Pork Ribs.....OMGoodness!!!

About a year ago, The Boy got a little courageous and tried some ribs at our local Chili's Restaurant. I think it was messy-love-at-first-bite because ever since then, if he sees that the menu contains the words "Ribs", he wants nothing else. And, just recently, The Lady has given the messy meal a try and has never looked back.

Over our Spring Break holiday this year, my weekly menu was filled with some non-fast-food yumminess. We've had a good healthy week of menu items and I've tried a few new things that have now made it to the "do again" list. Of course, The Little is my biggest challenge these days and I just refuse to fight at dinner so I usually make her something a little different. The girl's gotta eat. But I'm not doing that for much longer, she needs to grow out of that and fast!

Tonight, my adventure was making pork ribs. I've always been a little intimidated with cooking steaks or ribs. There just seems to be so much precision that is required. My father was always in charge of this when I was a kid and then I married someone who isn't a huge meat eater (unless it's chicken). So it was another daunting project that I brought on myself. The outcome was A-MAZING!! Not one rib was left behind and JB even enjoyed a little. Maybe if this works out, I'll learn to make my own BBQ sauce......

Here's how I did it!

Ingredients:
 - 3 pounds of pork baby back ribs
 - your favorite rib rub
 - 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
 - 1/3 cup soy sauce
 - 1 1/2 tsp liquid smoke
 - your favorite BBQ sauce






What you do:
 - The night before you want to enjoy your rib meal, prepare the ribs by cutting into portions (about 4 ribs each) followed by rubbing the rib rub on both sides. Refrigerate overnight.

- The next day, you mix up your marinade of vinegar, soy sauce and liquid smoke.

- Place ribs in your slow cooker and then pour marinade over top.

 - Turn your cooker to low and cook for 4-6 hours, turning ribs occasionally. The meat will be done when the meat falls off of the bone. Many slow cookers are different so make sure to check on your meat often to not over cook.

 - Once meat is cooked through, heat up that grill to medium-high heat. Remove your ribs from cooker and coat both sides with the BBQ sauce. Then you will place the ribs on the grill for 15 minutes (turning once) to give the BBQ sauce a little char. It doesn't take long.

Ours turned out like this! You could litterally pull the bone out of the meat with no problem. They were so good. One critique I received from our experienced rib eater, The Boy, was that he likes his ribs with the meat on them. He doesn't want to eat them with a fork and knife. Well, if that's all, I can handle that. Next time I will take them out of the slow cooker a little bit earlier.

We paired these finger-lickin' good ribs with corn on the cob. Needless to say, dinner was a huge hit and Mommy added something else to the "do again" list. Thank you. Thank you very much!

Meatball Subs

I love a good meatball sub! What a great alternative to the traditional spaghetti and meatball dish. We don't usually make these at home but I did today and they were deeeelicious! The Boy had two helpings!!

Here's how I made the Meatballs:

Ingredients:
3 slices of white bread, crusts removed, diced
2/3 cup water
1 1/2 lb of ground beef
1/2 lb of sweet Italian sausage
1/4 cup grated parmesan
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 large egg
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
Light Olive Oil

What to do:
 - Combine bread crumbs and water and let sit for 5 minutes. Drain some of the water off and then mash with a fork.
 - In a large mixing bowl (I used my Kitchenaid Mixer) add: ground beef, sausage, parmesan, garlic, salt, pepper, egg, and bread. Mix until combined.

 - Form meat into 1 1/2" balls. Should make about 25 balls. Then dredge the meatballs in the flour, dusting off any excess.

- In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the meatballs and begin browning each side. I don't worry about cooking them through at this point. Just make sure all areas of the meatball are browned. Then set meatballs aside.

Now, here's how I made the Sauce:

Ingredients:
1/2 yellow onion
4 cloves garlic
2 - 28 ounce cans of crushed tomatoes
1 cup water
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
2 Tbs basil, finely chopped

What to do:
 - Cut onion into quarters and peel garlic. Place in a small food processor and puree until paste-like. We do this because other family members do not like chunks of onion in their food but they like the flavor that the onion brings to the dish. Feel free to mince the onion and garlic instead.
 - In the same pot you browned the meatballs, over medium heat, brown the onion and garlic until translucent.
 - Add the water and crushed tomatoes and the bay leaves. Bring to a light boil.


Now, add meatballs back into the pot with the sauce, partially cover with a lid and simmer for 30 minutes, turning meatballs occasionally. Meatballs will be tender and the sauce will thicken. About 5 minutes before you are ready to serve, drop in the basil and salt and pepper.

Assembly
Then load up you hoagie rolls with a few meatballs, some extra sauce and fresh mozzerella!!

Final Touch
I will then place the subs under a broiler for a quick toasting of the cheeses.

Really, these are amazing!!! You should try them.

The Great Cake Adventure

"Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes ACTION, PERSEVERANCE, and FACING YOUR FEARS."        -  Gillian Anderson

I truly believe in full disclosure when it comes to creating edibles in the kitchen. So, here goes. I will admit to not really enjoying or being very talented at baking. So you probably won't find many baking projects posted here, unless of course I'm super successful! There are a few things that I've made throughout the years that have turned out great but I usually don't venture out on new ideas very much when it comes to measuring precisely or using the toothpick test. I just don't do it.

I have had to take two big steps forward in the past two months when it has come to birthday cakes. The Boy requested an ice cream cake which you've already read about. I didn't have to bake anything with that project but it was still a little bit outside of my wheelhouse. And, just this week, I made The Hubs birthday cake. I wanted to buy this amazing cake that looked like a big bag of Doritos but the cake-bakery place said they would charge me close to 300 smackers to do it. I simply said "no thanks." Then I asked the birthday boy what kind of cake he wanted. Without hesitation, his response was for me to make vanilla cake with blackberry filling topped with 7-minute frosting. WHAT.....EEK!!?? 

Okay, so I didn't freak out too much. I'm always up for a challenge. I took his challenge and went with it. Now listen, usually I would make everything from scratch but that just wasn't in the cards this time. So I used a box cake and I bought some pre-made icing as a back up. But I promised myself that if this worked out, I would make cake from scratch the next time. I'm kind of excited and scared at the same time. 

Here's what I accomplished this week.  

I baked three 8" round cakes and then turned them upside down to cool completely. I let them stand for about 24 hours before starting on the next step. 

  

Next step was to cut off the tops so that I would have even layers. I'm not sure this is what I was supposed to do but it worked out well. I probably should have found a you-tube instructional video before doing this. But what was done was done. 

Next step was adding the blackberry filling. I also didn't take a leap here. I used JB's favorite store-bought jelly. I just emptied the jar into a bowl and mashed it up with a fork to make it easier to spread without killing the soft cake. 

Here is the naked cake before I covered it up with the 7-minute icing. I am pretty darn proud of myself at this point. But I've never iced a cake like this before. So I was getting nervous again. 

I then made the icing just like I did a few days ago in a test-drive. Feel free to review that journal entry to be reminded of how I accomplished this.

I started the icing process by adding a couple heaping spoonfuls of icing to the top of the cake and working my way down to the plate. I'm sure I saw this done somewhere. I worked my way down hoping to not make too much of a mess of the plate. Then I used the extra icing and piped it through a small hole I cut in a zip-lock baggy to clean up the bottom. It's still not as clean as what the professionals do but it worked out just fine!

Best part, it was not tilting at all. No Leaning Tower of Pisa syndrome happening here! It was perfectly straight on the top.

Next challenge was getting it from my kitchen to Nana's dining room safely! 

It was a total success!!! The Boy was able to handle my driving and protected the cake the entire journey. The cake stayed standing until we cut into it a few hours later! The inside was soft and moist and incredibly yummy. AND it looked beautiful when we cut into it. The layers were perfectly even and the jelly didn't bleed into the spongy goodness.  We brought what was not eaten home to continue to enjoy it. I'm sure it won't last long once everyone wakes up from their peaceful slumbers!