The best BBQ sauce ever!

I recently discovered pork spare ribs and fell in love. Not only are they an eminently reasonable $3.50/lb from my special supplier (ha ha), but they require no grill or special equipment, can be on the table in 15 minutes, and are enjoyed by everyone in our family, Oliver included. Making the BBQ sauce requires a little time and effort (and may be a bit of an expense to get all the required seasonings on hand), but once you make it, you can enjoy many dinners from this one batch. Feel free to double or even triple the recipe! And of course, once you invest in all the necessary spices you will have enough to last you ages and many many batches of this delicious sauce.

I snagged this recipe from the Food Network, and tweaked it a little, mainly substituting natural sweeteners for all the brown sugar. It came out SUPER (actually, it's vaguely redolent of those naughty BBQ potato chips we all secretly love).

BBQ Sauce

3 T unrefined sea salt (NOT table salt!)
1 T chili powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/2 t cayenne
1/2 t jalapeno seasoning (I use extra chili powder for this)
1/2 t Old Bay seasoning
1/2 t thyme
1/2 t onion powder
2 T garlic powder
2 T lard (or bacon fat)
1/2 cup white wine *NOTE: recipe updated 1/2/11. See comments below.*
2 T vinegar
2 T Worcestershire sauce
3 T honey (I recommend raw)
7 T maple syrup (I recommend grade B, organic)
1 T molasses (I recommend Blackstrap)
*NOTE: do not cut down on the amount of sweeteners or the balance will be off. If necessary you can use all honey in place of the maple syrup and molasses.*

Combine all and reduce over low heat until thickened, stirring frequently. Pour into a jar or small pitcher and store in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap. If you store it in an oven-proof pitcher like I do, you can stick the pitcher in the oven for a few minutes while the ribs are cooking to soften it, then use what you need and refrigerate the rest; repeat indefinitely.



This will refrigerate well and get your family through many meals of ribs! To cook spare ribs, simply place ribs on a baking sheet and cook at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, depending on thickness.


You may turn them over once during cooking if you like. Remove from oven, slather with BBQ sauce, and cut ribs apart. Get ready for a succulent and delicious taste experience! Serve with cornbread and greens, or with sweet potato fries, or even just a simple acorn squash, cut open, cooked in a glass baking dish face down (in 1-1.5" water), and filled with butter.


Make sure your pork spare ribs are sourced from a small local family farm. Contact me if you would like information about sourcing in NYC. **NOTE: PLEASE AVOID USING BEEF SHORT RIBS FOR THIS RECIPE! They need to be cooked a very long time, and I cannot speak for the suitability of this sauce for short ribs cooked that way. Go for the pork spare ribs.

Farmers' market booty

Here is the rundown of what I bought at the Union Square Greenmarket for this week:

-6 ears corn
-1 watermelon
-1 cantaloupe
-2 heads lettuce
-4 large cucumbers
-a couple pounds organic potatoes (for Alice Waters's easy potato gratin)
-4 large tomatoes (I desperately wanted the heirlooms, but they were $3.95/lb, unfortunately out of my price range for this week as I needed lots of tomatoes for Khoresh Bademjan)
-3 eggplant (for the Khoresh as well, which is a Persian eggplant, tomato & lamb stew)
-6 peppers (3 "flame," 3 purple)
-celery (for chicken stock)
-yellow & orange carrots (for stock & for quinoa-stuffed peppers)
-organic whole wheat "peasant" sourdough from Hawthorne Valley
-1/2 lb. fresh tuna (to have raw on salads)
-1/3 lb. Pepato cheese (raw sheep's milk cheese spiced with peppercorn)
-2 shanks (about 1.3 lbs.) from pasture-raised lamb (for Khoresh Bademjan -- this cut has a lot of bone and is good stewed for a long time)
-1.3 lbs. flap steak from Grazin' Angus Acres (this will make several meals sliced thin over salad) *Note: we usually have either red meat or poultry once a week, with leftovers one other night, and maybe for lunch as well. It's very unusual for me to plan two meat dinners in one week, but both of these things will stretch over several meals.

At Whole Foods I picked up the following:
-red cooking wine (for making chicken liver & onion pate)
-Pellegrino (to dilute my current batch of homemade ginger ale)
-organic peanuts (for making peanut butter)
-organic quinoa (for stuffed peppers)
-organic blue corn taco shells (for a quick meal w/black beans, salsa, lettuce & raw milk sour cream)
-one lemon & 3 limes (Hugo likes fresh lime juice on popcorn and cucumbers, and I need the lemon to make mayo)
-raw milk freshly-grated reggiano (Hugo still eats this sprinkled on corn-on-the-cob with mayonnaise like he did when he was little)

The final tab was around $115, and I anticipate some of this stuff lasting into next week. This doesn't include what we spend on raw milk, butter, etc. from our buyers' club, but this week we will be eating particularly well. Considering that in other parts of the world people spend 20+% of their income in food (in Zambia some spend 70% on food), I think we are shamelessly spoiled with low food prices in this country, which makes us expect cheapness at the grocery store. With a little extra effort and a granny cart, anyone can buy most of what they need at the local farmers' market, no matter what their dietary restrictions are. I am incredibly grateful that we can eat so well and get most of what we need from farms in the surrounding area (usually New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania). We are really lucky here in NYC!

Are you a regular at your farmers' markets or local CSA? Please share some of your experiences with buying local seasonal foods.

What's in the ground beef?

Usually an entry with this title would give the reader an anticipatory shudder, right? Well, provided you aren't an ardent vegetarian this should prove interesting, not disgusting. I just spoke with Ed of Central Valley Farm in Asbury, NJ and asked him to set aside a few packages of ground beef and some raw milk cheddar for me to pick up this afternoon at the Union Square Greenmarket. I posted a comment recently on another entry about how delicious their ground beef is, and I have been wondering for some time why this is the case. This meat - which makes great stroganoff or burgers - is truly unusually flavorful and delicious. I recently made burgers that had a strong musky repulsive flavor/smell which I bought through another farm (they weren't spoiled or anything, and were from pastured cattle, which just goes to show all grass-fed ground beef is not created equal). I asked Ed about the beef and why it tastes so good, and he said that the breed of cattle is special (to the chagrin of Ed's wife -- apparently she complains about how he always has to buy the most expensive cows), plus they graze on a wonderful variety of native grasses (on which he uses no chemicals of any kind). AND to top it all off he doesn't sell any cuts of meat, only ground beef. So this means all the more expensive parts of the animal are being used, not just the leftover scraps, tough parts, and fat. If you are a meat-eater and looking for a great source of ground beef it would be worth checking out the Central Valley Farm tent at the Union Square Greenmarket. They are there every Monday from 8-6; they sometimes sell out of beef so it's worth getting there early. Be sure to try the raw milk cheddar and the homemade vegetarian pasta sauce, too! Each item is about $5 (1 lb. ground beef, 8 oz. cheddar, or one large jar of sauce).

Easy Chicken Salad

What to do with a leg of cold chicken from last Sunday? Make a yummy seasonal chicken salad! Simply remove the meat from the bone and cut into bite-size pieces, then toss with the following:

• 1/4 apple, diced
• 1 large handful chopped greens (I used baby mustard greens & arugula today)
  
• 1 large spoonful mayo (homemade, if you like)
• lots of curry powder (I use muchi curry, which is a delicious mix of many spices)
• dash garlic powder
• sea salt & black pepper

Serve on toasted whole wheat sourdough (buttered). If you use a whole leg (thigh and drumstick) or a very large chicken breast there should be enough for 2 people. This is a great meal for springtime as it incorporates the last of winter's apples and plenty of fresh leafy greens. Look for pastured chicken and whole wheat sourdough at your farmers' market as well! They should be available throughout most of the year, though when it comes to chicken this depends on the farmer.

Philly Cheesesteak gets an Update

I'm posting about this kind of late...but the memory of this delicious sandwich is still fresh in my mind and I wanted to share the recipe with all of you!

All you need to serve two people is:
-about 2/3 lb. steak (we used two thin sandwich-style rib-eye steaks, each weighing 1/3 of a pound from Grazin' Angus Acres - you could use any type of steak sliced thin, though, including a less expensive cut like London Broil -- try for grass-fed, though, if you can get it!)
-cheese, if desired (we used Valley Thunder cheddar-style sheep's milk artisanal cheese from Valley Shepherd Creamery)
-one green pepper, sliced
-1 onion, sliced
-sourdough bread or sandwich roll of some kind (we used whole wheat sourdough, also from Union Square Greenmarket)
-Worcestershire sauce
-butter & olive oil
-salt & pepper

Saute the veggies in olive oil and a little seasoning til tender; remove from heat and saute the meat with a little extra olive oil, some Worcestershire sauce, sea salt & pepper. If using very thin steaks they will cook in just a few minutes. When meat is cooked as desired remove from heat and slice into thin pieces (remember to save any fat/gristle/bone, etc. to make broth with later).

Reheat veggies quickly in frying pan. Toast bread or rolls and butter them; top with meat, veggies, and slices of cheese. You can also use pan drippings as a little extra sauce (or be sure to save for broth or gravy later). Serve with pickles or kim chee and your favorite organic potato chips (in honor of Hugo). Enjoy!

Cheeseburgers!

Last Monday I was at the Greenmarket with Oliver, on a mission to buy whatever was available and make some great meals. Usually I plan ahead what I am going to make, then buy according to a list, but I decided to try things more Iron Chef-style and see what would happen...

It was 5:30 and I didn't have too many options since many vendors were packing up or long gone. So I picked up some veggies (baby bok choy, kale, celeriac, parsnips, red potatoes, blue potatoes, arugula, napa cabbage), apples for a tart, a dozen extra-large pastured eggs, a loaf of whole wheat sourdough, and a container of delicious Korean kim chee. Then I ended up at the Central Valley farm booth where all they had for sale was raw milk cheddar (smoked and regular), and grass-fed ground beef. I instantly thought: cheeseburgers! I bought one lb. of the beef ($5.50 - a great price for grass-fed!), and an 8-oz. block of cheddar ($5). Then I picked up two small sourdough loaves (white flour, a compromise) to serve as upscale burger buns. Walking to the train I realized the napa cabbage would make a great slaw with the mayo Sarah and I made a couple weeks ago!

We had cheeseburgers two nights last week -- I used fresh thyme, fresh oregano, plenty of dried basil, lots of raw milk, whole wheat panko bread crumbs, sea salt, and organic Worcestershire sauce to season the meat. The cole slaw was made from shredded napa cabbage, finely-grated red radish & parsnip, homemade mayo, Dijon and lemon juice. We also made our own version of oven-fried blue potato chips (thinly-sliced blue potatoes tossed with olive oil, sea salt & pepper and baked at 400 degrees til crispy). Hugo hadn't eaten a burger in over 15 years, and pronounced this one delicious! I was impressed with how everything came together so well by just buying what was available. Definitely going to try this again every week!

Reflections on Sunday dinner

Hugo and I are tired this morning as Oliver was kicking us most of the night. Plus my stomach was a bit gurgly all night -- I think my dinner affected both Ollie and me, thus the kicking (ugh). We had rosemary turkey drumsticks from the Union Square Greenmarket (DePaolo Farms), and organic mashed potatoes, and the garlic string beans which were delicious! Everything was good in fact, but I forgot to enlist the digestive help of some lacto-fermented foods which means I didn't digest my turkey well (I am blood type A, so have less hydrochloric acid in my stomach for digesting meats). [Note: last week I had some turkey at my friend Sharon's house, after which I went home and enjoyed a night of great sleep, complete with peaceful dreams. HOWEVER, I had also consumed a fair amount of goat-milk kefir and a plate of kim chee -- they do wonders for the digestion! Sharon says she is always sure to eat some enzyme-rich foods like these with meat. I will be picking up some of my own kim chee and kefir from a local farmer this Thursday through the buyers' club we belong to.

Back to the turkey. This was a BIG meal - I could only eat about half of my drumstick. However, Hugo (a former vegetarian of more than 15 years) ate everything and was actually full for once. Usually after he finishes he asks me what else there is to eat, and I have gotten pretty tired of hearing this question. I figured it was time to start serving bigger meals. This did the trick!