Dry Rubbed Country Ribs and Italian Bread

I love a good challenge. I am a person who readily accepts brain food in all forms, even seeks it out. I thrive when I multi-task, my mind needing exercise like an athlete needs conditioning. Because I certainly do not get that stimulation from my job, I look for it elsewhere. Learning and growing are things I accomplish by taking on new challenges and (hopefully) surmounting them! Those of you that know me know that I sew as well as cook and bake. Trying a new quilt technique, a new pattern, and new recipes or methods are the things that make me go wild. I will dedicate hours to figuring out something on my own instead of searching for help or a shortcut. That is, to me, what makes my accomplishments worthwhile.

Tonight I embarked on a mission I had only once before tried, with brick-like results. This challenge is BREAD. Italian bread to be exact, though I think that, in a loaf pan, it would have been sliceably sandwich-y. ANYWAY… Tonight’s dinner was bread, yes, but also country style ribs. Another challenge because I had never before used a dry rub. Shocking? But I will admit, these two simple sounding items are things I had shied away from for various reasons in the past. I will also admit that I conquered both of them tonight with gusto! I will be sharing both of these with you today.

The bread recipe I borrowed and adapted from The Illustrated Cookbook, a volume I inherited from my grandmother. It is over 30 years old, so some of the recipes need to be modified for a modern kitchen, but it worked remarkably well. I have a stand mixer (my most favorite appliance EVER) with a dough hook that I employed for this task. The result was bread that thumped when the crust was tapped and had a soft, light center. I can’t tell you how pleased I was with the result.

Italian Bread

1 Tbsp sugar

2 tsp non-iodized salt (sea or kosher)

2 packages active dry yeast

1 Tbsp butter

1 ¾ c water

About 5 cups flour

Oil

Cornmeal (optional)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, combine sugar, salt, yeast, and 2 cups flour. In a microwave safe bowl, heat water and butter for about 1 minute until just warm but NOT hot, that will kill your yeast. (120 to 130 degrees if you want to be a nerd about it.) Set the mixer on low and gradually add the liquid to the dry ingredients. Increase speed to medium and beat 2 minutes. Add 1 cup flour to make a thick batter and beat 2 more minutes, occasionally scraping down sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Remove the paddle and fit the mixer with the dough hook. With mizer on low speed, slowly add enough additional flour until a soft dough forms, I used about 2 more cups. Knead with dough hook on low for 10 minutes. The dough will come away from the sides and become springy and elastic, but not sticky. If it is sticky, you need more flour. When you are done kneading, remove the hook from the dough and the bowl from the mixer. Cover the bowl with a towel and let stand in a warm place for 20 minutes. I set it on top of my stove while the oven was on (cooking the ribs). The dough will puff up considerably during this time.

Turn the dough out on to a floured surface and cut it in half. Pat the dough into two long rectangles and flatten it to ¾ to ½ inch. Roll the dough into a log that is no longer than your longest baking sheet (mine was a 12 X 18 I think) and pinch the seam shut. Do the same with the other loaf. Brush your baking sheet with oil or cover it with parchment. Sprinkle it with cornmeal (optional) and lay the loaves side by side. Brush with oil and cover with plastic wrap. Place the formed loaves, seam side down, in that same warm place for another 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 425. Bake for 20-35 minutes until loaves are golden and sound hollow when tapped with a finger.

Country style ribs are a good meaty flavorful and CHEAP dinner option and you can do SO many things with them, anything you can do with other cuts of pork. I made the mistake, however of buying boneless this time instead of bone in. I am a bone girl. And before you make any lewd comments (yes I am talking to you) I mean in meat. OK that didn’t sound very good either. When buying cuts of meat from the grocery store, I ALWAYS prefer cuts that have bone. Bone can add so much flavor especially when roasting, and people overlook it, favoring the boneless options for the sake of convenience. I say Leave The Bones Alone!!! They are God’s gift of flavor to us, the lowly meat-eating peoples of this earth. Anyway, back to ribs. I always prefer the bone-in variety but, in a fit of grocery store madness I must have snatched up the wrong ones. C’est La Vie. I made do and they were yumm-alicious.

Here’s what I did:

For the dry rub –

3 tsp packed brown sugar

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 ½ tsp paprika

1 ½ tsp cumin

¼ tsp ancho chili powder (or cayenne, if you like it hotter, I think ancho has more flavor)

1 Tbsp kosher salt or sea salt (I had smoked sea salt lying around, it worked great)

½ tsp black pepper

A pinch of red pepper flakes

Combine all these ingredients and mix well. Make sure you break up any chunks of sugar. I used my hands to work it in to the spices until it has the texture of sand. Cover the meat in the spice mixture, rub it in, really work it in. Use your hands, it’s fun! Cover, and put the meat in the fridge for 2 hours, or overnight if you want. It will help the spices to get really deep into the meat. When you are ready to cook, preheat the oven to 350. Line a baking pan with heavy duty aluminum foil and put the meat in. Cover with another sheet of foil and crimp tight. Roast in the oven for 90 minutes. Meanwhile, make the basting sauce.

3 Tbsp packed brown sugar

¾ c cider vinegar

1 Tbsp ketchup

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

¼ tsp hot sauce (Tabasco, red hot, habanero, whatever you have, and more than this tiny little bit if you like it hot.)

½ tsp salt

I mixed mine in a pint jar so I could simply put a lid on and shake it all up to combine everything, and so I could save the leftover for another time. After the 1^st go-round of meat roasting, remove the pan from the oven and baste the meat well. Re-cover the meat and roast for an additional 45 minutes. Baste two or three more times during this time. Turn the meat with tongs to keep it from drying out. Re-cover the pan with the aluminum foil each time. After the second roasting session is over, remove the meat from the oven and smear it with bbq sauce of your choosing. This time, leave the foil off and roast for just 10 more tiny minutes. It’s torture to smell it, but you will soon have the succulent meat on your plate, I promise. After the roasting is all done, take the meat out and tent with foil, let it rest for 10 minutes to allow the juices to re-distribute.

I know that 2 ½ hours seems like a long time for dinner, but it is well worth it, especially if it is a weekend and you have time to cook as well as people to feed. Give it a shot one day when you have the time, I promise it’s well worth the effort. Bon Apetit.

Have Yourself a Teeny Tiny Christmas

Our Christmas for Two

We decided to spend Christmas day just the two of us together this year and had a fantastic time where neither of us ever even emerged from our jammies.  Dinner was special and tasty, and we had a glass of champagne to toast our first Christmas of married life.  Here’s how it went:

Glazed candied ham with roasted asparagus and (yes, I know) cheesy mashed potatoes (from the night before, shame, shame). 

Ham is a wonderful meat no matter how you slice it (pun intended) and I have always loved the dichotomy of salty and sweet.  I’m one of those people who dips French fries into my milkshake.  So ham and fruit appeals. *shrug*  This is impressive looking when it comes out of the oven and damn delicious to boot.  It doesn’t take long to make a beautiful work of food art out of an ordinary hunk of ham.  This is another one my mom and grandma taught me when I was a little girl and it brings back fond memories of family holidays together.  You can do it with any size ham, I have used this method on a 15 lb ham or, as was the case this year, an itty bitty 1.2 lb hammy baby. We had ourselves a teeny tiny Christmas.  You will need:

A ham

Whole cloves

A can of pineapple rings

A jar of maraschino cherries

Toothpicks

½ c brown sugar

2 tbsp butter

Cinnamon

Make sure the ham is thawed completely.  If it comes with cooking instructions, (and almost all do) save them, you will need to follow them.  Place the ham in a roasting pan.  Drain the pineapple rings and lay them over all the surface of the ham that you can. The more surface area you can cover, the better.  Hold them in place with toothpicks (I snap mine in half to use less of them).  Center each ring with a toothpick speared cherry.  Poke cloves in and all around the pineapple and ham, wherever you see space.  “Decorating” a ham is a fun task for children to do, my fondest memories are of sneaking cherries off the ham while grandma’s back was turned, and poking whole cloves into every nook and cranny I could find on the Christmas or Easter ham.  Because we had such a teensy ham this year, I used half rings of pineapple, but it worked fine.  Combine brown sugar, butter, and a pinch of cinnamon in a small microwave safe bowl.  Nuke for about 30 seconds until the butter is melted.  Mix well and pour carefully over the whole ham, covering as much of it as you can.  You can use a basting brush to spread the mixture if you want, but I subscribe to the “dump it on there” method.  Bake the ham according to the package instructions.  If you see that the pineapple is beginning to brown too much, tent the ham with foil for the remaining time it will be in the oven.  You can also baste with some of the juice that will inevitably run off the ham.  I’m telling you, this looks like a work of art when you remove it from the oven and the spicy sweet smell is intoxicating. Enjoy the pig-meat equivalent of heaven.

Roasted Marinated Asparagus

We love asparagus.  It is one of our favorite veggies and we eat is as often as we can get it.  During the summer time, asparagus and corn on the cob are staples in the Lorenzen kitchen.  This recipe is simple and delicious and even if you’re not crazy about this stalky green veg. give it a shot one more time, just like this. 

1 bunch of asparagus, trimmed and woody ends snapped off.

1 package of Italian salad dressing mix (I use Good seasons, always have, always will) prepared according to package instructions

Sea salt

Fresh ground pepper

Lay the spears in a shallow baking dish, if you can, lay them in a single layer, if not, try a larger pan.  Pour the salad dressing over the spears and cover them with plastic wrap. Let chill in the fridge several hours or overnight.  Preheat the oven to 350, remove plastic wrap and sprinkle them generously with sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Roast in oven for about 30 minutes, turning once, until spears begin to color at the tips and are fork tender.  I like my asparagus to be still crisp, so I roast them a little less time. Use your best judgment, they won’t burn.  Use tongs to serve, or a slotted spoon.  Num num num.

We hope everyone had a blessed and safe holiday season with love, laughter, family, and sharing!! Onward into 2012!!!!

Christmas on a Dime (a little late)

Well, the holidays have come and gone and I apologize for my absence.  I hope you all had a fun-filled Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year.  I hope you had a glut of smiles, family, sharing, love, and of course, GOOD FOOD!  The holidays are such a special time for all of us. They allow us to come together with people we may not see much, or at all, the rest of the year.  They encourage sharing, giving, and celebrating love.  If every day of the year could be like Christmas, I think that the world would be more peaceful and serene a place.  But of course, then Christmas would cease to be special. So I suppose, every daydream has its limitations in logical reality.  *Sigh*  It’s a nice thought.  

Christmas means to me and mine, the act of gathering.  We gather en masse this one time of year to eat and drink and laugh.  My family is very large, I believe we had 25 adults this year and 8 or so small children (give or take).  They all live no less than three hours from us and we see them very rarely.  My husband’s family, on the other hand, is small, and we live very close to them, so we see each other all the time.  So Christmas for me has always been about one big yearly party.  Someone hosts, and cooks, and everyone else shows up and enjoys food and family.  We exchange gifts in a unique way because there are so many of us.  Each adult brings one gift valued at approximately 25$.  Each person’s gift is placed, unmarked, but wrapped, beneath the tree.  Each person then draws a number out of a hat (usually the santa hat) numbers from 1 to however many adults are present, this year it was 25.  Then each person, in turn, selects a gift from under the tree and unwraps it, showing the rest of the crew what he or she got.  The next number in order then has the option to unwrap a new gift from under the tree, or to steal a previously open gift.  If this occurs, the person from whom the gift was stolen may go back to the tree and unwrap another gift, or may steal someone else’s.  There are only two rules in this game.  1. You can’t steal back a present that has been stolen from you.  2.  A present can only be stolen 3 times before it is “out of play” and remains then with the last person who stole it.  (there IS a strategy to this, especially if you have a very high number.)  The result is laughter abounding and everyone ending up with one nice gift to take home.  For example, we got a new set of sheets this year.  One of my cousins got new bed pillows, one a set of bathroom towels, one a crock pot, etc.  This is good fun for everyone and it has become a tradition among us very quickly.  In the words of a very good friend of mine “fun was had by all.”

Now I think it’s back to business for me, however.  I am going to backtrack somewhat and talk in my first post of the year about our Christmas dinner(s).  We had the pleasure of hosting Christmas eve dinner with my husband’s family this year.  I love to cook for people, the more people, the more fun it is for me.  Our fare was simple, and affordable, but everyone enjoyed it immensely and left with full bellies, and struggled not to lapse into a food coma during church services.   Our second Christmas was Christmas day dinner.  This was very different, though no less special, a meal for just the two of us.  I will go over both meals, how they were prepared, how easy they are, and how impressive the result.  These meals would be perfect for any gathering of folks, not just exclusively holiday meals.  So without further ado, here goes.

Christmas Dinner #1:

Savory pork roast, cheesy mashed potatoes, green bean casserole

PORK

5-6 lb Pork roast (you can use shoulder, butt, whatever you can get your hands on.  I personally use a cheaper cut of roast with a lot of fat and a bone.  Bone is GOOD. It makes for a more tender and flavorful result.  This year I got a 5 lb pork shoulder roast that cost me a little over 8$.  We fed 10 people and still had leftovers. Compare this to what you would pay for a 5 lb pork tenderloin and the savings are unbelievable.  And while a tenderloin is a tasty cut of pork, a cheaper cut works better in a slow cooker. Just my opinion. Ok, side note over)

4 or 5 cloves of garlic, more if you love garlic like I do

Two sprigs of fresh rosemary (or about 2 tsp chopped dried rosemary)

5 or 6 sprigs fresh thyme (or about 1 tsp dried)

Two yellow onions, peeled and quartered

Sea salt

Ground pepper

A dash of wine, red or white (a good use for any leftover wine that may be lying around.  I used chardonnay because there was enough left in the fridge for the purpose, but not enough for a full glass, It was about ½ to 2/3 of a cup)

Bring the roast out of the fridge and make sure it is fully thawed. I did this at about 7 AM for dinner at 4.  Preheat your slow cooker on about medium heat. Cut the garlic cloves into slivers. Use a small paring knife to make holes all over the pork, top, bottom, sides, and insert the garlic slivers deep into the meat.  The more garlic you use, the more or its flavor will make it into the meat.  Rub the roast all over with salt and pepper, be generous. If you are using fresh herbs, strip them from their stems and finely chop.  Heat a skillet on high for a minute or two and place the roast directly in the skillet, brown it for a minute or two on all sides (yes even the ends).  Stuff will stick to the pan, don’t worry, we want that.  When you have some color on all sides of the meat, place it in the slow cooker.  Rub it all over with the chopped herb.  While your skillet is still hot, pour the wine into it to deglaze and get all those little browned bits or meat goodness into the liquid.  Scrape the pan with a spatula if you have to.  Pour whatever liquid remains with all those gooky bits into the slow cooker.  It looks gross, but trust me.  Put the quartered onions in and around the meat.  Cover and cook.  That’s it.  I let it cook for about 8 hours, but it won’t take that long to be tender and fall-apart good.  It smells heavenly and your guests won’t ever know it only took you 15 minutes to prepare.

Cheesy mashed potatoes.

Really there isn’t too much to explain about this one. It can be made the day before, as can the green bean casserole, and heated in the oven rather quickly.  So, I boil a pot of potatoes in no specific quantity, then peel and mash them with milk and butter.  Pretty basic so far.  I add to this mix a healthy helping of sour cream, a big fistful of shredded cheddar cheese, some minced garlic, parsley, salt and pepper, cooked chopped bacon (or bacon bits), and some finely chopped green onion.  I do it to taste, I never measure because, well, I dunno, it just always works out based on how we like our potatoes.  I suppose the next time I make it, I will measure and update this.  Just…someone remind me.   Then I scoop it all into a casserole dish or rectangular baker and put it in the fridge until about 1 hour before dinner.  Then all it needs is a heating in a 375 oven for about 30 to 45 minutes. The top will crisp and brown a bit, I usually top it with a little extra cheese and bacon, and it will be creamy melty and wonderful.  Both of my brother-in-laws (or is it brothers-in-law?) are addicted to this side dish.

Green Bean Casserole

This recipe can be found in SO many places, on a can of French’s onions, or campbell’s soups, or even in ads in magazines.  There are many variations, and some are better than others.  But let me tell you how I do it, how my grandma taught me to make it.  It never fails to make me drool.

1 can (10.75 oz) cream of mushroom soup

¾ c. milk

1 can (I don’t know the oz, but the little itty bitty can, I’ll get back to you on this one) mushrooms,drained

2 cans (14.5 oz each) green beans, drained,  I like French cut, but use whatever you like

1 1/3 c. French fried onions

¼ tsp each pepper and salt

¼ c drained chopped pimento (found near the pickles in the grocery)

Whisk the milk into the soup until no longer lumpy. Stir everything else (except  ¾ c. of the onions) together with the soup mixture in a baking dish, casserole, or cazuela.  Mix well. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.  Stir again.  Top with remaining onions and make 5 more minutes until onions are golden.  Serve!

Hope you enjoy!!