Tag: BBQ

Bloody Angry Baby Back Ribs

ribssweetpotatoEnticing name, don’t you think?  I’m not English and spouting a profanity, nor am I intending to butcher and cook ribs while they’re still bloody, I’m too big a wuss for that! 😉

What I did do though, is combine the flavors of the blood oranges ripening on my tree with BBQ sauce & hard cider and put it all into the pressure cooker to see what would happen!

What happened was a tender, tasty rib that absorbed the sweetness of the orange slices, the ginger-apple crispness of the cider before finishing with the smoky-spicy BBQ sauce!  I don’t usually enjoy pork ribs, but these I ate with gusto.  So much so that I only grudgingly encouraged my husband to eat the last slab on the serving plate.  I wanted the ribs to be the star of the show, so I served them beside baked sweet potatoes.

About an hour and 30 minutes before you’re ready to eat dinner:

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Wash and prick the skins of 2 medium sweet potatoes with a fork and place them on a baking sheet.
  3. Bake for 50 minutes then remove from the oven, place them in a bowl and tent with foil to keep them warm while you’re finishing the ribs.

Bloody Angry Baby Back Ribs

  • 2 Medium Ripe Blood Oranges
  • 1 – 12 oz Bottle Angry Orchard Apple Ginger Hard Cider
  • 2 Lbs Pork Loin Back Ribs
  • BBQ Sauce (whatever brand you prefer)
  1. Slice the oranges and place into the bottom of the pressure cooker pan.
  2. Cut your ribs apart into 3-4 pieces and stand them around the perimeter of the pan.
  3. Pour the bottle of Hard Cider into the middle of the ribs, over the top of the oranges.
  4. Immediately close and lock the lid and set the pressure cooker to Medium for 15 minutes and hit the start button.
  5. When the timer goes off, release the pressure and open the top.
  6. Remove the ribs from the pressure cooker pan and place them (bone side down) on a baking sheet lined with foil.
  7. Brush your favorite BBQ sauce on them as lightly or generously as you desire.
  8. Place the baking sheet back into the 400 degree oven you used for your sweet potatoes and cook the ribs another 15 – 20 minutes to bake the sauce in.

Serve with the baked sweet potatoes (with plenty of butter and brown sugar) and, if you’ve prepared some (or bought it) ahead of time, some crisp cold coleslaw.  If you don’t have a recipe for coleslaw, you might want to give my recipe from September 2015 a try: Lisa’s Kicked Up Memphis Coleslaw. Enjoy!

Are you on Facebook?  You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. I may not write a blog post every day, but there are daily updates to my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood

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Poolside Valentine’s Day BBQ

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Happy Valentine’s Day From Sunny Southern California

The threats and warnings of the “Fury” and strength of the approaching El Nino has, so far, failed to materialize in Southern California.  A week and a half ago we were seeing colder than normal temperatures in the mid-50’s followed by last weekend’s mid to high 70’s and then this week’s high 80’s to mid 90’s.  I had barely gotten the dust off of my boots & sweaters and had to dig my spring clothes back out to keep from sweating my ass off while visiting customers this week!

I am neither gloating or complaining, I would just really like the weather to make a decision.  I have a great fireplace in the living room (and another one out by the BBQ island), but it just hasn’t been cold enough to justify lighting them.  In fact, it’s been so warm and sunny that I turned the heater back on in the pool and invited a single girlfriend & her kids over to catch some rays and barbeque by the pool for Valentine’s Day.

Instead of making reservations for brunch we put together a menu that would need minimal prep, have no gluten and be able to be cooked & served in the backyard.

Backyard Bloody Marys:

  • Pour 1 1/2 to 2 ounces Tito’s or Smirnoff 21 Vodka (both are Gluten Free) into a glass (or in this case, red Solo cup) filled with ice
  • Fill the rest of the cup up with a homemade mix comprised of: Low Sodium V-8, a splash or two of juice from a jar of martini olives, a dash of your favorite hot sauce (we used Frank’s Red Hot), a dash or two of Lea & Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce, a bit of fresh-full strength horseradish, an a dash of A-1 Steak Sauce.
  • Garnished with a slice of crisp bacon, a stalk of celery, a peeled mini carrot, a thick ring of red bell pepper, and a skewer with sweet peppers, onions, and pepperocini

The BBQ was kept busy with:

Two simple side dishes allowed us to spend a couple of hours absorbing some natural Vitamin D, courtesy of our friend The Sun!

  • A salad of sliced English cucumber, halved plum tomatoes, thinly sliced red onion, 2 TBLS light sour cream, a dash or two red wine vinegar, freshly ground pepper and some garlic salt
  • Chunks of cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, and pineapple, thinly sliced Kiwi, fresh blueberries and a few whole strawberries

All in all a great day!

Weather forecasters promise that we will still be seeing the long promised “Godzilla” rain storms of El Nino, the storms are just taking their sweet time.  Weather experts are “expecting a conveyor belt of squalls to enter stage left in late February and continue through March, possibly into April. This is a month or so later than original predictions for heavy rains.”  In the meantime I will enjoy a few more days with the top down on my car and the ability to tan myself back from the brink of pale-dom before I have to hunker down in sweaters and rain boots.

Are you on Facebook?  You might be interested in the things I may not devote an entire blog post to: recipes, food facts, nutritional information, photos and other things that make my mouth water. I may not write a blog post every day, but there are daily updates to my This Girl Loves To Eat community at: https://www.facebook.com/ThisGirlLovesHerFood