Nothing compares to the tender, spicy taste of BBQ beef ribs. Beef ribs are easy to make if you know how. The trick is to cook the ribs long enough that the meat is falling off the bones. This recipe will take two and a half hours to cook. The temperature to cook the ribs on is 350 degrees F.
I cook my ribs in a blue enamel ware oval covered pan. If you don’t have one of these pans, you can use any pan and cover it with aluminum foil.
The first step is to assemble your ingredients. If you have a large rack of ribs, you will want to cut them down so they will fit in a frying pan or an electric skillet. Try to leave three bones per section of meat.
3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon chicken fat or bouillon
2 tablespoons safflower oil or olive oil
2 tablespoons dried rosemary or 3 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon dried savory
1 1/2 cups red wine
2 cups beef broth
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 Tablespoon A-1
To taste: garlic powder, McCormick’s Montreal Steak Spicy Grill Seasoning, salt and fresh ground pepper
Begin by putting the rosemary, chicken fat or bouillon and oil into a frying pan.
Cook over medium heat until the mixture begins to gently bubble.
Flour the beef ribs so all the sides are covered. Then put the ribs, one section at a time into the frying pan.
Brown the ribs.
As the ribs brown, set them into the pan that they will be baking in. Once all the ribs are in the pan, add the additional spices to taste as well as the soy sauce and A-1 sauce.
Pour the beef broth and wine in the bottom of the pan. Then add enough water so the liquid is covering the sides of the ribs. See the photo above to get a better idea of how much water to add.
Cover the pan and place it in a 350 degree F oven. Set the timer for one hour. When the timer goes off, check the ribs to make sure there is still plenty of water in the pan. If there is not enough water in the pan at that point, add more being careful not to get it on the top of the ribs.
Put the pan, covered back into the oven for another hour. When that hour is up, check the ribs. The meat should be tender enough that it will easily fall away from the bone using a fork.
Once the beef ribs have cooked for two hours, remove the pan from the oven, remove the lid, check the water level one last time. If it is low, add more water.
Before putting the ribs back into the oven for the final half hour of cooking, cover the top of the ribs in BBQ sauce. How much you use will depend on what your family likes. I like to put it on thick. Remember the heat will cause it to run and thin.
Cover the pan again and put it back in the oven. Set your timer for thirty minutes. When the timer goes off, the beef ribs are done.
Filed under Elegant Cooking Main Meals, Meat Recipes by on Dec 10th, 2009. 15 Comments. 
Do you like lasagna but think making it is a hassle? Three pans is all it takes. We use home canned sauce, but you can use store bought sauce if you like. We use the old fashioned lasagna that you boil, but there is an oven ready lasagna noodle available now, which would cut the pans needed down to two. You can even make lasagna in a solar oven, but that is a post for another day!
To begin, gather your ingredients. The basic ingredients are hamburger if you want meat, bacon – or you can use a bit of bacon grease for flavor, lasagna noodles, tomato or spaghetti sauce and cheese. If you like your food spicy, gather your favorite herbs or spices such as garlic, peppers, rosemary, basil, chilli powder and fresh ground pepper.
Begin by browning the hamburger in your skillet. I like using an old fashion cast iron skillet, but do use whatever skillet you have.
When the hamburger is brown with no more pink showing, it is time to drain it. I dump my hamburger into a strainer positioned in my kitchen sink. Using hot water, I wash the hamburger to remove the excess grease that will not just run off. I also rinse the skillet out. Be sure you use hot water to do this. Once you have returned the meat to the pan, remove the strainer from that side of the sink, squirt a bit of dishwasher detergent into the sink, then use hot water to rinse the sink again and wash the detergent down the drain. This will help stop the grease from causing a clog in your drain.
Put the pan filled with meat back on the stove. If I am adding bacon bits or bacon grease, now is the time I do it. Do not add more than a tablespoon of bacon grease, less is better. If you are using crumbled bacon or bacon bits, add a generous handfull.
Have the sauce you are using and the spices assembled on the stove. Tonight I added two tablespoons of garlic scapes to the meat.
I put the fresh garlic scapes into a food grinder so they would be ground up when I added them to the meat.
This is a photo of the garlic scapes ground up. They smell pungent enough without being ground, so imagine that smell ten times stronger! I preserved my fresh garlic scapes in sea salt, so there will not be a need to add additional salt to the sauce when I make it.
In addition to the garlic scapes, I added two whole garlic cloves, a tablespoon of basil, one small red chili pepper, a tablespoon of rosemary, a teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper and a teasopoon of chili powder. The homemade sauce I used was also pre-seasoned with basil and Italian herbs.
Once all the seasonings have been added to the meat and stirred in, go ahead and add your sauce. Mix well. Lower the heat to a low or warm setting. All you are doing now is keeping the sauce warm and allowing the flavors to mix.
Once the sauce is warm, add some fresh grated cheese to the sauce. Mix well. The amount of cheese you add will vary depending on how thin your sauce is. You want to add just enough to make the sauce thick. Generally I find if I cover the top of the sauce as shown above, that is all I will need to do.
Once your sauce is done, keep it warm while you boil the water for your lasagna. A pinch of salt along with a drop of olive oil should be added to your water. The olive oil will keep the pasta from sticking.
Once your water comes to a boil, lay the pasta in the pan. It will stick out of the pan at first. This is ok. Allow the pasta to sit like this for a minute or so, then gently push it down into the water.
Once the pasta is completely submerged in the water, cook it according to package directions. This generally takes somewhere between ten and twelve minutes, but can vary so do read the directions on your box of lasagna.
When the lasagna is fully cooked, drain it into a stainer positioned in your kitchen sink. If you have a sprayer, turn on the cold water and hose the pasta off, if not, use your faucet and turn the pasta so it all gets rinsed.
Dump the pasta back into the pan and fill with cold water. This will stop the pasta from continuing to cook. Take the pan filled with the water and pasta back to your stove. Put one layer of pasta on the bottom of the pan.
Add a bit of sauce to the first layer of pasta. Be aware the sauce will thin during cooking, so do not fret that is does not evenly cover the pasta. Add a thin layer of cheese on top of the pasta.
Continue layering the lasagna, the sauce and the cheese. If you are using a variety of cheese like I do, feel free to alternate them or mix them, whichever you prefer.
This is the top layer. I put some sauce on it, homemade goat cheese and a sprinkling of Mexican cheese. I use a variety of cheese on my lasagna, usually an Italian, a Mexican and whatever other type of cheese I have on hand.
The last step is to cover the pan, put it in the oven and cook it at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. The buzzer just went off in the kitchen. I can smell the spicy mix of herbs, cheese and garlic flowing this way. Time to get off here, make a nice slice of homemade herb bread and butter and eat.
Filed under Elegant Cooking Main Meals, Pasta Recipes by on Nov 11th, 2009. 17 Comments.
Everyone loves good fried chicken, but not everyone loves the grease. Normally I brown my chicken on both sides, then put it in a pan in the oven at 350 degrees F. If you use a broiler pan, the grease will drop below just like it does when you broil food. This time, however, I decided to go ahead and fry it in my cast iron skillet. The trick to reducing the greasiness of fried food is to turn it just once during the cooking time.
Before you begin, gather the following ingredients.
1 large bowl
wooden spoon
2 cups flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon dried mustard
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon celery seed
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon ginger
Put the 2 cups of flour in the bowl. I prefer organic, but whatever you like is fine.
Pour the 1/2 cup of cornmeal on top of the flour in the bowl. You will mix this up later on.
Add the salt and any other ground spices to the flour and oatmeal.
This is what mine looked like at this point. I left the whole spices such as herb leaves, garlic cloves and paprika peppers out. I will add these shortly once they are powdered.
Put any whole herbs or spices into a grinder and process until they are finely ground.
Add the fresh ground herbs and spices to the mixture and stir well. This is what the flour mixture should look like when everything is well mixed.
Add the oil of your choice to your skillet. I used a cast iron skillet. I add paste ginger to the oil instead of using powdered ginger. Remember that the 1 teapoon of ginger is enough for three chickens, so if you use the paste ginger or whole ginger, reduce the amount you use by 1/3.
The next step is to make sure the raw chicken is well coated on both sides with the flour mixture. I used a wooden spoon to scoop the flour out of the bowl, then used my hands to pat the flour into the chicken. When one side is well floured, turn it over and repeat. Do not let your spoon touch the chicken. I also wash my hands once I turn the chicken over. This way I can save the flour mixture and not worry about accidental contamination.
When both sides of the chicken are coated with the flour mixture, put it in the pan. Remember the oil in the pan is warm so it may want to sizzle. Use a utensil, such as tongs, to lay the chicken pieces in the pan.
Cover the pan with a lid and cook for 30 minutes on medium heat.
After cooking for 30 minutes over medium heat, use the tongs to turn the chicken over. This is what the side that has been face down should look like. Put the lid back on and cook for an additional 30 minutes.
We use a meat thermomter to check the internal temperature of any meat we cook just to be on the safe side. Chicken breast should register at 170 degrees F when it is done. Properly cooked food that reaches the correct temperture and is maintained at that temperature is an important step in preventing illness from improperly prepared meals. It is also important to maintain sanitary conditions in your kitchen or on any areas where food will be.
Filed under Elegant Cooking Main Meals, Meat Recipes by on Oct 27th, 2009. 4 Comments.
Fall is here. The time to pick the end of the season garden produce is upon us. You may be wondering what to do with all the cabbage and carrots you have.
There are two easy ways to take care of excess cabbage if you don’t have a root cellar. The first is to make sauerkraut. The second, the one you will learn about today, is to turn it into coleslaw.
As for the excess carrots, you will use some in coleslaw, but feel free to can or dehydrate the others for winter use, that is if you do not have a root cellar.
Homemade coleslaw tastes so much better to me than anything I can buy. Not only do I have the joy of growing my own vegetables to use in it, but I know they were organically grown. If your garden was a flop, ask a neighbor or you can even go to the store and buy a head of cabbage and a bag of carrots.
I prefer to use store bought dressing. I have a favorite brand, Marzetti. I have not found a homemade recipe that duplicates the creamy taste of this brand. Plus it makes it extra easy to make, one less step to complete.
To begin, gather your ingredients, a fresh head of cabbage, a bunch of carrots and your dressing. As you can see I used a bag of peeled baby carrots this time around. This was a one pound bag. I chose to use it all, but you can use however much you like.
The next step is to remove the outer leaves of the cabbage.
Cut the cabbage into quarters, making sure to remove the heart. This is best done by cutting at an angle. The heart is the hard piece of cabbage at the bottom near the spot where it was attached to the plant. The heart goes a little way up into the cabbage itself. This part is edible but many people simply do not enjoy eating it as it is hard.
The next step is to use a knife to cut the cabbage up into small pieces. If you take each quarter and slice it longways two to three times then cut the cabbage shortways across you will get small pieces. You can use a food processer but I like using a knife much better because the cabbage does not end up as small or bruised.
This is what your cabbage will look like when it is all cut up. Simply put it into a bowl. You may need two bowls, one for mixing and one for holding the extra cabbage.
The next step is to dice or shred the carrots. I use a food processor for this because I like small diced carrots.
This gives you an idea what the carrots look like when they come out of the food processor. I simply dump them on top of the cabbage and continue to dice more until I have diced up all of the carrots I wish to put into the coleslaw. Then I mix the cabbage and carrots up.
Once the cabbage and carrots are throughly mixed, I add the dressing. Simply pour it on top, then stir it in. For this recipe I used 1 head of cabbage, 1 poud of carrots and 1 jar of dressing.
Refrigerate until it is cold, then serve. Nothing could be easier! Your family will love the taste of homemade coleslaw!
Filed under Elegant Cooking Main Meals, Vegetable Recipes by on Oct 27th, 2009. Comment.
Many people think gourmet cooking requires lot of expensive special ingredients. This is a myth that simply must be busted! Gourmet cooking, in my opinion, is all about the presentation of the meal. Add in one or two richly exotic spices, such as nutmeg, cinnamon or cardamom, which you may already have in your cabinets, and you have a meal fit for a king on a homesteader’s budget!
Chances are if you grow your own herbs, you already know how to make a variety of spice mixes. You also know using your own herbs gives you a much better flavor than anything you can buy. Here’s a tip – when drying your herbs, keep them whole. Do not grind them until you are ready to use them. If there are spices you must buy, such as cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, buy them whole too! Most small spices can be ground in a cheap electric coffee grinder, or better yet, a mortar and pestle. For larger seeds such as nutmeg, it is best to invest in a special grinder just for that spice. Once you smell the difference between pre-ground and freshly ground spices, you simply will not go back to re-ground spices. The fragrance of fresh ground herbs and spices permeate the air while adding an unmistakable burst of flavor to the foods you add them to.
Now let me give you an example of gourmet cooking on a budget. The picture at the top was made right here in our kitchen using ingredients I had on hand. It is a Pear Cardamom Sorbet in a delectable dark chocolate dessert dish.
I had the mold for the dessert dish. These clear plastic molds can be found at cooking shops, craft sections of discount merchants and sometimes even at thrift stores or garage sales! Make sure the molds are straight and clean with no holes in them if you choose to purchase used molds.
I found a bag of dark chocolate molding candy at a local discount grocer for $1. I prefer dark chocolate because the taste is smooth, rich and quite chocolaty unlike milk chocolate. I bought it, brought it home and melted it in my double boiler. If you do not have one, a small sauce pan sit inside a larger sauce pan filled with water will work. Bring the water to a boil while constantly stirring the chocolate. Once the chocolate has melted, carefully spoon it into the mold. Dessert molds have two parts, a top and bottom. Fill the bottom mold about 1/3 of the way up, then sit the top mold in place. This will help you determine if you have added enough chocolate. If so, snap the top mold on and sit in the refrigerator. If not, remove it and add more. If you make your chocolate before starting dinner, by the time you are ready for dessert, the chocolate will be molded. It should stay in the mold in the refrigerator until the mold begins to look frosty. As this time, put the mold into the freezer for two minutes. When the two minutes are up, remove the top of the mold and the chocolate dessert cup will slip right out.
The pear cardamom sorbet takes a little longer to make. If you do not have an ice cream maker, you can still make this, however using an electric ice cream maker helps the process speed up just a bit.
Pear Cardamom Sorbet Recipe
4 ripe pears – fresh picked are best
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon fresh ground cardamom
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tablespoons brandy
2 ounces Maraschino cherry juice
Bring sugar and water to a boil in a small saucepan. Once the mixture begins to boil, reduce the heat and simmer for about five minutes or until the mixture begins to reduce and thicken. Remove the pan from the heat source and chill for thirty minutes.
Peel and core the ripe pears. Put them in a blender with the lemon juice, fresh ground cardamom, brandy and maraschino cherry juice.
Whip until you have a mixture that is smooth. Add the cooled water and sugar mixture. Whip again until well mixed.
If you have an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into it and follow the manufacturer’s directions. If not, simply put into a bowl with a lid and freeze.
Serve by dipping out scoops and putting them in the chocolate dessert cups. The maraschino cherry juice will make the sorbet a luscious pink color that will blend perfectly with the smooth dark chocolate dessert shell. Top with a piece of molded chocolate candy, whipped cream or your favorite topping.
You can substitute the ingredients here. For example, try mint or cinnamon instead of cardamom. Gourmet cooking really is simple. Once you learn how to use what is in your cabinets, plus how to add a few extra special touches to make your meals stand out, you will be cooking up gourmet feats that you simply will not be able to buy in any restaurant!
Filed under Easy Homemade Desserts, Frozen Desserts, Sorbets by on Oct 26th, 2009. Comment.
If you are like me, you love coming up with new recipes using ingredients you have on hand. Nothing is more satisfying to me than growing and raising my own food.
The banana leaves came from a dwarf banana I am growing in a pot. If you don’t grow bananas, ask someone who does if you can have a couple of leaves. An alternative is to check with ethnic markets in your area. Ask for banana leaves that have been grown organically. Sometimes if they don’t have banana leaves on hand, they can order them. Put the extra leaves in the freezer so you have them when you need them.
Sage, rosemary, chili peppers and garlic are spices that most gardeners grow. If you do not grow these, ask around. Organic is best. Feel free to dry some for winter use, but do keep the leaves of the sage and rosemary whole. The flavor lasts better if you wait until you use them to grind them. I also dry my garlic as whole cloves, powdering it as I need to. The same goes for any peppers from the garden. If they are small, I dry them whole. If they are larger, I cut them in half or quarters so they do not appear dry on the outside and mold on the inside.
I hope you enjoy this recipe! A delicate banana like flavor does come through as does the warmth of the spices from the wine. The chili pepper gives a hot, spicy taste to the meat. Feel free to substitute the ingredients to suit your families taste.
Enchanted Tropical Pork Chops
- 2 fresh banana leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf sage
- 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
- 1 garlic clove, finely minced or powdered
- 1 dried chili pepper – you may omit this ingredient if your family does not like hot, spicy food.
- 1 teaspoon ‘Alaea Hawaiian’ red sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon mixed peppercorns
- 2 1″ thick pork chops
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ¼ cup Witches’ Brew – this is a red wine spiced with cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. Feel free to substitute your favorite wine if you cannot find this one.
Rinse off the banana leaves with water. Place them in the pan you will be using to bake the pork chops. Set this aside.
Put sage leaves, rosemary, both garlic cloves, whole chili pepper, red sea salt and peppercorns in a spice grinder.
Grind until all of the herbs and spices are finely ground.
Spread finely ground spice mixture onto a plate. Make sure it is evenly distributed.
Melt butter and olive oil over medium heat in a skillet.
Place the first pork chop on the plate pressing lightly.
Turn the pork chop over and repeat the process.
Place the first pork chop in the pan that contains the melted butter and olive oil. Cut diagonal slits in the top of the pork chop.
Pick up the second pork chop and repeat the process making sure both sides are covered in spices.
Put the second pork chop in the skillet next to the first pork chop, making sure to cut slits in the top of it. If any spices remain on the place, brush them off into the skillet.
Cook chops over medium heat for about ten minutes.
Turn the pork chops over and cut diagonal slits on this side as well. Cook for ten more minutes. Both sides of the pork chops should be lightly brown at this point.
When the pork chops are brown, remove them one at a time from the skillet and place in the center of the banana leaves. There should be one pork chop on each banana leaf. Pour the liquid remains of the skillet over the pork chops.
Roll one side of the banana leaf towards the pork chop. Then roll the second side towards the pork chop. Your pork chop should now be rolled up in the banana leaf.
Turn the banana leaf over so the two ends are on the bottom of the pan. The weight of the pork chop will keep the banana leaf from unrolling and exposing the pork chop.
Repeat this process with the second banana leaf and pork chop.
Pour ¼ cup Witches’ Brew or your favorite wine over the banana leaves making sure to get some in the ends of the banana leaves where the pork chops are.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes. Be warned, the intensely nutty fragrant smell of the banana leaves cooking will transport you to a tropical island.
When the time is up, your pork chops will be done. Remove the pan from the oven. Move the banana leaved pork chops to a plate using a spatula. Allow to cool briefly, then carefully remove banana leaves from the pork chops. They will both be hot, so use caution. Serve the pork chops with your favorite side dishes. We chose baked honey Brussels sprouts with shells and cheese for our side dishes.
Filed under Elegant Cooking Main Meals, Meat Recipes by on Oct 26th, 2009. 4 Comments.
