Sunday - big entree day!

Happy Sunday!  I slept in this morning.  And my dog, Chase, let me. He's such a good dog.  It was glorious!  Of course, I didn't go to sleep until after 2 a.m., so does it still count as sleeping in?  lol

Today's recipe is ... wait for it ... Oven-Baked White BBQ Pork Spareribs!  When I was growing up in Cali, BBQ meant putting the meat on the grill outside, usually with a red bbq sauce.  My dad made up his own sauce:  ketchup, steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and, I think, a little bit of soy sauce.  That's what we used when we grilled outside.  For slow cooker bbq, my stepmom used her own sauce, which contained a good helping of brown sugar.  As I recall, my dad hated that sugary sauce.  I loved it.  No surprise ... it was sweet!

When I moved to Florida, I was confronted with several types of BBQ sauce.  That's when I discovered that BBQ in the south is somewhat of a hot topic.  Listen to this song for a summary of the types of BBQ (tomato-based, mustard-based, vinegar-based, etc.) and where they are popular.  According to that song, "grilling", not "BBQ" means cooking out on the grill, while "BBQ" is a style of cooking.  That's a bit of specificity in language; semantics where one specific name becomes the common term.  It's akin to the general usage of "Kleenex" to mean "tissues" or "Xerox" to mean "copies."

Back to what I cooked today.  I bought two slabs of pork spareribs last week when they were on sale for $1.99/#.  As I said before, that was too good of a deal to pass up.  The first slab I cooked up with a homemade tomato-based sauce.  Today I made a mayonnaise-based bbq sauce for the second slab of ribs.  I just finished off 3 off the ribs.  They are all kinds of lip-smackin', 5 wing flaps, of yumminess!  There is a very little bit of tang and kick to the sauce.  It has layers and depth.

Ribs right out of the oven

 

A plate of yumminess ready to eat!

Juicy ribs plated to be eaten!

Oven-Baked White BBQ Pork Spareribs

1 slab of ribs

White BBQ Sauce

White BBQ Sauce

1/2 cup of mayonnaise

1/4 cup of water (if you want a thicker sauce, decrease amount of water)

2T apple cider vinegar

1/2t lemon juice (I used bottled)

1/2t prepared Horseradish

1/2t Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt

1/8t paprika

1/8t ground garlic

1 drop liquid Splenda

Preheat the oven to 325F.  Remove slab of ribs from packaging.  Put them meat-side down on a foil lined pan with a lip.  Using a knife, lift up the thin membrane that covered the backside of the ribs.  Remove the membrane - using a paper towel to grip it as you pull it up makes it easier.  NOTE:  I've never done this step before but read that the membrane becomes tough.  I'm not sure it really made a difference.  Then liberally salt both sides with Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt.  Cover the ribs, meat-side down, with foil.  Bake at 325F for 30 minutes.  Flip the ribs.  Bake another 30 minutes.  

While the ribs bake, mix the sauce.  The sauce will be thin.

After the second 30 minutes in the oven, remove the ribs.  Turn the oven up to broil.  Apply the sauce to the ribs - both sides.  Pop the ribs, meat-side up, into the oven on the top shelf and broil for 5 minutes.  Remove and baste with more sauce.  Broil 5 more minutes.  When the ribs are nice and brown on top, remove.  Let rest 3 minutes or so; allow the juices to be reabsorbed into the meat.  Enjoy!

Nutritional value of sauce only:

Carbs: 4.9g (3%)

Protein: .7g (0%)

Fat: 72.1g (97%)

Calories:  738

Nutritional value of spareribs:

Check the packaging