Thursday 5 September 2013

Slow cooked BBQ Pork Ribs

I love ribs, I could eat them almost everyday. Unfortunately they take hours to cook. So they aren't really a doable meal on weekdays right? Wrong! You can make them any day of the week. Slow cooking them while you are at work or doing whatever else you need to do is all it takes. It melts so much of the fat off as well. I don't like having them slow cooking for too long though. Then they fall apart and you cant take them out of the slow cooker without shredding the meat, that's not what we want. After you take them out you can either BBQ or broil them in the oven. They are so easy! 

Ingredients
2 racks of ribs (or how ever many you want to make, as long as they fit in the slow cooker)
1 tbsp dried onion flakes
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black peppercorns
BBQ sauce of your choice

Place your ribs in your slow cooker standing up. Fill your slow cooker with water just until it reaches the top of the ribs. Add all the remaining ingredients. 

You could add any other spices you want here too. Set the slow cooker to low for 6 hours. Mine switches to keep warm after the 6 hours is done. 

When you get home, carefully take them out of the slow cooker. Cover them with BBQ sauce and either grill them just until you get some grill marks or broil until they get a bit of colour. 

They will fall right apart when your eating them.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

What I Ate Wednesday #17


I haven't participated in What I Ate Wednesday in quite a while. But it's September...the kids are now back to school and life is starting to get back into more of a routine. I forgot to take a picture of two things I ate and took a bad cell phone picture of another meal, but hey, something is better than nothing! Here it goes

Breakfast
See bad cellphone photo!
2 eggs over easy, with 1/4 cup egg whites, 4 oz of BBQ eye of round (I will post this recipe another day), a whole wheat English muffing with my homemade strawberry jam and a coffee

Lunch

I didn't eat all of this! These pictures are from my food prep on Monday. I forgot to take a picture so I had a bit of the pasta and 1 patty.

Sun dried Tomato and Pesto Chicken Pasta
2 cups whole wheat penne (uncooked)
1/4 cup julienned sun dried tomatoes (not in oil)
1/4 pesto
8 oz of grilled chicken breast
Corn cut from 2 cobs of corn

Cook the penne. Put the sun dried tomatoes in the pasta while it's cooking for the last 2 minutes or so. Mix everything together.

Greek Turkey Burger
1/4 cup goat's feta
1 lb ground turkey
1 tsp oregano
juice and zest from 1/2 lemon

Mix all the ingredients, grill until cooked through.

Supper

Homemade chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese
 After supper I had a piece of vanilla cheesecake with more of my strawberry jam on top with a coffee

That's it!
 Head on over to Peas and Crayons to check out what others are eating!

Sunday 1 September 2013

Beercan Chicken


It is so hot here and it has been for the past week. I had a couple of chickens in the freezer that needed to be cooked, so I thought beer can chicken was perfect. I have only made it once before, last year and we loved it. Why haven't I made it since? Anyways, it turned out great. The kids loved it too. I didn't have a can of beer so I poured 1/2 bottle of Rickard's Red into an empty Pepsi can and it worked just fine. 

I use a stand for the chicken, I bought in on clearance last year, but I have seen recipes that don't, they just use the can. I also set mine into a pan to collect the juices, you can pour them over at the end if you want.

Ingredients
Rub
1 tbsp dried sage leaves
1 tsp lemon pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt free barbecue chicken powder

3 lb chicken
1/2 can beer (do whatever you want with the other half)

Remove any giblets and/or pieces that don't belong in your chicken and rinse out the chicken. Rub the cavity with some of the rub. Lift the skin on the breasts to put some of the rub under the skin. Rub the rest of the the seasoning all over the chicken.

Put the chicken over top of the can that is opened with 1/2 can of beer left. Preheat the grill. You want to put the chicken over indirect heat. I lit two of my burners and left the third off. Put the chicken in the pan and put it over the burner that isn't lit. 

You can do this with charcoal too. Just put charcoals on one side and the chicken on the other.

Leave it on the BBQ for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a meat thermometer reads 180. I checked on it every 10 minutes or so after 1 hour.Let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting. 


Enjoy!