1 rack pork spare ribs (about 3 1/2 lbs) Some kind of basic store-bought BBQ sauce 3 tsp paprika 2 tsp sea salt 1 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp ground red pepper 1/2 tsp oregano 1/2 tsp basil 1/2 tsp thyme 1/2 tsp smoke salt 1/3 tsp cayenne

1. Make spice rub with ingredients above.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Take broiler pan out from under the oven, line bottom part of pan with aluminium foil.
4. Wash and pat dry the ribs.
5. Season both sides of ribs with spice rub.
6. Bake ribs meat side up on second-to-bottom rack for 1 hour.
   
7. Remove from oven.
8. Pour tiny bit of liquid fat out of pan and into a can to get it out of the way.
9. Paint meat on bony side with BBQ sauce.
10. Flip back over to have meaty side on top, paint with lots of BBQ sauce such that all meat is covered.
    
11. Lower oven temperature to 325.
12. Cook for about 90 minutes until meat has pulled back from the bones.
13. Remove from oven, let rest for 10 minutes
14. While resting, raise oven temp to 450 and put a package of Pillsbury biscuits in. Bake for the 10 minutes specified on the package.
15. Accompany with Brooklyn Pilsner for best effect.

Inspired by this recipe.

3/4 lb rosemary marinated chicken thighs (Dines Farms), cut into strips 1 tbsp vegetable oil 2 little onions, chopped 3/4 cup basmati rice, washed and drained 3/4 cup water 1/2 box pomi tomatoes 1 tsp chili garlic sauce a bunch of basil leaves heat oil over medium high heat brown chicken, 5 min each side remove chicken from pan in same pan, add onions and rice, mixing to cover rice in oil add water, tomatoes, chili sauce bring to a boil reduce to simmer place chicken back on top of rice put basil leaves on top of chicken cover, and cook for 20 minutes (until rice has absorbed liquid and chicken is fully cooked)

This could have used some salt added along with the onions. There was a bit of an overwhelming tomato flavor as well. Chicken stock instead of water to cook the rice might have cut that down. Better would have been to use a higher meat to rice/tomato ratio. Unfortunately, I’d only picked up a small portion of chicken at McCarren Park this past Saturday, so there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that this time around.

The extra fat brought along by using thigh meat instead of breast helped impart more flavor to this; I’ve found that in this kind of chicken & rice dish, breast meat usually just can’t hold its own.

2 funny-colored peppers 4 strips bacon 1 tomato 1/8 onion 1/2 leftover green bell pepper 1 egg 2 tbsp bread crumbs 1/2 cup warm water salt black pepper Halve the multi-color peppers, remove seeds and inside bits. Preheat oven to 350. Cut bacon into quarters. Reserve 4 of these. Fry bacon with onion until onion is clear. Finely chop tomato, pepper. Mix egg, bread crumbs, black pepper, then tomato and pepper. Mix with bacon/onion and use this mixture to fill the peppers. Cover each pepper half with one of the reserved bacon quarters. Place peppers into baking dish, pour warm water into bottom of pan. Cover with foil, bake for 20 minutes.

Helped out by this recipe.

This started as a bit of an experiment; we don’t have a whole lot of food in the house besides frozen meats, and a defrosting pound of pork medallions needed eating today. Add to that the realization we’ve had an apple living in the fridge for some time now, and not much in the way of sauce materials, so I merged two more traditional pork recipe ingredients: soy sauce and apple.

1 tsp honey 3 takeout packets kikkoman soy sauce 1 very old but surprisingly still ok fuji apple olive oil 1 tsp rice vinegar 2 cloves garlic 5 drops concentrated ginger from liquiteria 4 3/4-inch thick pork medallions (yay freshdirect) finely chop garlic chop apple into reasonably small pieces mix garlic, oil, apples, honey, vinegar, ginger marinate pork in fridge for 45 minutes preheat oven to 400 degrees heat small amount of oil in non-stick skillet brown each side of pork medallion, move to small casserole dish cook in dish in oven for 20 minutes while pork is cooking, move marinade and apple bits to small skillet and reduce into a sauce

This was good but a little basic. More soy sauce might have helped, as might have a chopped onion. Also, more of a side dish than some Italian bread next time. Soup, perhaps?

Sprout was not very interested in this meal, although she was very interested in the camera.