Smoked Baby Back Ribs and the 2012 Ottawa RibFest

Here's some brand new information.  I LOVE ribs.  They are the perfect 'meat-on-a-stick' meal, straight from nature.  No soaking bamboo skewers; no poking your fingers to thread your meat on the sticks.  Perfect!

In my on-going attempt to figure out how my portable (barbeque top/oven top) smoker works, I decided to it yet again.  My first attempt with turkey breast didn't end up smoked at all.  This time, I thought I'd try some baby back ribs.  I want my baby-back, baby-back, baby-back riiiibbbbs!

I have a few different flavours of wood chips.  For my baby-back ribs, I decided to use the 'hickory' flavour.  The first step is to soak the the wood chips in water for 30 minutes to keep them from flaming.  Then line the bottom of the smoker with the wet chips.



The first thing you should do to prepare the ribs is to remove the silver skin (on the 'bone' side of the ribs). There is no point in cooking them with the silver skin, because it just gets dried out and chewy.  You can't really eat it.  I actually forgot to take it off, but that's okay because the dogs loved eating it.  Anyway -- back to preparing the ribs.  I used a dry rub of:  smoked paprika, mesquite steak spice, garlic powder, cajun spice, a bit of cayenne and some dried chipotle rub.    There is no science to the rub - just find whatever spices you have on hand and make sure you cover both sides well.



Raw Meat Alert:

Now on to the barbeque for 'smoking'!!!  Hopefully.  I put the smoker directly on the burner; the last time I tried it on the grill/rack and found that the temperature of the chips did not get hot enough to get them smoking.  The key to smoking is:  low and slow.  I wanted the barbeque temperature around 250*F but it was running a bit hot - maintaining a temperature of closer to 300*F for the whole time I was smoking them.  My barbeque has a cast iron lid so if there is smoke going on inside, it should work to flavour and cook the meat.  I kept them on for 1 hour and 45 minutes.  To be honest, it was only in the last 15 minutes of smoking that I actually started to smell the wood.  I think I should have left them on for another 30-60 minutes.  With ribs, you don't really have to worry about them being overcooked.  The longer they cook the more tender and fall-off-the bone they should be.

Anyway, 1 hour and 45 minutes later, I took them off the grill and let them cool.  In the meantime, I made this UNBELIEVABLE FRICKIN-KICKIN barbeque sauce.  OMG this was sooooooo freaking good.  I could have just eaten it with a spoon.  Again, there is no recipe and no measurements but this is what I used (in no particular order or volume):  ketchup, whole grain mustard, balsamic vinegar, honey, liquid smoke, Franks Red Hot hot sauce, PC Chipotle hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce.  Awe-some!!!!!  Yum-a-licious!!!

Eventually I sent them back to the grill and smothered them in the unbelievable, to-die-for barbeque sauce.  I grilled them on medium low for another 30 minutes, frequently brushing them with more sauce on both sides.

The honest truth is, they were still a little tough.  I should have both (a) smoked them longer and (b) grilled them for longer.  Nonetheless (probably because of my awesome barbeque sauce) they tasted great.  The dry rub was a little on the spicy side but the barbeque sauce was zesty, rich and flavourful.  As I get more accustomed to using the smoker, and how to get it to work better/properly I think I'm going to be getting WAY better as a back yard barbeque smoker warrior.  So long as they taste good ... that's the main thing though, and these baby back ribs sure had great flavour and were super meaty.  Nature's own portable meat-on-a-stick ... luvs it!

Here's the 'yummy shot':





Now, coincidentally the weekend after I made my smoked baby back ribs, it was Ottawa RibFest 2012.  I've been to RibFest at least four or five times ... mostly with the 'ex' but this year my sister suggested going ... which is only odd when you find out that she hates ribs.  She never eats them!  So imagine my surprise when that is where she wanted to go for dinner on Saturday night.

We arrived just after 7pm and I knew it was going to be busy.  That was an understatement to say the least. The line-ups at the grill shacks were probably 50-75 people deep.  Now it smelled g-r-e-a-t so we certainly didn't mind strolling from one end of Sparks Street to the other.  I also knew that there would be fewer people at the far end between Kent and Lyon.  And sure enough, the line ups were only about 5 people or so.  Not much of a wait for nature's perfect meat-on-a-stick.  I ordered "The Texan" which consists of ... you guessed it:  three meats.  Yay!!!  1/3 rack of ribs, 1/4 chicken and pulled pork!  Yummy-yummy-yum-yum.  That's what I'm talking about.  But wait!!!  My beautiful plan was foibled:  they were out of pulled pork.  D'oh!!!

Now I could have gone with just two meats, if I wanted just the ribs and chicken, but for me, the chicken is the least appealing part of these three meats.  It just seemed like the skin was not crispy and was not what I had in mind for "Rib" Fest.  I mean its right there in the title.  So in the end, I decided on the full rack of ribs. 

Here are my cutie ribs.  Just ribs ... no bothering with side dishes for me.  The ribs are not cheap but at least you get two meals (or more) out of a full rack.  They were very good; a bit spicy, beautiful fall-of-the bone tender.  I would have liked more sauce -- maybe on the side for dipping.  Bonnie chose the 1/2 chicken and she said it was delicious, albeit not easy to eat on a park bench!  Bonnie also had the baked beans and cole slaw as sides.  She said the slaw was really good.  The chicken skin went home for Dakota though.  It wasn't crispy and didn't look appealing.

Of course I love the RibFest.  I always remember the first year I went in 2005 with the ex.  We went just at closing time on Sunday night.  The ribbers were trying to get rid of the cooked racks of ribs before packing up and hitting the road ... and we got the deal of the century.  3 full racks of ribs for $30.  We were eating ribs for weeks after that.  You would think that this would have deterred me from going in the future ... but no.  One year I took Jake as well (pre-Gwenny days).  He thought he had died and gone to heaven -- until he realized that I wouldn't actually let him eat ALL the rib bones ... or any rib bones for that matter.  It was very hard to control him and since that time, I've never again considered taking him.

Lemon Coconut Cupcakes

So this week at work there was a bake sale and I was forced to eat a total crap chocolate cupcake.  Packaged cake mix with zero flavour and, I'm sure, store bought chocolate icing with no flavour but super sugar-y sweet.  The icing was nicely piped on and the cake looked really pretty but it was not worth the calories to eat it.  Seriously, put some effort in people!

This week was also Caitlin's last day at work ... and after taking votes at the mess, the winner was lemon coconut for her 'goodbye' cupcakes.  Caitlin even found a recipe on-line for me.  I love lemon anything ... so yummy, but coconut is not my favourite ... especially the sweetened packaged coconut.  I like fresh raw coconut and coconut curry but I've never understood the point of sweetening fruit.  But obviously I have to give the people what they want, so lemon coconut cupcakes it was.

Now Caitlin chose not to make her own drawing of what the lemon coconut cupcakes would/should look like, as she had done with the   vanilla blueberry ones.  And clearly, I really have to learn how to take better photos -- I'm sure a hand drawn facsimile would look more beautiful than my poor pics!  Its hard to tell but these are the super cute purple gingham cupcake papers that Caitlin bought for me.

Anyway here is the recipe that I used with my comments on changes I'd make next time (if I ever bother to make them again!)

Lemon Coconut Cupcakes

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup shredded sweetened coconut
3 teaspoons lemon rind (use a rasp if you have one .... as I do; using a zester will make the shreds of rind too large in the cakes)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup milk

Beat butter and sugar until light; beat in eggs one at a time, continuing to beat in between each.  In a separate bowl, whisk flour, coconut, lemon rind, baking powder and salt.  Stir into butter mixture alternating with liquid; making three additions of dry ingredients and two of liquid.  Spoon into paper lined cups.
Bake at 350*F for 20 minutes.  Remove from pan and cool completely before icing.

Here they are cooling on my new cooling rack.  They were actually a little over cooked and in future I would only bake them for 16-18 minutes.  Also, my oven runs a little hotter than the thermostat so perhaps I would turn the oven down just slightly.  They looked perfectly lightly browned when I took them out of the oven, but when they were unwrapped from the papers, they were a little too dark on the bottom and they were a bit dry.  In future I'd put a bit more lemon zest in to keep them more moist along with baking them for less time.

Lemon Coconut Icing

3/4 cup unsalted butter
1-2 teaspoons lemon rind
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 cups icing sugar
1 cup (or as much as needed) flaked sweetened coconut for topping

Beat butter until fluffy; add lemon rind and juice.  Stir in icing sugar and beat until fluffy.  Add more lemon juice, if necessary to obtain desired consistency.  Ice cakes and dip in the coconut topping.

After beating up the icing, I left it at room temperature for some time, to make sure it was soft enough for the coconut to adhere when I dipped the tops in.

I piped the icing on, but you really don't have to do this because when you dunk the little cakes in the coconut the icing gets flattened out anyway.  I left a couple with no coconut dip for me ... and this icing is freaking awesome.  I could just eat bowls of it.  Its super zesty and good lemon flavour.  It's ever so pale yellow from the butter and lemon juice and it tastes great.  It made the cupcakes.  For sure.

Race Weekend, The SmoQue Shack and "E accent-aigu''

My oldest friend Molly was here from Toronto, for race weekend.  She's not actually my oldest friend in age, being younger than me, but she is the friend that I have had the longest.  We have been friends since we worked together in around 1987 or 1988.  That's a long time!!!  Anyway, Molly and her friend Debbie were both here to run the half marathon.  Here they are, post-marathon, still upright, still walking and SUPER CUTE!  Way to go ladies!

Now I'm not a runner.  I really can't see the point.  When I see people running past me ... it just doesn't look like fun.  It looks painful.  And not enjoyable.  But Molly and her group of friends are all runners and overall athletes, generally.  And they did teach me something very valuable about running:  if you are running 21kms to 42kms (including all the training kilometers that you put in in preparation) you get to EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT and PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR afterwards!!!!!  Finally ... I see why people do this crazy thing called running.

On Saturday night, Molly, Debbie and I went out to for dinner and 'carbo loading' in the market.  I, being the good friend that I am, fully participated in the carbo loading activities, even though I wasn't racing the next day!  At 10pm I wished Debbie and Molly good luck; and headed home.  On Sunday afternoon we would be meeting up again with some other runners for big time post-race food and celebrating.

We headed out to The SmoQue Shack on York Street for dinner and beer on Sunday evening.  There was a group of 7 women ... all runners:  some half-marathoners, a 10km-er, an injured full marathoner and we were meeting up with more runners later in the evening.  Not wanting to be left out, waited too long to go pee after my first couple of beers and I RAN to the washroom!  LOL!!

When I arrived there were already some sharing plates on the table:  a giant poutine, rib tips and chicken wings.  Oh, and obviously some beer.  I tried the wings ... very unique, different and delicious.  The wings are rubbed with a spicy rub and they were very hot but flavourful, crispy on the outside, moist and yum-a-licious.  These are not pub-style Franks Red Hot wings ... and being such a chicken wing lover sometimes I'm concerned about messing with tried and true that I love, but these wings were excellent.  I'd go back to The SmoQue Shack just for the wings.

On to the ordering our main dishes.  The menu is categorized by 'meat' .... mmmmmm meat!  (and yes, I'm still digging the cow meat, what can I say? Its good!).  Anywhooo ... you pick your choice of meat and then you have a choice of tons of sides to add on.  There are meat platters ... with guess what?  Three meats!!!  If I've said it once I've said it a million times:  what's better than one kind of meat?  Three meats ... that's what!!!!!  One of the women, whom I shall call "Camera-Shé" because she didn't want to be photographed, was trying to convince me to get one of the three-meat platters with an additional FOURTH MEAT add on!!!  Now that is just c-r-a-z-y!  Four meats = too much meats!  Even Homer Simpson only contemplates three meats (bacon, ham and pork chops) from the professed "wonderful, magical animal":

One of the top 11 most creative Simpsons tattoos:

 

Anyway ... my point is, I was not about to order a four meat platter!  I actually chose the half-rack of baby back ribs and for my sides I chose the deep fried pickles (god I love that deep fried pickles have made such a resurgence and are so popular now ... all the way from the 1990s at the Loose Moose, I have loved deep fried pickles soooooo yummy-yum-yum-yum) and also ordered cornbread.

As for my meal, the baby back ribs were moist and the bar-b-que sauce was really really good. It was smoky and rich but not spicy. It was very good. I found the ribs a tiny bit tough - I thought they could/should have been falling off the bone (ahahahahaha I said bone) more, but generally very good. The deep fried pickles were excellent! And I think they were one of the best deals for the sides. They were nice and crispy with a bit of dill in the breading. And a nice creamy dill dressing for dipping. I really liked them. I'd go back for the deep fried pickles as well as the wings!  As for the cornbread, I was just kind of ... mehh. It was ok. Not great; not bad. Certainly I make better cornbread muffins than these. I found them a bit dense and a tiny bit oily. But they were cute little shapes. I liked that. In any case, I brought home the majority of my dinner. It was a very good sized portion.

Above is one of the three meat platters: chicken, pulled pork and I'm not sure what else. And look closely ... you can see a little bit of Camera-Shé's ass at the back too!  I tried pretty well everything that people ordered so I had a good sense of what is best to order next time.

Here we have Jo-jo's three meat platter.  I think this is beef ribs, chicken and brisket.  There was nearly a brisket break-up because of a disagreement between who has the better brisket:  The SmoQue Shack or Fat Boy's Southern Smokehouse.  I haven't tried Fatboy's yet, so I'll let the ladies duke it out between themselves.  Or, here's an idea:  only eat the brisket at the place where you like it better!  Its not like there isn't a TON of other meats to choose from!!

Molly, smarty-pants that she is, asked the waitress which is the best side on the list to choose and the mac-and-cheese was the instantaneous recommendation.  It took her no time at all to endorse the mac-and-cheese so Molly had that along with the pulled pork.

Normally, mac-and-cheese is not my favourite thing.  I tend to find it kind of bland and tasteless.  And, if you grew up in my household, you'd have to pour ketchup on all over it, so ... really what's the point???  Just have tomato sauce rather than cheese.  But I have to say ... I tried Molly's mac-and-cheese and it was really good.  It was perfectly creamy with good cheesy flavour.  The toasted crust on the top made a nice texture variation.  It was good, and I would definitely recommend it ... especially for mac-and-cheese lovers.  You'll love it.  The pulled pork was excellent.  You get a huge portion (I don't think Molly even ate 1/4 of it) and its tangy, spicy and moist and tender.  Really really good pulled pork.  I would also highly recommend this.

Everyone was so gracious about waiting to eat their food so that I could take pictures.  Here's Line-ette and her three-meat platter; its hard to decide which is cuter!  I know there was also some jerk pork which I tasted.  It was very very spicy and almost a bit too tangy.  I used to love love love jerk -- but then you get to a point and you say:  enough jerks in my life!!!  no more jerks ... (oh, sorry different kind of jerk).  If you ever want to get a shocking rude awakening sometime, try to google recipes for jerk chicken.  Its not food!!!!

Two women are gluten-free so they wanted me to mention that The SmoQue Shack has plenty of options for people who are gluten free.  Me, I don't even know what that gluten-free means, except that it seems to make eating WAY too restrictive!  And Camera-Shé suggested that if we all went home and rolled ourselves in flour, they might not be gluten-free anymore!  Ahahahaha.  Good one, loves it!

For seven women at the table we had a shit-load of food.  We did our best and packed back a ton of meat.  Here is GP getting down on that beef rib!  You go sista' friend!  But alas, eventually, the meat-sweats set in and you have to call it a technical knock-out!  Poor Jo-jo can't even wipe the sauce off her cheek!

Well not to worry, because at The SmoQue Shack you can "share a wet one"!!!  Ahahahahaha.  Loves it.  You know, to be environmentally friendly and not be wasteful.  That's all ... its not dirty.

Most of us packed up our leftovers to take home for lunch the next day, but because Molly and Debbie were staying at a hotel, they couldn't take theirs home.  Seems like Line-ette and Camera-Shé got a hella deal on the doggy bag situation.

So finally, from the title, you must be wondering what the reference to 'E-accent-aigu' means.  Well Camera-Shé loves to give nicknames to friends.  And it seems the overwhelming theme this weekend, or maybe with this particular group of women, were nicknames that ended in "é".  There were the Pattés (both peppermint and Jamaican), Mollé (not to be confused with molé ... the spicy Mexican chocolate sauce).  So I was feeling a bit left out and I was hoping for a nickname of my own.  Well, Camera Shé did it:  she came up with rcmpé for me.  Loves it!  As a shout out, I came up with Camera Shé for her when I started to write this entry.  After all, she came up with all the other nicknames and deserves her own 'e-accent-aigu' too!

We had a great time.  There were lots of laughs and great stories, good friends and lots of good food and drinks.  Really, what more can you ask for?  Well Molly will be back in another week or so ... so stay tuned.  There could be big-meat part deux!