dry-cured is best, but any bacon will do.
• 2 ripe avocados – Creamy and soft for the best texture.
• 3 handfuls of cherry tomatoes (halved) or 3 large ripe tomatoes (diced). The sweeter your tomatoes, the yummier your salad. If you can’t find any ripe tomatoes, omit them.
• ½ medium red onion – Finely chopped for better mixing.
• 2 large handfuls of grated cheese – Cheddar is great, but feta works well too.
• 4 large handfuls of lettuce. We were lazy and used a store bought salad mixture which was baby spinach, rocket, and various other little green leaves that I couldn’t identify.
• Caesar Dressing, to taste.
• Salt & Pepper, to taste.

Step 1: Prep & Chop

Cook your bacon in a frying pan with a little oil. How long you cook it for depends on your preference. I like it crispy, my husband likes it chewy, so we cook it until slightly crispy as a compromise (that way neither of us are entirely satisfied). When the bacon is done to your liking, chop it up.

Chop the onions finely, the idea is to have they pieces small enough that they mix in and you don’t get big bites of onion while eating the salad.

Slice the avocados into fairly large chunks, be careful not to make the pieces too small or they will dissolve into mush when you toss the salad

Cut the tomatoes into halves or quarters if you’re using cherry tomatoes, otherwise cut them into a chunky dice.

Wash the lettuce and chop it into bite sized pieces, even if the leaves you start with are fairly small, like baby spinach, it still makes for a much nicer salad if you chop them up into smaller pieces.

Grate a couple of handfuls of cheese, if you don’t want cheese in your salad, feel free to leave it out, it will still be delicious!

Step 2: Assemble & Mix

Put the lettuce in a large serving bowl, add the tomatoes, onions, avocados, bacon, and cheese. Mix it up and decide if the proportions of the ingredients seem right to you. Since we had found such delicious tomatoes at the farmer’s market, we decided to put a few more in.

Drizzle some caesar dressing over the top, but don’t put too much on, it goes further than you’d think. Mix it up again, the dressing should finely coat all the ingredients but not be gloopy. (However, if you like gloopy salads, then by all means, add some more!)

Don’t forget to taste it. Does it need salt or pepper? Add if necessary (This will depend on the brand of salad dressing and the amount you’ve used).

Ta-Da! A delicious BLAT salad awaits, which by the way, goes perfectly with our Fool-Proof Baby Back Ribs Recipe.

David B. May 2nd, 2010

Posted In: Recipes

Ultimate Bacon Wrapped Burger Recipe

These burgers were a huge success, everyone who had one wanted the recipe! But is that surprising? Who can resist crispy bacon parcels.

Definitely a keeper – if you love bacon, you have to give it a try!

This recipe is part of our Memorial Day Menu.

Skill Level: Intermediate

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Makes: 6-9 (Depending on patty size)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs (700 grams) ground meat of your choice (we used venison, but ground beef would work equally well. You could also try lamb, pork, or even goat!)

1 1/2 small onions, finely chopped

1 1/2 Tablespoons Ketchup

1 1/2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Salt and Pepper (Approx 1/2 teaspoon of each)

1/2 cup cheese, grated (Ideally cheddar)

1-2 garlic cloves, minced

6 Tablespoons cream cheese

18-24 slices of bacon (3-4 per patty)

Toothpicks (optional)

Toppings:

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Red Onion

Dijon Mustard

Mayonnaise

Hamburger Buns

Directions:

-  Preheat Grill for medium to low heat. (We cooked ours on low because we made 6 enormous patties instead of 9 smaller ones)

Making the Patties

– Photo 1: Put the ground meat into a large bowl and break it up.

– Photo 2: Chop up the onions (we probably chopped them up too coarsely, I would do it finer next time) and add them to the bowl.

– Photo 3: Add the ketchup, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, and grated cheese.

– Photo 4: Now comes the messy part, mix/knead/squish the mixture thoroughly (Ideally, you want to mix this up with your hands – that seems to be the easiest way to get a good bind. However, a wooden spoon will work if you’re like me and not too fond of raw meat under your fingernails.)

– Photo 5: Keep mixing until the meat has formed a bind, as in the photo (This is the same technique used for making sausages.)

– Photo 6: Form into patties! (6-9 of them, depending on how large you want them. We made 6, which were HUGE. )

Adding the Cream Cheese Center

– Photo 7: Mix cream cheese and garlic together, divide into 6-9 portions (depending on how many patties you are making), and roll each portion into a ball.

– Photo 8: Poke a hole in the center of each patty.

– Photo 9: Pop a ball of cream cheese into each hole, and squeeze the meat shut over the top.

Wrapping with Bacon and Grilling

Photo 10: Wrap each patty with 3-4 slices of bacon. (We found that the bacon stayed on fine without requiring toothpicks if  the direction of each slice was alternated 90 degrees when wrapping it around the patty, as in the picture.)

Photo 11: Bring your patties out to the hot grill and start cooking! (As you can see in the picture, our grill has a flat and a grid area. We found that cooking the patties on the flat area first sealed the bacon nicely and kept it from falling apart. However, it cooked faster on this area, so after they were sealed we moved the patties to the grid for slower cooking)

Photo 12: Continue to cook until the internal temperature reaches 160º F (71º C).

Assembly and Eating

Photo 13: Bring your patties inside, wipe up the drool.

Photo 14: Hopefully you prepared your topping while the patties were cooking, but if not, quickly do it now!

Photo 15: Assemble your burgers (We used mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, red onion, lettuce, and tomato), crack open a beer, and eat (Or at least try to – either my mouth was too small, or my burger was too large. However, my husband thought the size was perfect.)

Other Ideas:

Miniature versions of these patties would make fabulous finger food nibbles. You could serve them just as patties, with various sauces to dip them in. Or you could layer a slice of cheese and mushroom, tomato and avocado, or anything else that caught your fancy – all held together with a toothpick.

David B. April 3rd, 2010

Posted In: Recipes