A Couple of Cooks: Backyard BBQ

I have a secret desire to be a true Southern cook but I don't know how likely that is. First of all, I am from Baltimore. True, I do reside south of the Mason-Dixon but I don't think Baltimore conjures up that Southern imagery of Live Oak trees, southern style mansions, and fried chicken and biscuits. Secondly, a lot of southern fare takes a lot of time to make and I am short on time lately.

That being said, I still enjoy eating southern style cuisine and cooking it with Johnnycakes when we can. Tonight, we made delicious ribs! We are sort of on a kick now that football season has started of making something yummy to enjoy at game time. Last week, we made these insanely good hot wings thanks to an episode of BBQ University with Steve Raichlen.

Thanks to Nick's Backfire brand of Baltimore barbecue seasonings, sauces and side items, we whipped up some tasty spare ribs.

I bought a big slab (may 4 lbs.?) of pork spare ribs and brought them home for Johnnycakes to manhandle. The prep was pretty simple, really. We patted them down w/ Nick's "Da Rub" which is a blend of southwest bbq seasonings and olive oil. We let the ribs soak up the flavors for about an hour before putting them on the grill.

Johnnycakes used an "indirect" cooking method to use a Raichlen bbq term. This means that he didn't sit the ribs right on the flame. Instead he placed them in the back of the grill away from the flame. We let them cook for about three hours. We basted them with good old fashioned Kraft barbecue sauce the last half hour of cooking.

We served these juicy, extra fatty ribs up with some extra bbq sauce, homemade mashed potatoes and cabbage. This southern style meal was super fattening and super good!