July 31, 2021
July has been a busy month in our family. I started the month off deep in recipe development mode and experimented with putting new spins on some of my favorite summer foods. Some of those delightful creations include my strawberry, chocolate, and hazelnut date bars loosely inspired by my love for Lärabars and a summer vegetable garden tart inspired by beautiful images I’ve seen all over the internet of garden focaccia. In between cooking, baking, general work and home projects, Kev and I also squeezed in some time to host some friends for a week at our home and travel to see family and friends on the East coast. I was eager to see two of my close friends when they visited a few weeks ago. My close childhood friends, Ada and Colleen, traveled to Ohio to visit me and check out some of the fun attractions in Ohio. We spent some time enjoying the delicious baked treats at Findlay Market early Sunday morning and then enjoyed a light lunch at Pho Lang Thang. With our bellies full, we headed to the Cincinnati Art Museum to check out some of the cool new exhibits before making our way to Jungle Jim’s for a grocery shopping experience. Ada was especially excited to check out the options at Jungle Jim’s. Colleen was just excited to see what kind of kitchen creations we would come up with after the grocery trip. We picked up enough groceries to last us for the whole week. For dinner on Sunday, Ada prepared some lobster rolls complete with lobster bisque – two dishes I absolutely adore, but don’t have the opportunity to enjoy too often. Ada, who lives in Maine, is able to access these decadent dishes fairly easily. I asked Ada to prepare some of her favorite versions of these two dishes and she definitely did not disappoint. Even though we still had to work throughout the week, we were able to enjoy dinner together every weeknight and squeeze in a board game each night for the entire week. When Thursday rolled around, we celebrated Ada’s birthday in the evening, packed our bags for our trip back home to New York City, and chatted into the late evening and early morning.
Read more about our summer 2021 travel adventures in the travel section.
For dinner on one of the weekdays, I made my oven baked barbecue spare ribs slathered with tons of Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce. Here in Ohio, Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce is a local favorite. I’ve been slathering the barbecue sauce generously over ribs and using it as a base for pizza. Barbecue spare ribs are one of my favorite go-to dishes to whip up for family and friends during summer gatherings. I start with mixing together a dry rub mixture and sprinkling the dry rub mixture generously over a rack of ribs. The ribs are then covered and left to chill in the refrigerator overnight until the next day. When the ribs are ready for cooking, I preheat the oven to 350°F. Once the oven is hot, I transfer the ribs covered in aluminum foil into the oven and allow the ribs to cook in the oven undisturbed for 90 minutes. After 90 minutes, I brush on a generous heaping of Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce, cover up the ribs, and let the ribs cook for another 30 minutes in the oven. Once 30 minutes have passed, I repeat this step once more. When 30 more minutes have passed, I brush on another heaping of barbecue sauce and leave the ribs uncovered to cook for another 15-20 minutes. When the final alarm rings to notify me the cook time is up, I remove the ribs from the oven and let them cool for 15 minutes. For one final touch, I slice up the ribs and finish them on a grill pan. I love making these spare ribs when entertaining family and friends because of how easy they are to pull together. Most of the work needed for the spare ribs are inactive time where the ribs are left to cook in the oven for just under 3 hours with the occasional brushing of barbecue sauce. When the ribs are finally done and ready for serving, I prepare a few sides including jalapeño mac and cheese (recipe coming soon), peachy arugula salad, and some mustard fennel colorful baby potatoes. These spare ribs and sides complete my ultimate summer barbecue feast.
For the barbecue spare ribs:
· Large rack of spare ribs
· 1 teaspoon kosher salt
· 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
· 1 teaspoon garlic powder
· 1 teaspoon chili powder
· 1 teaspoon cumin powder
· ½ teaspoon black pepper
· ½ teaspoon white pepper
· ½ teaspoon paprika
· Montgomery Inn barbecue sauce or your favorite barbecue sauce
Directions:
The night before:
1) Line a sheet pan with aluminum foil. Transfer the rack of spare ribs to the aluminum-lined baking sheet.
2) In a bowl, combine the kosher salt, granulated sugar, garlic powder, chili powder, cumin powder, black pepper, white pepper, and paprika. Rub the spice mixture all over the rack of spare ribs. Cover the rack of spare ribs with aluminum foil and transfer the sheet pan to the refrigerator. Let the ribs sit in the dry rub overnight.
The next day:
3) Remove the sheet pan with the spare ribs from the refrigerator an hour before cooking the spare ribs. Preheat oven to 350°F. Once the oven is heated, transfer the sheet pan with the covered spare ribs to the oven. Cook the spare ribs in the oven for 90 minutes. Remove the aluminum foil covering the tops of the spare ribs. Brush on the barbecue sauce. Cover the spare ribs back with the aluminum foil and transfer the sheet pan back into the oven. Let the spare ribs cook for 30 minutes.
4) After 30 minutes, remove the sheet pan from the oven. Remove the aluminum foil covering the tops of the spare ribs. Brush on more barbecue sauce. Cover the spare ribs back with the aluminum foil and transfer the sheet pan back into the oven. Let the spare ribs cook for another 30 minutes in the oven. After 30 minutes, remove the sheet pan from the oven. Remove the aluminum foil covering the tops of the spare ribs. Brush on additional barbecue sauce and transfer the sheet pan uncovered back into the oven to cook for another 15-20 minutes. Remove the sheet pan from the oven and let the spare ribs cool for 20 minutes.
5) Use a sharp knife to cut the spare ribs into individual pieces. If desired, transfer the individual pieces of spare ribs to a grill pan to add some grill marks to the spare ribs right before serving.
Takeaways: A trick I learned for the cleanest looking cuts of spare ribs (after many trials of making spare ribs) is to gently flip the rack of spare ribs over when cutting the rack of ribs into individual pieces. I just follow the outlines of the bones in the spare ribs when cutting the rack of ribs to ensure I make the cleanest and most even cuts of individual spare rib pieces.