Brian @ Wongside

We had Dave and Jeannie over for dinner yesterday for my inaugural cooking of pork spare ribs. I’ve never made them before, so it was definitely a grand experiment. But I got good feedback all around, so they must have been tasty. I made them using my own interpretation of what The Old Country Deli does with beef ribs at the Farmer’s Market in SLO. So they were seasoned with a dry rub, and then cooked low and slow to the point where the meat was nearly falling off the ribs. I thought they were pretty tasty myself, and they had a great smoky flavor from spending so much time in the BBQ.

Here’s how to make your own:

8 lbs pork spare ribs
Rib Roundup Seasoning

The Day Before
1. I had to cut the ribs in order to get them to fit in a bag, much less on the grill. If yours aren’t that big, feel free to leave them whole.
2. Liberally season the ribs with Rib Roundup, or your favorite dry rub. You could even use salt and pepper if you wanted to keep it simple.
3. Refrigerate in 1 gallon zip top bags over night.

The Day Of

4. Remove the ribs from the refrigerator and let them sit on the counter for at least an hour.
5. Meanwhile, start the charcoal on the grill in a banked fire configuration. That is to say, put all of the charcoal on one side of the grill, leaving the other side empty.
6. Cover the grill, and barbecue the ribs for 3-4 hours over medium-low heat, about 200 degrees.
7. Every hour, you may need to add about 8 more briquettes to the fire in order to keep it from burning out.
8. Turn or rotate the ribs every 30 minutes or so.
9. When they are done, remove from the grill, and cover with foil to let them rest at least 15 minutes.
10. Slice the ribs individually and serve with BBQ sauce. (Note: My personal philosophy is that meat should be salty. I don’t believe in sweet meat, so I never use BBQ sauce. But I’m realistic enough to realize that not everyone has the same philosophy, so of course, if your guests like BBQ sauce, you’d better have it available to them.)

I will say that I had a lot of problems with heat on my grill. It was routinely heating up way over 3 or 4 hundred degrees, way too hot to slow cook the ribs. I took a three pronged approach to solving this.

1. I sprayed the coals with water. If they’re not on fire, they’re not generating any heat. This definitely worked in keeping things cooler.
2. I left the grill uncovered for a while. If there’s no cover, the heat escapes. The only issue with this is that it keeps the ribs from cooking as if they’re in an oven with heat coming from all around. Instead, they cook with more directional heat coming up from the bottom. Which leads me to number 3:
3. I put foil on the grill to keep the bottom side of the ribs from receiving too much heat.

All of these strategies seemed to give me the results I was looking for. The ribs didn’t burn at all. And they were slow cooked long enough that the meat was tender and pretty much fell off the bone. Mine weren’t moist (because I didn’t use any BBQ sauce) but they were sure tasty.

As another aside, normally I like to use natural chunk hardwood charcoal, because it lights easily and burns hot. For this long, drawn-out application however, I decided to use regular charcoal briquettes. Briquettes tend to burn cooler, but much longer than the natural chunk stuff. Thus making them perfect for this application. Use whatever suits you, but just know that if you don’t use briquettes, you’re likely to have to add more fuel more frequently.

The pictures from Jeremy and Amy’s baby shower are posted. Go take a look!

Not a bad turnaround, eh? Less than 24 hours for sure.

Jeremy and Amy are having their baby shower today. I’m off to shoot pictures of the event, so photos will be forthcoming shortly.

Oh yeah, the baby is due on September 1, Labor day.  Ironic, isn’t it?

Pictures from the very busy July 4th are up. I’ve got pictures from the Real World BBQ that was at the Americana apartments, as well as the fireworks from Church on a Hill in San Jose.

• Real World BBQ
• Fireworks

As always, enjoy!

I was quite ecstatic when I was at Costco today. They actually had some Prime cuts of Ribeye and New York steak. And we all know what a Ribeye is called before it’s sliced into steaks, right? Prime Rib of course! (As a side note, if it’s a Ribeye roast, but not of Prime quality, then it’s considered a Standing Rib Roast.)

For those of you who are not as ecstatic as I was, consider this: There are three primary grades of meat that are available to consumers: Prime, Choice, and Select.

Prime is the juiciest and most flavorful. It is prized for it’s superior marbling, and the youthfulness of the cattle from which it was taken. Prime grade meat makes up less than 2% of all beef sold in the US. It is generally not available for purchase at the supermarket because it is purchased by upscale restaurants and served to their customers.

Choice is the second best grade of meat. It is still a high quality grade of meat, but has less marbling than Prime. This is the most common cut of meat available at the Costco meat case. It is also a step above the Select grade commonly found at most supermarkets.

Select is the lowest grade of meat available for general purchase and consumption. It has the least marbling and is the toughest, with the least flavor. It will also be the least juicy of the three grades. But it is plentiful, and the least expensive. It is frequently found in the meat case of most supermarkets, but I have never seen it at Costco.

So now, maybe you can see why I was so excited that Costco had USDA Prime Beef. They rarely, if ever, carry it. And it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever be able to purchase it retail. I asked the butcher if Prime was going to be a regular feature at Costco, and he said it depended on how well it sold. He mentioned that it wasn’t selling quite as well as they had hoped. So apparently, this is just a trial run. Being the student of economics that I am, I decided to show my support and demand for USDA Prime Beef by buying three ribeyes at the (relatively) low cost of $9.99/lb. (I say relatively low because you would probably pay $10.99 or more for a ribeye steak at Safeway, which is more likely a Select, or possibly a Choice grade steak.) It wasn’t that much more than a Choice ribeye, which I believe was $8 or $9 per pound.

In any case, I took pictures of my prized meat after it came home, and I’ll post those as soon as I download the pictures from my camera to my computer.

So I had so much cream cheese left over from the wakeboarding trip (about 2 lbs was brought back home, and that was after giving 1/2 a pound to Derick and Bethany to keep at the cabin.) I decided that the best use of it was to make a cheese cake. I was delighted to discover that the recipe I have for cheese cake requires 2.5 lbs of cream cheese and 1/3 C of sour cream (so I could also reduce the 2 lbs of sour cream I have in the fridge.)

The recipe is taken from the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook I got from Mom at Christmas. You really should buy the cookbook if you’re interested in trying it out, but here’s the process:

1. For the crust: Put the oven rack in the middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix the graham crumbs, melted butter, and sugar together, then pour into a 9-inch springform pan. Press the crumbs firmly into an even layer. Bake the crust until fragrant and beginning to brown, 10-15 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes.
2. For the filling: Once the crust is out of the oven, increase the temperature to 500 degrees. Beat the cream cheese in a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-low until softened, 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl.
3. Beat in the salt and half of the sugar until incorporated. Beat in the remaining sugar until incorporated. Beat in the sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla until incorporated. Beat in the eggs 2 at a time until incorporated. Scrape down the bowl or beaters as needed.
4. Brush the sides of the springform pan with melted butter. Set the pan on a rimmed baking sheet. Pour the batter/filling over the crust.
5. For a nice, chocolate marbling melt the semisweet chocolate with the canola oil. Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate mixture into the filling and swirl with a thin utensil such as a knife or chopstick.
6. Bake for 10 minutes.
7. Without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees and cook about 90 minutes, or until the internal temperature is 150 degrees. Rotate the cake halfway through baking.
8. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and run a paring knife around the edge of the cake. Let cool until barely warm, 2.5-3 hours, running a paring knife around the edge every hour or so. Wrap the pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 3 hours.

And there you have it:

So it’s been less than 2 weeks, but I’ve posted pictures from Elaine and Jason’s baptism. It was such a popular event that I got a ton of pictures from both my camera and Charlene’s camera.

Go take a look and be sure to congratulate Elaine and Jason when you see them:

• Elaine and Jason’s Baptism from Me
• Elaine and Jason’s Baptism from Charlene

As was evident from my pictures, there was some Barteles & Jaymes in the ice chest. I will say this much: it was the first baptism I’ve ever been to where they had alcohol present to celebrate. Guess it must’ve been a pretty progressive baptism. I highly doubt any other baptism I go to will have alcohol unless it’s in the form of wine for communion. There certainly wasn’t any at Charlene’s baptism.

So what would I have done differently concerning our food situation at the wakeboarding trip? Most likely, I would have bought half of whatever I purchased this go around. I did neglect to mention that I had made a slight error in my purchasing of food. I had counted on making 64 man-meals. That is to say I had planned on cooking for 8 people for 3 meals for 2 days (48 man-meals) plus 2 breakfasts for 8 people (16 man-meals) for a total of 64 man-meals. That was an error in thinking. I ended up only needing food for 45 man-meals. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I brought food for those extra 2 breakfasts, so I take responsibility for that. But I had anticipated cooking dinner for 8 on Sunday. Instead Joe, Kim, and Dan left before dinner.

Needless to say, that error in calculation and assumption meant I had too much food for the people who were there.

So what would I have ultimately purchased given that my arithmetic and estimation skills were better? Probably something like this:

• 24-500mL bottles of water
• Fritos 30 bag variety pack
• 1 loaf (24 slices) of wheat bread
• 2 loaves sourdough (not baguettes, see my post on Aunt Allie’s Garlic Bread for the logic.)
• 3 lbs of fresh broccoli florets
• 1 box of Welches fruit snacks
• 1 lb sour cream
• 1 lb tortilla chips
• 1 dozen bagels (6 whole wheat, 6 cheese)
• 2.5 lbs ground turkey (two 1.25 lb packages)
• Costco trail mix
• 4 lbs bananas
• 1 package of turkey lunch meat
• 1 lb mexican cheese
• 1 dozen apples
• 1 lb cream cheese
• 1 package of guacomole (or 4 ripe avocados to make my own)
• 1 bunch of grapes
• 12-16 oz sliced cheese
• 4 lbs tri-tip
• 8 large russet potatoes
• 1 bunch green onions
• 1 lb bacon
• 1 head of green leaf lettuce.

For the most part, the previous list has been halved. Of course, some of those can’t really be reduced like the Costco trail mix. I think the only place I would have increased would have been the potatoes. There wasn’t quite as much as I had hoped.

Now, Note to Self: the shopping list for the next wakeboarding trip for 8 is on your blog.

I just realized that I never made a post regarding our menu from wakeboarding. It was quite delicious, and certainly deserves it’s own post separate from all the pictures I posted earlier. Keep in mind that I bought wayyy too much food. Next time I’ll probably buy about half of what I bought. But considering all the food I bought, the ultimate price was still a reasonable $220.

Here was the final purchase list:

• 24-500mL bottles of water
• Fritos 30 bag variety pack
• 2 loaves (48 slices) of wheat bread
• 4 (two 2-packs) loaves rustic sourdough baguettes
• 3 lbs of fresh broccoli florets.
• 1 box of Welches fruit snacks
• 3 lbs sour cream
• 1 three pound back of tortilla chips
• 2 dozen bagels (12 cheese, 6 whole wheat, 6 multiseed)
• 5 lbs ground turkey (I bought four 1.25 lb packages, but only used 2.)
• Costco Trail mix
• 8 lbs bananas
• 2 packages of ham lunch meat
• 2 packages of turkey lunch meat
• 2.5 lbs mexican cheese
• 48 royal gala apples (two 24 packs)
• 3 lbs cream cheese
• 3 pack of guacamole
• 2 containers of Costco muffins
• 10 lbs black grapes
• 2 lbs of sliced cheese

And that was just the Costco list. Here’s what I bought from Safeway (or at least what I can remember. I seem to have lost the receipt, so I don’t have a written record)

• 8 lbs tri-tip
• 6 large russet potatoes
• 1 bunch green onions
• 2 lbs of bacon
• 2 heads of green leaf lettuce

Yeah, that’s a lot of food! Clearly, I overestimated. But I always figure it’s better to have too much food than too little. If there’s too little food, it’s impossible to know how short you were–you’ll never know how much more people would have eaten.

Also in my defense, I figured since we were going to be engaged in such a physical activity all weekend long, it would be good to have lots of food, including copious snacks, for everyone to eat. I think the error of my thinking was that a few people were sick that weekend. Both Joe and Charlene weren’t feeling so hot, so I don’t know that they ate to their full potential.

But the food was delicious, and there was plenty of it, so we know that no one went hungry that weekend.

Today was quite a busy day. Charlene wanted to take advantage of the 4th of July sales, so we headed out to Macy’s to buy a bunch of work clothes and shoes for her. After that, we headed over to the Real World BBQ at the Americana Apartments.

Finally, we headed to the Church on a Hill in San Jose to watch their fireworks display. I’ve gotta admit that I was quite impressed with how organized they were. I’m not sure how many years they’ve been doing it, but I’d say they have it down to a science. They offered free parking down the hill at other locations, including the Cathedral of Faith. Then there were multiple shuttles that took us from the parking lot all the way up the hill to the church.

There was a fun and games area that had a bunch of bounce houses, and other carnival-style games. There were a number of live bands, and they even had food vendors.

Quite impressive. And a lot of fun. I’ll have to post pictures soon.

We were super close to the fireworks themselves–they nearly exploded right over our heads. The only downside was the copious amount of smoke and ash that fell from the sky. That wasn’t so pleasant. But overall, a very great experience and something I’ll definitely think about doing again next year.