A Manly, But Pretty Meal

I was looking for something a little different for dinner, I had some peppers to use up, and I've had this starred in my Google Reader for a while now. We loved this dish - it was easy, full of flavor, and tasted great the next day. But anything with mashed potatoes, beer & sausage is good in Jamie's book!

I made a couple of changes, mainly that I added more beer (yeah!!!) to make more sauce...I'll definitely be making this again, I'll probably try substituting with chicken or turkey sausage.



Ale-Braised Sausage and Peppers
Good Things Catered, adapted from Williams Sonoma

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp olive oil
2 lb. cooked sausages, such as kielbasa, sliced
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and sliced I used 1-2 yellow & green peppers
3 Tbsp all-purpose flour, divided1
1/2 c. ale I used 1 bottle of Budweiser's American Ale
1 1/2 c. low sodium chicken stock
3 Tbsp fresh thyme, chopped I used 2-3 tsp of dried thyme
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped I used 1 tsp of dried parsley which I added when adding the thyme
Mashed potatoes for serving

Directions:

In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, warm the olive oil. Add the sausages and cook, stirring and turning often, until browned, 4 to 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.

Add the onion and bell pepper to the pot, reduce the heat to medium, and sauté until tender and golden, about 5 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp flour and cook, stirring, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the ale until the mixture is smooth and bubbly. Add the thyme and broth, whisking to blend, and bring to a simmer.

Return the sausages to the pot. Cover, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the flavors are blended, about 15 minutes. Uncover and simmer until the sauce is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove the sausage, peppers, and onions and place on a serving platter. With the Dutch oven over medium high heat, whisk in 1 heaping Tbsp of flour, whisking constantly until thickened, about 1-2 minutes.

Pour thickened sauce over sausages and serve immediately with mashed potatoes.

Serves 4 to 6.

Sometimes Sticky Fingers Are Good!

This is my second time making ribs. Again, I don't eat them, but Jamie gave the sticky thumbs up....keep a bunch of napkins handy...and if you use a lot, I guess that's the sign of good ribs! I pretty much stuck to the recipe, I made small ingredient and execution changes (mostly b/c I was grilling a burger for myself, and it made sense to grill everything at once)

Amazing Ribs
Allrecipes

Prep Time: 30 Minutes Cook Time: 4 Hours 40 Minutes
Ready In: 5 Hours 10 Minutes Yields: 12 servings

INGREDIENTS:
6 pounds pork baby back ribs
1 pinch black pepper
1 pinch salt
1 pinch crushed red pepper
4 cups barbecue sauce I used Sweet Baby Ray's, I used about 3.5 lbs of ribs, so I reduced the sauce to 2.5 cups
2 (12 ounce) bottles porter I reduced beer to 1-1.5 bottles, and just drank the rest!
beer, room temperature

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut ribs into small portions of 2 or 3 bones each. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Season water a pinch each of salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper to the water. Boil ribs in seasoned water for 20 minutes. Drain, and let the ribs sit for about a half an hour.

2. Meanwhile, preheat an outdoor grill for high heat. I put meat on the grill after being in the slow cooker, I let the meat cool slightly from boiling, rubbed some garlic powder, salt & pepper, red pepper flakes on meat, and added the bbq sauce, meat & beer to the slow cooker.

3. Lightly coat the ribs with barbecue sauce. Cook the ribs over high heat for a 5 to 10 minutes on each side to get a nice grilled look to them. See above

4. Place grilled ribs in a slow cooker. Pour remaining barbecue sauce and one bottle of beer over the ribs; this should cover at least half of the ribs. Cover, and cook on High for 3 hours. Check ribs every hour or so, and add more beer if needed to dilute sauce. Stir to get the ribs on top into the sauce. The ribs are done when the meat is falling off the bone. The ribs were cooked completely in the first process, the rest is about flavor and texture.

I put meat on the grill for about 10 minutes to get the grill marks & flavor, and coated ribs with a little extra bbq sauce.

Quick (sort of...) Ribs - Big Flavor

This is another catch up post - ribs. It was my first time making them, and I don't eat them, so again, this was for Jamie. According to him, they turned out great, and it was pretty easy, so if you are looking for a recipe that requires little time (as opposed to marinating with rub or slow cooking) & effort this is it. I may have charred the ends a bit, but the meat was still moist & perfect.

Simple Country Ribs

from Allrecipes

Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour
Ready In: 1 Hour 10 Minutes Yields: 4 servings

"Ribs are boiled in barbeque sauce before grilling to keep them extra tangy, tasty and moist!"

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/2 pounds pork spareribs
2 (18 ounce) bottles barbeque sauce (I used Sweet Baby's Ray's)
1 onion, quartered
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

I also added about 3 cloves of smashed garlic to the pot

DIRECTIONS:

1.Place spareribs in a large stock pot with barbeque sauce, onion, salt, and pepper. Pour in enough water to cover. Bring to a low boil, and cook approximately 40 minutes.

2.Preheat grill for high heat.

3.Lightly oil grate. Remove spareribs from the stock pot, and place on the prepared grill. Use the barbeque sauce in the saucepan to baste ribs while cooking. Grill ribs, basting and turning frequently, for 20 minutes, or until nicely browned.