I Have gotten way off schedule lately. Michelle has been working a lot of hours, Sean’s school is winding down and I started a new work project that takes a lot of my time, so I haven’t had much time for blogging on either blog lately, but I also have gotten away from our meal plan for the last few weeks. We are going to try to get back to it this week, so hopefully it all works out. In the meantime, while I am not grilling today because we are getting heavy rain here in New York, I did grill yesterday and made some Barbecued Pork Ribs. Now I have made baby back ribs on here before (check here for the recipe), but spare ribs were on sale at the supermarket last week so I got some and made them yesterday and they turned out great. It’s a simple recipe, but they take a long time to cook, which actually gave me a bit of an advantage using the electric grill over charcoal and gas, although maintaining the proper heat levels on the electric grill can get a little tricky. You really have to watch the temperature gauge closely to make sure its working out. Any type of grill will work with this, you just need to keep checking and rotating the ribs. This recipe, from America’s Test Kitchen, is written for a gas grill.

Barbecue Pork Ribs

2 full racks spareribs (2 to 3 pounds each)

1/2 cup Barbecue Spice Rub (This is the same rub I used on the pulled pork a couple of weeks ago, I always make extra to have to use for ribs, burgers, steaks, chicken, etc. You can get the recipe here or I will list it below)

2 cups wood chips, soaked and drained

2 cups barbecue sauce

Massage the ribs all over with the rub and let them stand at room temperature, covered loosely with plastic wrap, for 1 hour. Place the wood chips in a disposable aluminum tray (I actually have a small cast iron smoker box I use) and rest the tray directly on top of the primary burner. Turn all the burners to high, close the lid, and heat the grill until very hot and the chips are smoking, about 15 minutes. Clean and oil the grill. Turn the primary burner down to medium and turn off the other burners.

Position the ribs over the cooler part of the grill and cover. Barbecue until the meat starts to pull away from the bones, 3 to 4 hours, flipping, switching and rotating the ribs every 30 minutes. The temperature inside the grill should remain between 300 and 275 degrees. brush the ribs with barbecue sauce during the final 15 minutes of cooking.

Since I was using the electric grill, I had to pay particular attention the temperature. There really aren’t any cool spots to speak of when using electric since the element covers a lot of the surface area, so I would have to make sure to rotate and flip and keep the ribs to the edges of the grill. It took some work, but they were fall off the bone tasty. If you want the barbecue spice rub, here it is:

Barbecue Spice Rub

1/2 cup chili powder

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup salt

2 tablespoons black pepper

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

Mix all the ingredients until well combined. Store in an airtight container. It will last for about 1 month.

As I said, I use it for a lot of different things, like chicken, steak and shrimp and burgers, but you can use it for whatever you would like. I served the ribs with some of the leftover beans we had frozen from the pulled pork dinner, some corn on the cob, and some potato salad. It was a great Sunday meal.

As for the rest of the week, tonight I am making Pepper Steak, which I have made before on here and you can get the recipe right here. For the rest of the week, I did buy the meat necessary, I just haven’t decided what to make yet, so it will be wait and see when you check on here to see what the meal will be. I did buy some pork chops, a whole cut up chicken, some frozen shrimp and some chicken legs (I’ll probably use some of these to make chicken stock). I’ll have to see what kind of recipes I can come up with. Any suggestions? Any input at all would be greatly appreciated any time. You can leave a comment here, on my Facebook page or on Twitter. Until the next meal, enjoy your day and enjoy your meal!