All-day ribs
Posted by Heather Lackey | Filed under Enjoying Food, Preparing Food
Motivated by Richard Nikoley’s “The Crock Pot: Dinner in 10 Minutes” delicious looking as usual photo post and being in possession of a few packages of Hickory Nut Gap pork ribs, I decided to use the crock pot for something besides making stock. (It’s been a while.)
Yesterday, I coated the ribs with a rib rub I’d made a while back and had sitting around. I don’t recall what exactly went into it—the usual stuff, I’m sure: paprika, mustard, salt, garlic powder, etc. They went in the fridge overnight.
I liked Richard’s idea of cabbage, onion and chicken stock, so I kept those, layering them with the cabbage on the bottom and the pork on the top. (Enough nice things can’t be said about vegetables sopped in meat drippings.) I don’t like fennel and didn’t have jalapeños on hand, so I left those out. I did add regular ol’ prepared yellow mustard (couple tablespoons; I love that stuff) and red pepper flakes. Then I turned the crock pot on low—this was around 10:00 am—and spent the rest of the day slowly tormented by the smell of pork and cabbage cooking.
When my rumbling stomach could take no more, I removed the ribs from the crock pot and carefully put them under the broiler, turning them after a few minutes so both sides had a chance to crisp. Then I served them up with the cabbage and onions.
We ate till we were full1. The cabbage had a wonderful buttery texture and had taken on more of the zip from the red pepper flakes than the pork did. If I had it to do over, I’d skip the rub in favor of salt and pepper—I think the rub muddled it. The meat was fall-apart tender, though, and the crispy bits from the broiler were a treat.
I saved the juices, along with what was left of the cabbage and onion; I figure I can skim the fat off the top tomorrow, heat it up and enjoy a sort of spicy cabbage soup. I’m tempted to add diced tomatoes. We’ll see….
- “Full” has an entirely different meaning to us these days. If you eat grains, sugars and/or processed food, you don’t know this. That bloated, “ugh, I can’t move” kind of full, we don’t get that. We get “Well, I don’t feel like eating anymore, so I guess I’m done.” The former occurs when your body isn’t getting the chemical signals it needs to shut down your appetite, despite all the food you’re eating. The fall-back mechanism is that your “stretch receptors” (and you can probably guess what’s stretching) tell you you’ve had “enough” (by which I mean “whoops—too much”). Fat and protein tend to satiate before your stretch receptors get a chance to be activated. I’ve been bloated and sluggish just once in the past six months, after eating too much sweet potato (and sweet potato skins) (really quickly) (like vacuum-cleaner quick). [↩]
Tags: cabbage, mustard, onion, pork, recipes, ribs, slow cooker
3 Responses to “All-day ribs”
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I’d been meaning to start a food-related blog for a few months—since not too long after I began changing the way I thought about food—but I couldn’t get a handle on where I wanted to go with it. Now, on January 1, 2010, it’s the first day of a new year—a new decade, even. What better time to get going on this? 
March 22nd, 2010 at 8:18 pm
These were pretty tasty!
March 23rd, 2010 at 9:04 am
Thanks for the shout. Looks delish.
March 24th, 2010 at 5:59 am
Mmmmmmm these look terrific. I love mustard, too, and am missing it terribly right now.