Crockpot Ribs and Vegetables

Last weekend, I finished off the last of the forest fed pork I had in the freezer. I was feeling lazy, so I just threw some ribs in a crockpot with a bunch of vegetables. Turned out pretty good.

Ingredients:

• Pork ribs from the forest
• Marinade - about 20 hours
  
• Apple Cider
• Cumin
• Cloves
• Vegetables
• Celery Root
• Green, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers with red onion (I saw a pre-cut pack at the grocery store)
• Carrots
• Seasonings
• Garlic (about a bulb and a half)
• Shallots (diced from a jar)
• Apple Cider (~1/2 cup)
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Red pepper
• White pepper
• Paprika
• Celery salt
• olive oil
• honey
• Sauce
• Drippings from everything above
• Apple Cider (~1/3 cup)
• Cane sugar
• Cloves
• Cumin
• Red pepper

Procedure:

The night before, I knew I'd want to cook the ribs so I threw them in a freezer bag with apple cider, cloves, and cumin to marinate.  The next evening, I took a pre-cut pack of various bell peppers and red onion, put it in the crock pot, added celery root and carrots, all the seasonings, and tossed all that in a crockpot, coating the vegetables with olive oil and seasonings. I then cut the meat into individual ribs, placed them on top of the vegetables, sprinkled on some more pepper, honey, and a little apple cider. That was cooked at about 200-250 for about an hour and a half.

After everything was done, I pulled everything out of the crockpot, leaving the drippings - mostly some pork fat, cider, and garlic, all of which had been flavored by all of the great vegetables. I added a little more cider, a little raw cane sugar, cloves, cumin, and red pepper, then reduced it for about 5-10 minutes. If reducing sounds fancy, it is not - you just simmer it until it gets thicker - the sugars get caramelized and you cook off some water. I then added the ribs back to the sauce for about 5-10 minutes, stirring most of the time to really coat them well.

Resulting Deliciousness:

These ribs were pretty good, but the vegetables stole the show - they were absolutely fantastic. I think this was because I don't have a very good crockpot, I have a multipurpose thing that's mostly good for frying. The low temperature controls aren't very good, so I basically steamed this stuff in an hour and a half instead of slow cooking it over about 4 hours, as I intended. As a result, the vegetables were nicely done, but the ribs had a very slightly chewy texture, not the perfect tenderness you want for ribs. But, they were still really good. If you have a real crockpot or a dutch oven, this would probably turn out better, texturally speaking. 

  

If you want to see some really well-done ribs, check out my Spring Break '08 Ribs.   

Spring Break Ribs

22-23 May 2008:  Second Annual Spring Break!  We made some ribs out of forrest fed pork.  Delicious: 

Ingredients:

• 2 racks (4.3 lbs) of ribs from Buffalo Creek Farms (www.forestfed.com) - forest free range pork that I bought at the Old Town Alexandria Farmer's Market
  
• Brine
• Apple Cider
• Some kind of Italian dressing-like marinade that Scott had
• pepper
• Sea salt
• oregano
• garlic salt
• honey
• brown sugar
• Glaze
• Apple Cider
• pepper
• honey
• brown sugar
• Dipping sauce
• red peppers
• pepper
• leftover glaze
• Baked Beans
• Bush's Baked Beans
• Bacon
• Onion
• Celery
• Potato Salad
• not sure, Scott's recipe

Equipment:

• Stove
• some pots and pans
  
• oven
• baking pan and rack
• grill
• blender

Procedure:
We started out by making the brine on Thursday evening. We simmered all the ingredients listed for about half an hour. The brine was heavy on salt and easy on the brown sugar. Once it was ready, we cooled it down, and put it in bags with the ribs to sit in the fridge overnight. We then went out on the town and experienced several of Wilmington's fine establishments which caters to those of the imbibing persuasion. Very nice night to kick off SPRING BREAK '08!!!

The next morning (afternoon), we had mimosas, put the ribs in the oven at 235, and went to the beach for some fun in the sun - a SPRING BREAK necessity. We took too long at the beach and called Scott's neighbor to turn the stove off after the ribs had been going about 4 hours. When we got back (about 5 hours after putting the ribs in the oven), Scott and I got started on the fixin's. I made the glaze pretty much the same way as the brine, but smaller quantity, no salt, no vinegar based marinade, and lots of honey and brown sugar. I cooked it until you could smell the apple sugars caramelizing and it got syrupy. Scott added bacon, caramelized onions, and celery to some baked beans. The day before, he had made some killer potato salad. We roasted three red peppers, then put the ribs on the grill for about 15 minutes per side with the glaze. I put the roasted peppers, the leftover glaze, some salt, pepper, and garlic powder in a blender to make an awesome smoky, sweet dipping sauce for the ribs.

Resulting Deliciousness:
When everything was ready, we all sat down for a fantastic meal. The seasoning on ribs was great and they were nice and moist and tender. The beans turned out delicious - what wouldn't with a bunch of bacon added? The dipping sauce was a nice addition to the ribs and didn't take anything away from the flavor of the meat the way most barbecue sauce does. It was all capped off by several hours of drinking and s'mores around the campfire in Scott's back yard. Not much could have made it a better second night of SPRING BREAK '08!!

The only think I might change would be to leave the vinegar based marinade out of the brine and add more black pepper to both the brine and the glaze. Roasting the peppers longer might have been good too, but they were decently done and the sauce turned out well.

The next day, we went deep sea fishing and got caught in some bad weather. Karma is real - the day after cooking awesome pork ribs, I chipped a rib while being slammed into the side of the boat. It will take about 6-8 weeks to heal, right now I feel like I'm about to die when I sneeze. Totally worth it.