Labor Day 2011 Rib Smackdown

Two couples, two racks of ribs, one smoker and one gorgeous day off. Sounds like the makings for the Labor Day 2011 Rib Smackdown. Neighbor D offered Chris one rack of ribs and a challenge: season, rub, marinate, do whatever you want to your ribs, but both racks get smoked together, over pecan wood chips, and the wives (us lucky gals!) will judge whose ribs are the tastiest.

While the ribs sat in the smoker all afternoon, we prepared a pitcher of Rummin' Teas and a few side dishes. We started with some chips and salsa. We tossed a bunch of red and yellow potatoes in Crisco's new Pure Olive Oil (a sample of which we received through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program) and added  plenty of chopped fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. Then we placed these on the grill in a grilling basket; in 40 minutes, they were perfect - crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

We steamed a pound of Louisiana Gulf Shrimp in Blue Crab Bay Co. Steaming Spices (a gift from D and J's many travels) to add a little "surf" to our "turf." A few ears of corn roasted on the grill for good measure. And then the ribs were done and it was time to eat. 

Chris had rubbed his rack in a mixture of red sea salt, chipotle pepper and Mexican chocolate, then marinated them in Red Stag Bourbon overnight. These had an intriguing mix of sweet and spicy flavors, from cherry to chocolate to salt to pepper. Very interesting indeed.

D had rubbed his with a little "Butt Rub" and cayenne, then covered them in a paste made from basil, minced garlic and olive oil. They, too, were "finger-licking good" in a more traditional way, and offered themselves over to barbecue sauce a little more easily than the others. Yummy.

Both ribs were tender, falling off the bone and had an sweet smoky flavor from the pecan wood chips. How could we possibly pick one over the other? We had to call in a reinforcement judge - neighbor R who is a long-standing and enthusiastic taste-tester around these parts. He, too, was undecided. Both were just too good. The wives awarded both ribs first place. Let's hear it for the boys and a delicious holiday spent with good friends. It doesn't get much better than this.

Labor Day Weekend Corn and Black Bean Salsa "Nachos"

The school where Chris teaches has an amazing culinary program. Many of their students graduate to further their education at Johnson and Wales or the Culinary Institute of America, and the lunches he eats on a daily basis compare to some gourmet restaurants we've been to.

That hasn't been the case at Amy's school until recently, with the hiring of "Chef Dave" a couple of years ago, and the new addition of "Chef Debbie," both of whom are turning the school's culinary program upside-down (in a good way!!!). We non-culinary teachers got a taste of things to come Friday afternoon when a school-wide email advertised samples of "Labor Day Weekend Corn and Black Bean Salsa" for immediate noshing along with some conveniently packaged for us take home. Oh happy Friday!!!

Not ones to simply dip a chip, Chris and I took this delicious salsa to a whole other level by making nachos with it, using corn chips (Fritos to be exact) to heighten that delicious summer corn flavor. We laid out some corn chips, topped them with a cup of the salsa and some shredded cheese, and broiled them until the cheese melted. A fabulous snack, indeed! We saved the rest for our Labor Day BBQ with neighbors D and J who loved it as-is.

Laid out on aluminum foil

Topped with shredded cheese

Brown and bubbly nacho deliciousness

Special thanks to the FCS Kitchens at EHS for the samples and for sharing the recipe, (which I have typed verbatim below)!

Labor Day Weekend Corn and Black Bean Salsa

Ingredients:

5 ears corn on the cob, grilled or roasted

1 clove garlic, minced

3 Roma tomatoes, diced 1/2 inch

1 pepper (red, yellow or orange), diced 1/4 - 1/2 inch

1 small red onion, diced

8-10 sprigs cilantro, chopped finely

4 stalks chive, chopped

2 15-ounce cans black beans, drained and rinsed

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (the juice of 2-3 limes)

Cook off the corn on the cob; cut kernels off and place in bowl. Drain and rinse black beans and add to corn. Dice to spec the tomatoes, peppers, and red onion and add to bowl. Mince garlic and add to bowl. Remove cilantro leaves from stem. Discard stems. Chop cilantro leaves and place in bowl. Add to bowl the white vinegar and lime juice. Mix all ingredients. Place in presentation bowl and garnish with chopped chives.

Cocktail Time! The Berry Patch

School may have started, but it's not the end of summer yet! Labor Day weekend is upon us, and fall does not officially start until the autumnal equinox on September 23rd. In the "spirit" of prolonging every teacher's favorite season, we gathered a few tantalizing summertime ingredients to create a cocktail we're calling "The Berry Patch" (special thanks to D and J for taste-testing and tweaking the name). Light, sweet, herby and slightly bubbly, these go down nice and easy!

The Berry Patch

(makes a small pitcher, about six drinks)

Ingredients:

12-14 fresh strawberries, chopped

6-8 leaves fresh basil, torn

1 cup cranberry juice (100% juice, not cranberry cocktail)

1 cup lemonade (we like Newman's Own Lightly-Sweetened)

1 cup vodka

ice

club soda (optional)

extra berries and/or basil leaves for garnish

In a pitcher, muddle the chopped strawberries with the torn basil leaves.

Add the cranberry juice, lemonade and vodka.

Add ice, stir and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Strain into chilled martini glasses. Add a splash of club soda on top if you like it bubbly, and garnish as desired.

 

Sugar and Spice on Pork Belly is Nice

We have been a little bit obsessed by pork belly since we went to a food festival and tasted a teensy-weensy bite of a pork belly dish created by the chefs at Craftsteak. That was almost two years ago, but the memory has stuck with us so much that every time we see pork belly on a menu, we order it, and we watch anything on Food Network or Cooking Channel that even mentions pork belly.

What is pork belly? Pork belly is a boneless cut of fresh pork derived from the belly of a pig. It is a very fatty cut of meat in fact, but when it is cooked correctly, that fat is rendered down and melts into the most delicious thing you've ever tasted. (In our opinion, anyway.)

When we watched that long-ago demonstration by the chefs at Craftsteak, we jotted down notes on what to do. Looking back, they were almost indecipherable, but we decided to go with the flow and attempt our own version of pork belly based on theirs. How bad could it be? It's bacon, for goodness' sake! The most trouble we had was finding the stuff! It was difficult, but finally, we spotted a pound of it at a Portuguese butcher shop in Ludlow, Massachusetts. We (of course) bought it, and our plan was set into motion.

The elusive pork belly

The goal in our minds was to give the pork a sweet and spicy flavor. With that in mind, we rubbed it with a mixture of brown sugar, salt and Chinese five-spice powder. We wrapped it in cheesecloth and enclosed it in a zipper-bag (having squeezed the air out) in the fridge, allowing it to "marinate" in the rub for five days.

Rubbed and ready for wrapping

Into the refrigerator for five days it goes

Afer that, we rinsed and dried it off, then browned it in a frying pan, cured it in a 275-degree oven, allowed it to cool, and browned it once again before serving.

Rinsed and starting to brown

Hot out of the oven

Was it as good as Craftsteak's? Heck, no. But we're teachers, not award-winning celebrity chefs. With that in mind, was it good? Heck, yeah, it was. With flavors of sweet, salty, and spicy on the tongue, and crispy-on-the-outside/melted-on-the-inside pork fat, one or two bites was all you needed, but it left you wanting more. We'll be experimenting with pork belly very soon, well, as soon as we can find some again!

Sugar and Spice Pork Belly

Ingredients:

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup kosher salt

1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder

1 pound pork belly

oil for frying

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, salt and five-spice. Score the skin of the pork belly, then rub all of the spice mixture over the entire piece of pork belly. Wrap tightly in cheesecloth and seal in an zip-bag, squeezing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate for 3-5 days. Remove pork belly from bag and cheesecloth, rinse off spice mixture., and dry. Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and brown the pork belly on all sides. Wrap the pork belly in aluminum foil and cure in oven set at 275 degrees for 2 1/2-3 hours. When ready to serve, heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan, brown on all sides, and make sure the fat is cooked through. Enjoy in small doses,as a snack or appetizer.

Secret Recipe Club: Potato Parmesan Frittata Irene

Amy writes:

Thursday: A hurricane is coming?!?

Chris is at his first day back to school, professional development for teachers. I sit, somewhat depressed about the end of such a fabulous summer, unmotivated to do those last few things I should be doing, and instead zone out in front of the t.v. The entire 11 a.m. news broadcast is dedicated to Hurricane Irene, predicted to reach us this weekend. Having lived in New Orleans, I, 1.) don't mess around with hurricanes, and 2.) have an idea of what I should to do prepare, regardless of what they are saying. I head out to the store. Already, there is little water on the shelves (I buy 4 large bottles, leaving some for the next person) and they are out of D batteries (bummer). Figuring my pantry has plenty of non-perishables, I get cash (just in case), eggs, milk, fruit, and a few other things. I head home and wonder if my basement will flood.

Friday: What should I do?

I'm still pretty unmotivated to do anything I should be doing, but now I have a mission: a hurricane is coming. Still, our basement hasn't flooded in the ten years we've lived here, and we are far too inland to get the kinds of winds that would destroy windows. Why am I so worried? I text Chris (in his second teacher-only day at school): "Should I tape the windows?" A reply: "Only if you want sticky windows." I text again: "Should I start moving stuff up from the basement?" He replies: "Are you that bored? I really doubt our basement will flood, but if it makes you feel better." Last text I send: "I should clear the garage though, right, so we can put our cars in." He's all about me doing that. I spend the rest of the afternoon doing just that. Hurricanes are a pain in the butt!

Saturday: Battening down the hatches.

We spend the day clearing our yard, porch and deck of anything that could become a projectile. Then we have to do the same for our neighbors, D and J, who are in Minnesota at a wedding. We spend the evening watching the news and calling friends and relatives to make sure everyone is ready, and fall asleep watching the 24-hour hurricane news.

Sunday: Irene arrives. She's a Tropical Storm.

We had a lot of wind and rain overnight, but according to the news, the worst is yet to come. Around 8:30, a neighbor's uprooted tree knocks their garage off the foundation and crushes another neighbor's above-ground pool. There are leaves and branches all over our yard, but that's about it. Chris thinks we'll be losing power any minute, so I start breakfast. I want to use up the stuff in the fridge before we lose power. It's Secret Recipe Club week, and I've been eying this beautiful frittata created by "Owen's Mom" at my assigned blog, "Adventures in All Things Food." She has a lot of great baking recipes, but our latest baking attempts haven't been very successful. She raises chickens, therefore has plenty of egg recipes, and this particular recipe will use up a lot of what I could lose in a power outage - eggs, milk, and cheese. Plus, she suggests making it in a "big cast iron skillet," which we love to cook in. I make a few adaptations, since I don't have a couple of the ingredients she calls for. I put it in the oven; it has to cook for an hour. Forty-five minutes later, we lose power. I figure if I leave the oven door shut, my gas oven will stay warm and continue to cook the frittata. It does and it's delicious!!!

We eat the fluffy frittata, drink mimosas, and use our cell phones to check in on our loved ones. School is called off for tomorrow (yay!). Our next-door neighbor has power, so Chris runs a string of extension cords and plugs in one light, our television (still no cable or network), and alternates power between our refrigerator and chest freezer. Our neighbor across the street jealously watches our t.v. from his window. I think I'm going to miss the reveal for Secret Recipe Club...

Potato Parmesan Frittata Irene

adapted from "Simple Supper Idea: Potato Basil Frittata" by Adventures in All Things Food

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

4 potatoes (Yukon Golds are great in this)

8 large eggs

15 ounces of ricotta cheese

1 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese, divided

1/3 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup fresh basil, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Dice the potatoes and toss them in one tablespoon of olive oil. Heat the other tablespoon of olive oil in a large cast iron skillet. Cook the potatoes until they are nicely browned and tender, stirring often. In the meantime, whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the ricotta and 1 cup of the parmesan; stir to combine. Gently stir in the flour and baking powder to the egg mixture. Pour the melted butter over the potatoes in the skillet and allow to heat for a few seconds. Then pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and shut off the stovetop heat. Top the egg mixture with the basil and the remaining parmesan cheese and put in oven. Bake at 350 for one hour, until set. Enjoy!

Monday: The Calm After the Storm

It's a beautiful 70-degrees and sunny. Everyone we know is safe and sound and has little property damage. We spend the day cleaning up the debris in the yard and wishing for power. We drive to the nearby Dunkin Donuts, for we've heard tell that their free WiFi is up and running, and you can get it from the parking lot. I download another book on my Kindle, and we pick up some takeout. The fabulous guys at the electric company arrive around 6 p.m. and fix our power amidst a round of cheers from everyone on the street. No cable (thus no internet) yet. Chris has to go to school tomorrow, but since 80% of the town where I work still has no power, I do not. I secretly revel in having one more bonus day of summer and stay up late watching The Untouchables, which I TiVo-d during A and E's "Mob Week." Life is good and we know how lucky we are. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who weren't as lucky.

Tuesday: A New Day

Another gorgeous sunny day off. I have power AND cable, and need to get this post done asap because it's very late. My apologies to the Secret Recipe Club, and many thanks for your flexibility and understanding. Hope everyone out there is making a good recovery from Irene.

Wordless Wednesday: Maine Lobster - From Boiled to Bisque

Blueberry Hand Pies Baking Fail: Your Recipe, [Our] Kitchen

A few weeks back, we stopped at a quaint roadside market on the way home from Atlantic City. They had pints and pints of fresh local Jersey blueberries that we couldn't resist buying. Some we ate straight out of the package - they were warm and juicy and tasted like summer candy. The others were destined for hand pies. Have you heard -- pie is the new cupcake?

(Insert appropriate segue here)...We've been meaning to join up with the "Your Recipe, My Kitchen" club hosted at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker, and this recipe for blueberry hand pies from The Pastry Affair was one of the many recipes we had bookmarked to try. They looked and sounded so good, and now we had plenty of blueberries, so, why not?



In the interest of disclosure, we used store-bought pie crust, but otherwise followed the recipe without changes. They looked beautiful - crimped with a fork and topped with demerara sugar before going into the hot oven.

Okay. We may or may not have overstuffed the pies just a bit. Take a look:

They all burst in the oven. Our cookie sheets were glazed with sticky sugary blueberries. Thank goodness we used aluminum foil! One more baking fail. (And now you know why we don't bake that often).

We did end up with a half-dozen decent-looking darlings that we shared with our neighbors. This was the prettiest one.

The rest of the mess we served ourselves in bowls topped with vanilla ice cream. It may not have looked pretty, but it was deee-licious! We loved the freshness the lemon zest added, and the deep warmth from the cinnamon. And, of course, all those bursting blueberries!!!

Thanks for the recipe, The Pastry Affair. We'll give it another try sometime. You've inspired us.

Smoked Ribeye Steaks

As you may remember, we bought a smoker this summer. And even though we know ribeye steaks don't need slow and low cooking, we decided to cook them on the smoker anyway. And we're so glad we did! Holy cow!!! These ribeyes were fantastic. Juicy and tender with beautiful hints of woodsy smokiness. We'll be making these again very soon! Here's how we did it:

First, we seasoned the gorgeously marbled steaks with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then we covered them in a some red wine for marinating. We marinated them for about an hour, flipping them over half way through, while we drank the rest of the wine and heated up the smoker.

We set the steaks on the top grill rack with soaked applewood chips creating the smoke. We let them smoke for 40 minutes.

After we took them off, we seared them on the grill for a quick two minutes on each side, just to get some grill marks on them. Easy as that!

Kodak Gallery Photo Book (and a Discount Offer!)

As part of Foodbuzz's Tastemaker Program, we received a coupon code from Kodak Gallery to make a medium hard cover photo book in exchange for blogging about it. We've been away, but finally had a chance this morning to get to work on creating our masterpiece, A Couple in the Kitchen: A Culinary Year.

Our best food-inspired photos representing each month of the year will be highlighted in a beautiful book we created ourselves using Kodak's easy-to-use website. It was so much fun reviewing our photos and choosing the perfect ones to go in the book.

There were tons of designs and themes to choose from, and each page can be laid out in a variety of ways. Optional captions were easy to add and the auto-fill feature worked really well. We can't wait until the final product arrives on our doorstep!

Kodak Gallery is offering our readers an opportunity to create a medium or large photo book at 40% off until August 31st. So use this link here and start saving your memories too!

Wordless Weekender: Where We've Been