I Want My Baby Back Baby Back Baby Back

Living in Utah my whole life, I always thought 100° was 100° and those people whining about humidity making it worse were just a bunch of pansies.  Well… I was wrong.  I get it now.  In Utah when it gets over 100 the sun literally feels like it’s baking you.  Here, it feels like you’ve just walked into the sauna from hell, even in the middle of the night.  You can’t breathe, and the sweat… seriously?  I never used to sweat, but here it’s just the default way of being.  All that in mind, you’ll understand why I not only don’t want to use my oven or boil anything on the stove, but I don’t even want to use my electric skillet because it creates too much steam.  I was tired of sandwiches, salads, and eating out.  I wanted a proper, home cooked meal, so I did the only thing I could think of.  I bought a slow cooker.  What could be a better way to break it in than baby back ribs and potatoes?  As a bonus, it was the easiest meal I’ve made in a long time, and amazingly delicious.  Hubby gave it two thumbs up. 

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 rack of baby backs
• 1 onion
• 3 good sized potatoes
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Celery salt
• Salt & Pepper
• Your favorite spice mix
• 1 lemon

Peel your onion, cut it in half, and slice it about ½ inch thick.

Line the bottom of your crock pot with onion slices.

Lay out your ribs.  Well, not your ribs.  You'll be needing them.     

Sprinkle with liberal amounts of all the spices. 

Turn the rack over and repeat. 

I know a lot of people only season the one side, but seasoning the underside serves multiple purposes here.  Not only will it add flavor to the meat, but everything else in the pot as well. 

Lay the ribs around the edges of the pot with the curved side facing in to form a little bowl.  (I know, sometimes I even surprise myself with my genius.)

Drop in any remaining slices of onion, along with whole, peeled garlic cloves. 

Now, onto the potatoes.  Since they’re not going to be submerged, they need something to keep them from oxidizing.  Juice a lemon and add enough water to total ¾ cup liquid. 

As you dice the potatoes, pour the liquid over the top and sprinkle on 1 teaspoon salt. 

Continue to toss the potatoes in the lemon water as you chop.  If you have any cuts on your fingers, I don’t recommend doing this with your hands.  I learned the hard way.  If you have any cuts or scrapes on your hands you aren’t aware of, you will be the moment you plunge them into lemon and salt water.  When you’ve recovered, pour the potatoes, along with the liquid into the bowl-o-ribs. 

Now, just pop the lid on and cook on low for 6 hours.  Seriously, that’s all you have to do.  When you come back 6 hours later, your house will smell like you’ve slaved all day. 

You probably won’t be able to get the whole rack out in one piece, because it’s literally fall apart tender.  Saves the hassle of having to cut it, right?  Just put down a bed of potato, onion mixture and lay the ribs on top.  You aren’t going to believe how good these are. 

What else should I make in my new slow cooker? 

*Any leftover potatoes and onions can be blended into the remaining liquid making a fabulous potato soup bonus.   
 
 

Meta Salad

A salad made of salad.

It's way too hot to cook, never mind eating hot things. I think July may end up being the month of salads. I've got a couple planned and Taneasha's loving having hers tossed. Hopefully we'll get to see more of that.

Me, I was crazy enough to make chicken broth last week (pics later) and so I've got a bunch of packages of chicken meat in the freezer. We'll ignore the broth for now since soup is entirely out of the question. If you don't happen to have nicely packaged portions of already cooked chicken in your freezer, those rotisserie birds that most grocery stores have handy will work just fine.

Chicken Salad in a Salad

What you need:

• about 2 cups of cooked, chopped chicken
• a bit of onion
• a couple carrots
• 3 or 4 radishes
• 1/4 c parsley
• 2 tbsp dill
• 1 tbsp capers
• 1/2 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 c mayo
• a bit of lemon juice
• large lettuce leaves
• alphalpha sprouts
• tasty tiny tomatos

What you gotta do:

Dice all the veggies into tiny chunks. If you like celery, it would probably work well in this. I don't like celery, so I opted for radishes. Nice crunch, a bit of bite, totally underutilized root. Adds a nice bit of colour too.

Dump all the veggies and herbs and seeds and flowers (capers are flowers) into a bowl with the chicken. Squeeze on some lemon juice. Salt and pepper would work at this point too.

Blob on some mayo. Real mayo.

You should also select a few good sized lettuce leaves and rinse them off. You're going to use them whole, so a salad spinner may not be the right tool for the job. I just rolled mine up in a teatowel to dry them.

Use the lettuce leaves like taco shells. Some alphalpha sprouts in the bottom, then the chicken salad, and a few slices of the tiny awesome tomatos to decorate the top.

Oh yeah, and then sprinkle it with bacon. Everything is better with bacon sprinkles.

I ate mine like tacos, but I suppose you could use a fork if you really wanted to.

And yes, I admit it, I bought the tomatos because they were little and cute, but they really have a great bright sweetness that works well with the tangy mayo and lemon in the dressing.

What have you bought because it was little and cute?