The Nifty Foodie

Pork/Ham/Bacon

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

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BBQ Baby Back Ribs

I know half of you have the Chili’s Baby Back ribs jingle stuck in your head at the moment. Haha..I’ll admit that I do too.. Ribs are the perfect food to enjoy in the summer and fresh off the grill. Of course, the best way to cook them is low and slow, but since we don’t have a smoker, we used our oven and finished them off on the grill.

Just a random tidbit of information, but did you know that there’s a membrane along the back of the ribs that you’re supposed to cut/peel off? I didn’t know this until doing some google searching. Otherwise, your ribs will be tough. Sadly, this information isn’t on the pack of ribs…how are people like me, who have never cooked ribs before, supposed to figure this out?

I used a recipe from my favorite Food Network star, Alton Brown. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet, and according to my family, who kept eating these, this recipe was no different. These ribs were tender, full of flavor and bonus, there’s a good chance that you’ll have some leftover wine to enjoy since the recipe only calls for a cup of it for the braising liquid. 🙂

BBQ Baby Back Ribs
Source: adapted from Alton Brown

Ingredients:

  • 2 whole slabs pork baby back ribs

   For the dry rub:

  • 8 tablespoons light brown sugar, tightly packed
  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1 tablespoon chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 3/4 teaspoon Tony Chachere’s
  • 1/2 teaspoon rubbed thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

   For the braising liquid:

  • 1 cup white wine
  • 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 2 cloves garlic, grated or finely chopped

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
  2. In a bowl, combine the spices and brown sugar and mix well. Place each slab of baby back ribs on a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil, shiny side down. Sprinkle each side generously with the dry rub. Pat and rub the dry rub into the meat and form the foil into a packet over each rib. Refrigerate the ribs for a minimum of 1 hour.
  3. In a microwavable bowl, mix all of the ingredients for the braising liquid. Microwave the mixture for 1 minute.
  4. Place the ribs on a baking sheet.  Open one end of the foil on each slab and pour half of the braising liquid into each foil packet. Tilt the baking sheet for the braising liquid to distribute over all parts of the rib rack. Braise the ribs in the oven for 2 1/2 hours.
  5. Transfer the ribs to the grill and brush the ribs with  your favorite bbq sauce. Continue to cook the ribs until they have a nice sear/char to them.

Foodbuzz 24×24: A Culinary Journey Down the Muddy Mississippi

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When I was a little kid, I had such trouble spelling “Mississippi”. Was it too many “s”s or the double “p” that threw me for a loop? I just couldn’t get it. My house was less than a tenth of a mile away from the river, and I just couldn’t spell it. That bothered me. My parents taught us a little fun way to spell it eventually, and now I can’t ever spell Mississippi wrong. When in doubt, I tell myself “M-i-s-s… I-s-s…i.P.P.i”. There was an emphasis on the cap letters, so it became a bit of a rhythm to say it in my head that way before spelling it out.

Since I grew up living so close to the Mississippi, I’ve seen the river have its ups and downs. Literally. When the river gets high in the Spring, boats appear like they are floating on the levee. And of course, when it gets low, you’ll barely see the tops of the boats. It’s crazy how much it varies, and this year was no exception. For the first time in almost 40 years, the river was so high that the Corps of Engineers had to open a spillway north of Baton Rouge in order to save New Orleans and Baton Rouge from catastrophic flooding. Sadly, this spillway isn’t just land. People actually built their homes and farms in the spillway, so they had to evacuate. While I’m glad that nothing catastrophic happened to our big cities, it still hurts to know that some people suffered from this.

While I was watching a news segment about the river one night, I couldn’t help but think about the massive journey that the water takes. All the way north from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. There are so many different cities that the river just flows by, and my husband had the greatest idea. A culinary journey down the river–from Minneapolis all the way to New Orleans. Our party idea featured foods that are notorious in the major cities along the river: Minneapolis, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans. I was so stoked when Foodbuzz let me know that our party proposal had been accepted for this month’s 24×24, so I called up our families and had them over for this awesome party!

For Minneapolis, we grilled up the famous Juicy Lucy burger! You can’t go wrong with a cheese stuffed burger, and this burger was one of the favorites of the meal!

Jucy Lucy

For St. Louis, we baked a gooey butter cake. We served it with ice cream and various summer fruit sorbets. The cake is a yeast based batter on the bottom and of course, a gooey butter base layer on top. Many of us (myself included) have never had a gooey butter cake, but it was a great hit! I think next time, this would go perfectly with some fresh fruit.

Gooey Butter Cake

For Memphis, we made some fabulous BBQ Baby Back ribs. This was my first time ever working with ribs, and it really wasn’t that bad. These were very flavorful ribs and super tender, since they were in an oven for a good part of the morning before finishing off on the grill!

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

And of course, for New Orleans, we made some grilled corn grits. Grits are a favorite around here, and in one of our favorite restaurants, this is how they make the grits. It’s fabulously rich and flavorful! You probably don’t want to know how much heavy cream and butter are in these grits, but I’ll tell you anyway later when I post the recipe! 🙂

Corn Grits

Oh, and since we’re all from Louisiana, we had to add in a little lagniappe for NOLA: Hurricanes. I mean, how could you NOT? For a hot, summer day, these are always a hit!

Hurricane

*all recipes will be shared on the blog at a later date*

It was so wonderful to spend time with our families, and I’m so glad everyone enjoyed the food. You know it was a good party when people ask for the leftovers and recipes as they’re leaving! 🙂

Dessert Time

Family

Thanks so much to Foodbuzz for making this party happen! We really enjoyed the different foods from cities along the river, and also had a blast spending time together!

 

Bacon does make everything better..

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Happy New Years everyone! I hope you had a great 2009, and here’s to a truly awesome new year and decade!

After looking through the archives, I’ve found the primary reason for my weight gain since the wedding in May: this blog doesn’t have much “skinny” food anymore! So, I’m really going to strive to bring back the “skinny” recipes to this blog, since this blog’s title, after all, is Skinny Food by Amy. While I’m gonna miss the cheesecake and candy, I think I need to go back to the reason that I started this blog: to lose weight and still enjoy food. I hope you all enjoy the journey! 🙂

Now, here comes a not-so-skinny recipe…sorry folks!

My husband and I have enjoyed the Cooking Light recipe for pot roast for a while now. I was curious to see what else is out there, though. So, I found this pot roast recipe on Epicurious that involves the ever-so-famous bacon! I was pretty excited to get away from turkey bacon for a day, so I bought some thick cut smoked bacon at the store  for this recipe. I totally forgot how much grease is in real bacon…whoa. Needless to say, this recipe won’t be a regular in our diets, but it was a yummy indulgence. Bacon really does make everything better, trust me!

Pot Roast
Source: adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:

  • 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
  • 2 teaspoons Hungarian sweet paprika
  • 2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
  • 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 1 teaspoon (packed) golden brown sugar
  • 1 3-pound boneless rump roast
  • 6 ounces thick cut bacon, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 2 cups dry red wine
  • 1/2 cup low-salt chicken broth
  • 2 large onions, thinly sliced
  • 12 small shallots, peeled
  • 12 garlic cloves, peeled
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 4 large carrots (about 1 pound), peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces
  • 3 medium potatoes, peeled, cut into 1-inch cubes

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix first 6 ingredients in small bowl. Rub spice blend all over beef. Cut 6 slits in beef and insert a clove of garlic in each slit.
  2. Cook bacon in a dutch oven over medium heat until browned and lightly crisp. Using slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels to drain. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons drippings from pot. Increase heat to medium-high. Add beef and cook until browned on all sides, about 12 minutes total. Transfer beef to plate. Add red wine to pot; bring to boil, scraping up browned bits. Boil until reduced to 1/2 cup, about 5 minutes. Add broth and bacon. Place beef atop bacon. Scatter onions, shallots, remainder of garlic, and bay leaves around beef.
  3. Cover pot, transfer to oven, and roast 1 hour. Turn beef over; stir onions. Cover and roast 1 hour longer, adding water by 1/4 cupfuls if dry. Transfer beef to plate. Add carrots and potatoes to pot; stir to coat. Place beef atop vegetables, cover, and roast until beef and vegetables are tender, about 45 minutes longer. Transfer beef to platter. Spoon off fat from surface of sauce and remove bay leaves. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Pour sauce over beef and serve.

Mom’s Cornbread Dressing

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Since we were hosting Thanksgiving, I knew I was going to make my mom’s fabulous cornbread dressing. It’s so flavorful, moist and just delicious! I was afraid it wouldn’t be as good as mom’s, because the recipe she gave me was a lot of ingredients “to taste”. So, I was surprised to see that people actually gobbled (hehe..pun) it up!

I wrote ingredients down as I did it, and so this is my version of my mom’s dressing!

Mom’s Cornbread Dressing

Ingredients:

  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 2 bunches of green onions, finely chopped
  • 2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
  • 1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
  • 4 cloves minced garlic
  • 1 9×13 pan of prepared and cooled cornbread (I did this using 6 packs of Jiffy cornbread mix.)
  • 1 lb. lean ground meat
  • 1 roll of Jimmy Dean reduced fat sausage
  • 2 cans of beef broth
  • Cajun spice, paprika, salt and pepper to taste (I didn’t measure these…sorry!)

Directions:

  1. Saute onions, green onions, bell pepper and celery in a dutch oven until transparent. Add garlic.
  2. Brown sausage and beef in another pot until fully cooked and drain fat.
  3. Add meat mixture to the onion mixture in the dutch oven.
  4. Cut up and crumble cornbread by hand and add it to the pot.
  5. Add beef broth about a half can at a time, until the mixture is moist.
  6. Add spices to taste.
  7. Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavors to meld. The next day, place the dutch oven (covered) in the oven at 350 degrees until the dressing is warm. Serve.

Autumn Spiced Ham

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope everyone has a fabulous holiday with their family and closest of friends.

I can’t wait to share with all of you my kitchen adventures for hosting our first Thanksgiving dinner. Things so far are on schedule, surprisingly, so I’m sure tomorrow won’t be too stressful in the kitchen. It will be great to see family for the first time since the wedding in May. 🙂

The recipe above, by the way, is a great idea for leftover ham. I love how easy this recipe is and how it just screams Fall season. Check out the recipe here.

Autumn Spiced Ham

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I participated in the What’s Cooking recipe exchange for October/November, and was super excited when I received this recipe!

I don’t know what nestie it’s from, so I’ll give you credit if you let me know!

Autumn Spiced Ham
Source: AllRecipes

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 tbs. butter
  • 1 (2 lb) ham steak (we used 1 lb. since it’s just the two of us)
  • 1 red apple, cored and thinly sliced
  • 1 green apple, cored and thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup maple flavored pancake syrup (we used light syrup)
  • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions:

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the ham on both sides in the butter until browned.

I cut up the ham, as shown, to make it fit in the skillet!Lay the sliced apple over the ham. (A neat trick for slicing apples is put them in a bowl with orange juice to prevent browning until ready to use for your recipe. You won’t get orange flavor, I promise!) Pour the syrup over the apples. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally until the apples are cooked through.

Sprinkle with cinnamon, and serve immediately.

This recipe couldn’t have been easy enough! We were skeptical at first though, because we didn’t want an apple pie ham LOL! However, the taste was subtle and sweet. My fiance mentioned how yummy the apples were especially in the recipe.

 

Serves 4
POINTS*: 4

I ended up making garlic bread with a whole wheat loaf of french bread, brushed on butter, Penzey’s Northwoods seasonings, Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle, granulated garlic and a little bit of parsley! Really tasty!

I also made my fiance’s favorite dish, GBC! (Green Bean Casserole). Our favorite recipe is right here!

All in all, this was a great dinner for a Friday night!! 🙂