Ribs and summer

My son has always loved barbecued ribs.

Whenever we go to a restaurant that serves ribs, it’s a safe bet that’s what Robert will order.

I’ve only tried to grill ribs at home a few times. They were awful and very tough the first time, but later attempts were better.

Now that Robert has shown such an interest in grilling, it was only natural that we’d be cooking ribs this summer! And when our favorite grocery story had baby back ribs on sale, I bought two racks for our experiment.

I had been reading the two cookbooks from Food Network stars Pat and Gina Neely. The Neely restaurant in Memphis, Tenn., is well known for its ribs, and the Neelys have several rib recipes in their cookbooks and online.

After some research, we decided on their Sweet Cola Ribs recipe, which Robert found on the Food Network website.

The recipe ingredient list, which includes items for both a dry rub and a barbecue sauce, is a little intimidating to me, but it didn’t bother him.

He assembled the dry rub and prepared the ribs early last Thursday morning while everyone else was away from home. It was nice to come home to the wonderful aroma left behind from the rub preparation and ribs in the fridge.

Robert and I approach this whole cooking thing differently. If you read my column regularly, you know that I very seldom follow a recipe; I make changes. Robert follows the directions exactly as written! For instance, I don’t particularly like cumin and would have left it out of the rub. Not him. It went in. And, truthfully, I didn’t notice the taste in the ribs, which is a good thing.

And when it came time to making the sauce, I told him I couldn’t imagine why we would need to simmer it for an hour and 15 minutes. He insisted we do it though because that’s what the recipe said. So while he was out back cooking the ribs for more than 90 minutes on the gas grill, I was inside doing other things and watching the bubbling sauce get thicker and thicker — just as it was supposed to do. So he was right on both counts.

We had a wonderful Thursday evening, going back and forth between the backyard grilling session and the indoor sauce making. The ribs turned out beautifully, I think, and were very tender and delicious. The flavor combination was a winner, and it was obvious that the ribs had both a rub and a sauce.

I look forward to having this recipe again and to seeing what Robert decides to try next!


Sweet Cola Ribs

Sweet Cola Barbecue Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 cups ketchup
• 1 can cola
• 1⁄2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1⁄2 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1⁄2 tablespoon onion powder
• 1⁄2 tablespoon ground mustard
• 1⁄2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Dry Rub:

• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 racks pork spare ribs (about 3 pound each)

For the sauce: In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, add oil. Once heated, add the onion and garlic and sautee until tender. Add all the remaining sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook uncovered, stirring frequently, for 1 hour 15 minutes.

For the dry rub: Whisk all dry ingredients together in a small bowl. This can be stored up to 6 months in an airtight container.

For the ribs: Rinse and dry ribs. Place on a clean cutting board, pull off the membrane and trim the ribs of excess fat. Liberally season both sides of the ribs with rub. Wrap ribs with plastic wrap and refrigerate 4 to 12 hours so flavors can permeate.

Preheat grill to 250F using hickory and charcoal. (We used our gas grill with indirect heat and had very good results.) Set up your grill for indirect heat.

Place ribs, meatier side down, on the grill away from the coals. Close grill cover. Cook the pork ribs for 1 hour 15 minutes; flipping several times for even cook. Coat ribs with Sweet Cola Barbecue Sauce* and cook for another 20 minutes.

*Reserve some of the sauce for dipping when the ribs are served.

Pat and Gina Neely from Food Network website

Celebrate your graduate!

As graduation day approaches for so many high school students (including my own daughter, Anna), I thought it would be fun to share an adorable and easy cupcake idea.

It was Anna who first saw this idea several months ago on Pinterest, and we decided we should make them for her graduation.

It’s a very simple process.

For starters, you make a batch of cupcakes (we used a mix) and frost them. Then you place an unwrapped miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in the middle and top it with a square from a Hershey’s chocolate bar. Use a dab of frosting so the chocolate will stay in place. (Break the rectangular piece to make the square.) That makes the cap.

To make the tassel, put an M&M Mini in the middle of the chocolate square and use a tube of frosting to make the tassel strings dangle from the M&M.

You can adapt them as needed, of course. For instance, the frosting could be dyed the same color of the tassel — both to reflect the school’s color. And the tassel can be any color you like,

The cupcake holder can also vary to match school colors as well.

It’s fun to make your own goodies for special occasions, especially when they are this easy.

Graduation cupcakes To make this dessert, bake and frost the number of cupcakes needed. Decide on colors. Purchase miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, M&M Minis, Hershey bars (I bought the miniature bars) and a tube of colorful frosting. Read the accompanying story for directions.

Jam with a kick

Friend Julia Newton and I were chatting the other day, and she told me about a new recipe she should send me.

She and her husband, Will, had been experimenting with strawberry jam and had made a batch mixing in sriracha chili garlic sauce. Sriracha is also known as rooster sauce. Julia said she enjoys the combination of sweet and spicy, and thought strawberries would be a good complement to the sriracha.

Sriracha is a type of hot sauce and features chili peppers and garlic. Julia said she buys it in the grocery store’s ethnic food section.

I asked Julia if I could share her recipe with my readers, and she agreed. I don’t cook with chilies at all, so it was nice to have a recipe that will give my readers more variety.

The Newtons did multiple taste testings, they said, before adding just the right amount of the chili sauce to a simple batch of strawberry jam.

Will said the end result is “warm, but not spicy.”

They have had their spicy jam on ice cream and shortcake as well as on steak and chicken.

They’ve already made 30 pints of strawberry jam this season — both the plain kind that we all like on toast and biscuits, and the new spicy version.

The Newtons do a lot of food preserving. In addition to canning tomatoes every summer, they also make pickles as well as their own cheese and sausage. Once blueberries and peaches are in season, they will be thinking of ways to preserve them as well.

“We’re all about eating local and in season,” Julia said.


Strawberry-Sriracha Jam

• 2 dry quarts strawberries, rinsed, destemmed and quartered
• 7 cups sugar
• 1 pouch fruit pectin (such as Certo)
• 6 tablespoons Sriracha chili-garlic sauce

Prepare strawberries. Mix with sugar in a large pot. Bring to a full, rolling boil. Add 1⁄2 tablespoon butter or margarine to reduce foaming. Add sriracha and pectin. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove form heat and ladle into sterilized jars. Cap and process 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

Use within one year.

Julia and Will Newton