Wednesday's Ribs

Wednesday dawned cold but clear. As I said, I have an important meeting today, and I swapped my day off to Thursday. So, I headed off to work.

I ate the rest of the broccoli and cheese soup for lunch.

I took my meeting and then headed home at 4:00 PM.

I parked outside the garage and, using a broom, swept all the standing water off the garage floor and onto the apron. As my brother George once told me, you can move a lot of water with a broom! Then I pulled the car in. I salted the area where the garage door comes down (I’ve had the rubber seal freeze to the floor before), shut the door and then went inside.

The cats, of course, were cranky. The opening of the garage door normally signals “cat treats” and they wondered what the heck took me so long.

I watched some of the news while I slowly warmed up the Dutch oven containing the spare ribs and sauerkraut. When it was warm, I brushed the sauerkraut off each rib and placed it on a rack, set in a half sheet pan covered in tinfoil (for easier cleanup). I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F.

I checked the root cellar in the garage and found I had no russet potatoes. All I had left was three large (well, large for the variety) Yukon Gold potatoes. I really, REALLY need to go grocery shopping! So, I grabbed them up and went back inside. I poked them on all sides with a fork and did the Carla trick of “pre-cooking” them in the microwave. The oven won’t be on long enough to bake them.

I didn’t have any of my favorite barbeque sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) left, but I did have half a bottle of Bulls-eye (original recipe) sauce. So, I slathered the top and sides of the ribs with it and put them in the oven. I stuck in the potatoes as well.

When the sauce on the ribs had caramelized (about 10 minutes), I pulled them out, slathered them again in sauce and flipped them over. I slathered that side and the sides again and put them back in the oven.

Meanwhile, I was slowly reducing the water content of the sauerkraut.

When that side of the ribs had caramelized, I took them and the potatoes out. Now, why didn’t I just cook the potatoes in the microwave? Well, I have, but I like the crunchy potato skins that oven roasting gives.

I plated one rib, one potato and some of the drained sauerkraut. The outcome? The rib was excellent! The potato (with butter, salt and pepper and sour cream) was good, but I like some thin sliced green onion on my baked potato (unfortunately, I didn’t have any – lack of grocery shopping, again).

The sauerkraut was a big disappointment. I’m not sure if it was the added beer or the grease from the boiled ribs, but the sharp “bite” I like from sauerkraut was just not there. I think parboiling them this way did add to the flavor of the ribs, but took away from the sauerkraut.

Next time I do country ribs, I think I’ll parboil them in beef stock and beer and make the sauerkraut separately.

I watched the State of the State speech. You can tell the guy was a CEO, BTW. That “dashboard” concept was a hot button in manufacturing at least 10 years ago (when I worked there). We never implemented it where I work, but it did give upper management a quick snapshot of how things were going.

I was impressed by the new governor, Rick Snyder, and for the first time in eight years, feel that maybe (maybe) Michigan can dig itself out of the hole we are in.

I watched some taped TV and went to bed at 11:00 PM.