Ribs

This is it: the best thing I make. It is the perfect union of (1) experience (lots..I promise, I initally struggled), (2) a great ingredient (pork rules) and (3) the willingness to be patient toward a great result. Nothing in this plan is complicated or requires any talent. You just have to want to do it and plan ahead a little.

First, you need pork babyback ribs. Sam's Club sells them in packs of three for about $20 and that will feed six normal people (or 3 really hungry boys). You can freeze what you don't use for several months, so this is about as cheap as protein gets these days. The proportions below are for one rack of ribs, which is what we always make for one family dinner (I eat half and Lacey and Maggie eat the other half; Sam usually has an apple and a popsicle; he plans to live forever).

I cook them in three steps. First, a chemical cooking, in a brine. I mix together 3 Tbs of kosher salt with 1/2 Cup of brown sugrar and then pour in 2 Cups of boiling water, which I stir up to dissolve the solids. Then I add the juice of a lemon, the juice of a lime, 3 Tbs of olive oil and 2 beers (the cheaper the better). The beer cools the mixture down because I am not ready to use heat to cook anything (yet). The ribs need to sit in this cruel mixture in the refrigerator one night and one day, so do it in a freezer bag before you go to bed the day before you plan to have them for dinner. It won't smell good and it will look worse; don't sweat it. This is essential to making them tender.

The next day, take the ribs out and pat them dry, then spread on some ballpark mustard (even if you don't like it - trust me). Now they should be ugly, gray/yellow and sticky. Then I rub in (not sprinkle on) my first rub: 1/4 C brown sugar, 1 Tbs of Summer Savory (a spice), 1 Tbs Garlic Powder, 1 Tbs Paprika (Sweet) and 1/8 Tsp of ground cloves. Once rubbed down, wrap them TIGHTLY in aluminum foil and place them on a cookie tray. Then bake them for 2 hours at 350 degrees. This way, the fatty ribs cook in their own juices; anyone who boils ribs doesn't understand where flavor comes from (or doesn't care).

When they come out of the oven, they will be cooked through and perfectly edible, but they won't be much to look at (and we eat with our eyes). So, I add a second rub, although this time, I do sprinkle it on (usually through a wire sieve). This one is made of 1/3 Cup brown sugar, 1 tsp of Cayenne and 1 Tsp of Dry Mustard. Now here's the trick: I then flash grill them on a piping hot grill for about 1 minute a side. This does nothing but carmelize the sugar and add grill marks, making them look as great as they taste. We usually have some spicy sauce on the side, but you don't need it.

Weeknight Pasta - Quick and Truly Different

Like everyone else, sometimes life intervenes so that rather than spend an hour prepping food, we just need to get dinner on the table (even if lately that table has been on the porch or deck). This recipe satisfies the need for efficiency without sacrificing my ever-present desire for food that is good and good for us. I also love it because it is so unlike anything else we make. Please note this comes almost verbatim from the February 2010 issue of Southern Living- "a reader recipe" no less. It's not plagiarism if you cite your source, right? I did make some subtle changes, but the core idea is "xeroxed".

The "mise-en-place" here requires 3 cloves of garlic minced, 2 bunches of basil roughly chopped, 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts and 4 ounces of crumbled Feta Cheese. (Toasting pine nuts is way easy: put them in a saute pan over medium heat - without oil - until they brown). You'll also need a seven ounce jar of "sun-dried" tomatoes, packed in olive oil. Reserve 2 Tbs of the olive oil from the tomatoes and slice the tomatoes into thin strips (but don't dice them - chunky is great).

To avoid stress, I don't start cooking my pasta (in this case wheat linguine, about half a package or 8 ounces) until everything I need is prepped and ready, but if you are cooler than me, feel free to chop while it boils. Do salt the heck out of the pasta water (to make it boil faster and to add flavor) and squirt some olive oil in the water too (to keep your pasta from sticking - perhaps the remaining oil from the tomatoes?).

The eleven minutes the pasta needs to cook provides 8 minutes of time to clean up (no kidding - this comes together FAST). Dump the basil, cheese and pine nuts into a large bowl. Then with about three minutes to go on the pasta, drop the garlic into a saute pan with the 2 tbs of olive oil saved from the tomatoes and cook it until it softens and smells great (but not until it browns). Then stir in the chopped sun-dried tomatoes just to heat them through (30 seconds). Drain the pasta then add it and the tomatoes and garlic to the bowl of nuts, cheese and basil and stir.

Maybe this takes 25 minutes the first time you make it, besting even Rachel Ray without being so annoyingly chipper. However, if you do it twice, I am guessing an average cook can do this in less than 20 minutes. We like it so much I expect I will be able to do it in 15 by the end of the summer. I understand whatever you don't scarf down heats up well the next day for lunch.

"Key" Lime Pie

I'm not really a baker, but I do really like pie. I heard one of my partners (who was especially fond of pie, so much so that for his birthday every year the office had "Birthday Pie") once say "if you don't like pie, I don't like you". Perhaps a little harsh, but I understand the sentiment.

Thus, to celebrate Spring, tonight I am making our 2-layer "Key" Lime Pie to take to dinner at the neighbors tomorrow. I put "Key" in quotes as I don't actually use "Key Limes". Our Kroger typically doesn't carry them, but even if they did, they are so small that squeezing them is overly burdensome relative to the added value. I understand they are a little sweeter, but to us, the difference is nominal. As is shown below, I'll make up for the regular limes with sugar.

The crust is simple. Put 3/4 of a Cup of granola in a food processor and pulse until a powder. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar, 1/4 Cup of graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 Cup of butter. Press this into a prepared (meaning sprayed with Pam) glass pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for eight minutes.

For the first layer, which is baked, whisk together 14 oz. of sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 Cup of lime juice (about 4 big limes) and 3 large egg yokes. Pour this over the crust and bake for 25 minutes. Once it is done, it has to COMPLETELY cool before proceeding to the second layer, which is chilled.

For the chilled layer, I add another 1/4 Cup of Lime juice (roughly 2 large limes) to 1/2 C of sweetened condensed milk, 8 ounces of cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1 one teaspoon of vanilla extract. This has to beaten with a mixer until smooth. Then you spread the second layer over the cooled first layer and refrigerate it overnight. Feel free not to like anyone who doesn't like it.