Country-style pork ribs with maple whisky barbecue sauce

I love country-style pork ribs. I don't recall ever seeing them when we lived in Chicago. Maybe I just never looked. But here in Colorado, they're pretty common. This time I decided to slow cook them on the grill.

But before I put them on the grill, I marinated them in a super-simple marinade. The flavor will be different depending on which ketchup you use, so it's wise to do a little tasting before you slather it on the meat. Many brands of ketchup are sweet enough, but that's up to you. And of course salt is a personal taste.

If you refer a spicy sauce, you could add a pinch of cayenne.

I've been having a lot of fun with the Maple-aged whisky from Crown Royal. I've used in in ice cream a few times, but this time I decided to use it in a savory dish. This was a winner for sure. An it couldn't be any easier.

Country-Style Pork Ribs
--- on the grill with maple whisky barbecue sauce

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Crown Maple
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste)
4 pieces country-style pork ribs

Combine the ketchup and Crown Maple. Give it a little taste and add salt and sugar, if needed.

Put the ribs in a plastic bag and add the sauce. Massage it a bit to make sure the sauce is evenly coating the meat.

Set aside for an hour at room temperature, or refrigerate if you won't be cooking for a while.

Preheat your grill with the fire off to one side or with just one burner turned on medium-low temperature if you have an electric grill. Cook the rib on indirect heat, covered, until the meat is tender. How long this takes depends on how thick the meat is and what temperature your grill is, but figure about three hours. The goal is low and slow cooking. It's mostly unattended, though - just make sure the fire doesn't go out, move the meat around once in a while to make sure it's cooking evenly, and make sure the meat isn't getting too close to the fire, so it doesn't burn or overcook.

When the meat is tender, remove it from the grill and let it rest for 10 minutes before cutting.

Leftovers make great shredded pork sandwiches.

Red, White, and Blue "Poke" Cake

My mother, when she worked, usually had jobs that had something to do with food. Mostly as a waitress, back in the days before we called them waitresses instead of servers.

One of her last jobs was as a cook in an elderly facility. That's where she learned how to make "Poke Cake."

The funny thing is that she never, ever, ever baked cakes when I was a kid. But when she discovered this poke cake, you'd think they gave her the recipe to everlasting life. She was absolutely giddy about it.

Recently, I've been thinking about making a poke cake, but without the boxed cake mix. I thought a Fourth of July themed cake would be nice, with red and blue stripes. And then I thought it would be great if I could make those stripes with something other than Jello. Like fruit jelly.

No problem with red. Cherry, strawberry or red raspberry would work just fine. But what about blue? Not so much. Everything I thought of was more purple than blue. And that's not what I wanted. I mean, I love the color purple, but my goal was red and blue stripes.

So I finally gave in and went to the store for some blue Jello. And while I was there my willpower crumbled entirely and I picked up a package of black cherry jello as well. I mean, I already crossed that line with the blue Jello. Might as well go with nostalgia all the way.

I made the cake from scratch, though. And then it all went sideways, because I have the patience of a gnat. Oh, the cake tasted just fine. But my dramatic blue and red stripes ended up looking more like tie-dye. Which is fine with me, really. It speaks to my inner hippie.

See, I could have lied to you and told you it was my intention all along to have tie-dyed cake. But I'm honest.  I was trying for stripes, but got splorts and splotches instead.

Tie-Dye Poke Cake
Based on Elegant White Cake in The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion

1 stick (1/4 pound) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
5 large egg whites
2 3/4 cups (11 ounces) cake flour
1 cup milk
1 small box blue Jello (mine was a berry flavor)
1 small box red Jello (I used black cherry)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 inch baking pan with baking spray.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, shortening, baking powder, sugar, and salt until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Seriously fluffy. You can also do this in a bowl with a hand mixer. Whatever you've got.

Add the vanilla extract. Add the egg whites in 4-5 additions, beating well after each addition (the book suggests adding them one egg at a time, but I had separated all of them and the whites were all in one bowl).

Mix about 1/3 of the flour into the mixture, followed by half of the milk, then another third of the flour, then the remaining milk, and finally the remaining flour, mixing well (but not beating like crazy) after each addition and scraping the bowl as needed. I have a scraper-style paddle for the mixer, so it doesn't require much scraping.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees until the cake springs back when gently touched in the center, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.

Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool, in the pan, on a rack, for at least 20 minutes.

When you're ready to get artsy, use a skewer or fork, or a similar implement to poke holes in the top of the cake. Lots of holes. But leave space between them, too. you want to see white cake with blue designs, not a blue cake with a little white.

Mix the first package of Jello with 1 cup of boiling water. Pour this mixture over the top of the cake.

I think this would have worked a tad better if I had let the Jello cool just a little bit. Or, heck, if the cake was cool, maybe. I'll probably experiment later with other techniques.

Let the cake cool for a while. I gave it a whopping 15 minutes or so. Then poke more holes in the cake, between the others. Mix the second package of Jello with 1 cup of boiling water. Pour over the top of the cake, as you did before.

Refrigerate the cake until it is fully chilled. Cut in squares and serve right out of the pan. If you like, you can top it with a little whipped cream to hide all those holes you poked in the top of it.

Next time I do a tie-dye cake, I might use red, yellow, and blue jello, but only 1/2 of each package.

Shrimp and Grits, my way

I love shrimp and grits.

I love shrimp without grits, and I love grits without shrimp. Put them together, and I'm in nirvana. I don't know why it took me so long to discover shrimp and grits (possibly because I grew up in the midwest), but now I'm hooked.

But here's the deal. Since shrimp and grits isn't a traditional food for me, I'm more than wiling to mess around with the ingredients a bit. I made these a little bit spicy, but I also added some yellow squash from the farmer's market. Just because.

Makin' the Grits

For the grits, I used some pre-made polenta that I received from Freida's Specialty Produce. Normally, you'd slice and fry that polenta, but I decided I wanted a soft polenta. It's my favorite.

So I cut it in chunks, put it in a bowl, added water, and heated it in the microwave. When it was soft, I broke it up and mashed it a bit. Added more water, heated again.

When it was un-lumpy, I added enough water to get it to the "soft polenta" texture, then I tossed in about 1/4 cup of shredded gruyere cheese, stirred it again, then heated it to melt the cheese. Stirred one last time and served.

MMmmmmm. So good.

And now for the Shrimp

So, let's talk about these ingredients for a second, shall we? The bulb onion are like scallions that have started growing the onion part. The one I used was probably about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. You can use a few scallions, or about 1/4 of a regular onion if you don't have bulb onions. Or, if you like, you can use a lot more onion. It's not science, here.

The mini sweet peppers are about the size of jalapenos or big habaneros, but they're sweet like regular bell peppers. They were on sale and I bought a whole lot of them. A regular bell pepper would be just fine.

The vodka doesn't really add flavor to the sauce, but you know about the pasta sauce with vodka, right? You don't taste the vodka there, either, but the alcohol brings out flavor in tomatoes that you wouldn't get otherwise. Or that's the theory.

Peak 7 Vodka is a new micro distillery in Denver. I received some sample from them to try. There will be cocktails later. But for now, I decided to use it in a recipe. Because I'm wacky like that.

Shrimp 'n Polenta

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 bulb onion, white and tender green parts. quartered lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 clove garlic, diced
1 jalapeno, diced
8 mini sweet bell peppers, quartered, seeded, and sliced thinly
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large can (28 or 32 ounces, depending on brand) diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons vodka (I used Peak 7, a local brand)
3 small yellow squash, sliced in thin rounds
2 pounds raw shrimp, shelled and deveined

Heat the oil in a heavy-bottomed pan. Add the onion, garlic, jalapeno, sweet pepper, and salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the vegetables are softened.

Add the tomatoes and vodka and cook, stirring as needed, until the tomatoes cook down a bit - you want a fairly thick sauce. It will get more liquidy when the squash and shrimp show up.

Add the squash and shrimp and cook until the shrimp are just opaque. Don't over cook.

Serve the shrimp over the grits. Or if you like, serve them separately so people can serve themselves.