Easy Crock Pot BBQ Ribs

I thought I would share one of the crock pot recipes I've been doing for years. It's so easy and delicious (and relatively cheap) that I thought others might like to give it a try.

Ingredients:

• 2.5 pounds of country style ribs (beef or pork, try to catch them when they're on sale, they freeze great!)
• 1 bottle of the BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Ray's is my absolute favorite and they recently went on sale at $0.88 for an 18 oz bottle, I bought 20)
• 1 medium size onion (I love red onions, but any kind will do)
• 2 cloves garlic (or 10, as you prefer ) 
• 6 mushrooms (optional, I buy cremini but anything works)
• 1 can beef broth
• 1 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 T vegetable oil (or bacon grease, if you're like me and always have some handy :) )
• Salt and pepper to flavor (or your favorite BBQ spice rub)

Preparation: 

This really is about as easy as cooking can get. Dice the onion, when I made it this morning I had red and white onions in the fridge so I used half a red and half a white onion but the key really is to get a nice dice going and get that onion-y goodness in your crock pot. 

Break down your garlic cloves, dice them finely or use a press, and toss em in the crock pot. 

Grab your bottle of BBQ sauce and pour the whole thing in. In order to get all of the yumminess out of the BBQ bottle, pour your beef broth into the bottle and shake, shake, shake it up. Pour the beef broth into the mix as well. 

Now, if you're lucky enough to have a bottle of Wickersham Family Authentic Down Home BBQ Spice Rub shake a decent helping into the pot, otherwise add a teaspoon each of salt and pepper and send me an email begging for a sample of my spice rub. 

Next quarter (or smaller, if you're a little mushroom queasy) the mushrooms and mix them into your crock pot. These mushroom are totally optional, you could leave them out completely if you wish but why would you! Their primary role is, of course, to add their earthy, nutty flavor to the recipe. The added benefit, even more of course, is that they give you something else to soak up the yummy base you just made over the next 8 hours and help stretch the recipe if you're feeding a large family. And an earthy, nutty flavor, of course. 

Now that you have your base taken care of (that was really easy, right) it's time to turn to your meat. You could just throw the ribs into the crock pot and be done; I've done this on many occasions when I've been in a hurry. It will be delicious. 

If you have a few extra minutes, however (a really, really small number of minutes) you can crank the flavor up a few notches by browning the ribs before you put them in the crock pot. The flavor benefit to lightly browning these ribs before you braise them all day in the crock pot is unbelievable. The secret to all this extra flavor, obviously, is the Maillard reaction. It's also an opportunity to sneak some bacon into your ribs, which is never a bad idea. If you happen to have a tub (or a skillet left over from breakfast) of bacon grease you owe your family an apology if you skip this step. Seriously, it's bacon. Vegetable oil works well too if that's all you have (seriously, save your bacon grease). You want a mid-hot pan so you get a good sizzle, grab your tongs and lightly brown each side of your ribs. Then toss them into the crock pot. That's it. 5 minutes for flavor magic.

Now, if you browned your ribs you've got to keep all those brown bits in the pan. Deglaze with the apple cider vinegar (I said 1 tablespoon but I just use a couple splashes to cover the pan) and use your wooden spoon or silicon spatula to to get all that gooey goodness off the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce for just another minute (really, you've got the time!) and pour it into the crock pot. 

If you didn't brown your ribs, just pour a couple splashes of apple cider vinegar into the crock pot. Seriously though, brown the ribs. 

That's it! Stir it up a little to make sure the ribs are coated and set the timer so they're done by dinner. I like to go low for at least 8 hours but it's up to you. These ribs tend to be pretty tough and chewy so the lower and slower you can cook them the better they'll be. I like to serve them on a plate with some rice and my kids love them. Let me know if you try it!

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Posted in: cooking,crock pot,family,hobbies

BBQ Smoker Modifications

People have shown a (surprising) interest in seeing the mods I did to my BBQ Smoker, which is the 

Char-Griller 5050 Duo Gas-and-Charcoal Grill with a side firebox added. We use the charcoal side almost exclusively for smoking big hunks of meat but I have noticed some shortcomings. Apparently a bunch of other people have too, and I found some great ideas for fixing things up. The biggest problem has been keeping temperature up, not surprising because of the relative lightweight nature of the smoker, and I wanted to address this so I could help keep the temperatures stable.

My idea was to both add thermal mass and to increase the time that the smoke/heat stayed in the cooking chamber. The first addition was to add a 3 inch water heater exhaust pipe to the chimney and bring it down to the grill surface.

Aluminum exhaust hose

The next step was relatively simple but I think will make the biggest difference in the overall performance of the smoker; eight firebricks in the bottom of the smoker. These bricks sit close to the firebox opening and add a tremendous amount of thermal mass to the smoker. 

I mounted a couple of stainless steel sheet metal squares on top of the bricks. The right side piece is pressure fit between the slightly offset bolts holding on the firebox and the left side is sitting loose so it can be adjusted to tune the temperature gradient across the pit. 

Bricks and stainless ductwork

The stainless steel plates serve two purposes: both serving as a bit of a duct to carry the smoke across the pit and as a vaporization plate for dripping fat and juices from the meet. I can also add a cookie sheet if I need to with some water (or beer :)  ) to make it into a water smoker,  but I have a vertical smoker, the Brinkmann 852-7080-E Charcoal Gourmet Grill and Smoker, that does water very well. 

The finished product

With the smoke coming through the bricks and under the stainless plates and drifting up and back across the surface of the grill to get to the exhaust pipe I'm hoping to get a more serious hit of smoke in the meat as it smokes and also a more consistent temperature over time. I'll keep you posted!

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Urban Farming Overabundance: Fresh Tomato Sauce

Our tomatoes have been producing like crazy lately. So many, in fact, that I can't get them picked fast enough before they start to over ripen on the vine.

Today we went and I stripped the heirlooms as aggressively as I could; lots of beautiful orange, yellow, black, and (boring!) red lovelies to fill up the refrigerator.

One thing I know some people struggle with is what to do with "mushy" tomatoes. I have even seen people in the garden throw them in the compost bin because they were soft. Ahhhhh! Today we had a fair amount of beautiful ripe "mushy" fruit and I decided that it looked like just the right amount to cook for dinner.  Here is a quick rundown of what I did with them; hopefully it will help you avoid the temptation to toss the mushers!

The first step was to separate out all of the mushy tomatoes. We had a nice big wire basket that we filled up -- you can see the wonderful variety of color in the tomatoes.

Into the food processor they go! I threw in a medium sized onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and ran it pretty aggressively to get everything nice and liquid-y. Not pureed exactly, I still like my sauce a little chunky, but pretty smooth. 

Next I poured the mixture into a stock pot with a little salt, pepper, and "italian seasoning' from Sprouts. Sidebar - I love Sprouts for buying spices. So easy to buy fresh spices and so cheap; their blends are amazing!

The secret to a great sauce from fresh tomatoes (mushy or otherwise) is cooking it long and low (in my opinion).  I can't remember why at the moment ( I believe it was something I heard on America's Test Kitchen), but it is very important that you don't let tomatoes get to a boil when you're cooking them as it will really ruin their fresh flavor. I left them on medium-low uncovered for about three hours until they were nice and thick and had lost most of their water (the kitchen smelled wonderful!) and set the mixure aside until we were ready to make dinner.

Once it was time for dinner, I poured a few cups of red wine in the pot and let it cook off for about 10 minutes. A little grated parmesan, some good EVOO, and half a lemon with it's zest and we were ready to eat! We served it over some farfalla with a few grilled chicken breasts and a spinach, mozzarella, and fresh tomatoes salad on the side. It was a wonderful "mushy tomato" dinner!

UPDATE: I forgot to take a picture of the finished product yesterday, but I got this pic today from leftover lunchtime

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Posted in: cooking,gardening,hobbies

Dinner recipe posted

A Ham steak is something that we almost always have in our freezer. They're cheap and, being pork, relatively heart-healthy (mind the salt if you're sensitive!) Oftentimes we'll just thaw one out and throw it in the oven to broil but tonight I was in the mood for a little something extra so I volunteered to cook. Here is what came of it:

Ham Steak and Potatoes served with Steamed Green Beans

Make sure you save the piece with the ham bone in it for yourself, everyone thinks you're being magnanimous and they usually have no idea that it's the best meat on the steak.

Give it a go and tell me what you think!

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Posted in: cooking,hobbies,interests