Stove Top Barbecued Boneless Pork Ribs

Picture of Barbecued Boneless Spare Ribs For some reason when December comes around our thoughts turn to cooking slow cooked foods for dinner. Some of our favorite slow cooked foods are beef stew, beef vegetable soup, chicken soup, and chuck roast and we make those all of the time.  We wanted to make something different, and there were some very nice boneless pork ribs at the grocery store this week. We bought the boneless pork ribs with the idea of grinding up the pork to make pork meatballs. Since the grocer is too often tempted to get some value from the waste fat and toss extra fat into the grinder, we try to grind our own meat, as we are sure to leave out as much fat as possible. As it turns out, when we got home the ribs were just too nice to be turned into meatballs and we decided to make Country Boneless Pork Ribs with them instead.

Stove Top Country Barbecued Pork Ribs are a simple and easy slow cooked meal. You’ll need a large stockpot or dutch oven with a cover to cook these ribs in. While we made the pork ribs on the stove top this recipe can easily be adapted to the oven by replacing the stove top simmering and cooking the pork ribs at 315° F. for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

  • 1 pound boneless pork ribs
  • 1/2 cup diced onion
  • 2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
  • 1/2 tsp chopped garlic
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 2 tbsp molasses
  • 1 tsp liquid smoke
  • 1/2 tsp McCormick Pepper Supreme
  • 1/4 tsp Tabasco Sauce
  1. Cut 1 pound of boneless pork ribs into about 3 inch long pieces.
  2. Place 1 tbsp canola oil in a large pot or dutch oven and heat.
  3. Add the boneless pork ribs to the pot, and cook until browned on all sides.
  4. Add the diced onion and chopped garlic, and cook, stirring about 2 to 3 minutes.
  5. Add tomatoes, liquid smoke, Worcestershire Sauce, Tabasco Sauce, molasses and Pepper Supreme. Stir well, and bring to a simmer.
  6. Cover and simmer for 1 hour, checking every 15 minutes to make sure the sauce isn’t too thick.  Add water if needed.  Oven Method: Bake covered in a slow oven (315° F.) for 1 1/2 to 2 hours instead of cooking on stove top.

Serve Country Barbecued Boneless Ribs with your favorite vegetable.

 Note this recipe calls for using McCormick Pepper Supreme.  Pepper Supreme is a wonderful blend of 7 peppers and is a delightful mix to add taste to meals.  If you don’t have Pepper Supreme on hand, subsititute 1/4 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper in it’s place.

Greek Seasoned Scrambled Eggs and Tomatos

Greek Seasoned Scrambled EggsWe are always trying to add variety to our breakfast meals. So this recipe ranks high among our favorite new breakfast dishes. This last weekend we thought we would experiment with McCormick Greek Seasoning with our breakfast. What we came up with was a Mediterranean Tomato and Scrambled Egg dish that was wonderful.

In a 10 inch non-stick skillet, add a 1 tbsp olive oil, and heat. Then add 3/4 cup of fresh chopped tomatoes (or a 3/4 cup of canned diced tomatoes). Add 1 tsp McCormick Greek Seasoning, sprinkling widely over the tomatoes. Add 1/2 tsp chopped garlic. Cook the tomatoes and seasonings for about 10 – 15 minutes over a low heat until most of the water in the tomatoes has evaporated. Chop 1/2 cup ham, and add to skillet. In a medium bowl, scramble 4 or 5 eggs, and add to the skillet. Cook, stirring carefully to mix eggs with tomatoes and ham until eggs are cooked through. Serve with fresh toasted and buttered rolls.

Greek Garden Salad Recipe

This is the recipe related to our Greek Marinated Chicken Recipe. Serve this Greek Salad with the baked Greek Marinated Chicken recipe or anytime you want a seasoned salad. It has a deliciously different taste from most salads.

Greek Salad Dressing

Mix all ingredients together and let sit for 15 minutes.

To make Greek Garden Salad
Combine the following in a bowl then sprinkle the Greek Salad Dressing over top: Peel cucumber, and slice in half lengthwise. Cut into half-moon slices about 1/4 inch thick. Chop tomatoes into chunks. Dice an onion fine. Wash spring onions, and dice fine. Drain a can of Chick Peas. Enjoy.

Get Mediterranean Flair with McCormick Greek Seasoning

McCormick Greek SeasoningA new spice blend we have at Spice Place is McCormick Greek Seasoning. This is a spice blend with mint, garlic and other spices that is great for adding new flavors to your meals. We’ve made a few recipes using McCormick Greek Seasoning, and all have been a hit. So we can highly recommend this seasoning to anyone that likes flavorful foods. Greek Seasoning isn’t spicy hot — it’s simple a spice blend with great Mediterranean taste.

We’re really impressed with the seasoning, so you can expect to see more recipes here that incorporate Greek Seasoning. We’ll start with the first of three easy to make recipes today.

Greek Seasoned Chicken
Recipe for Greek Marinated Chicken

  1. Mix the vinegar, olive oil, and Greek seasoning together in a pyrex cup.
  2. Wash chicken well, and place in a 1 gallon Ziploc bag.
  3. Pour the Greek Seasoning mixture over the chicken, seal the boag, and roate to spread the seasoning over the chicken.
  4. Place bag in refrigerator, and marinate for 2 – 3 hours, flipping the ziploc bag over ever 30 minutes so that the marinate gets evenly distributed over the chicken.
  5. Remove chicken from the ziploc bag, place on a baking dish, cover and bake at 350° F for one hour. Remove cover during last 15 minutes.

Serve with Greek Garden Salad

Snickerdoodle Cookie Recipe

Picture of Snickerdoodle CookiesWhile Snickerdoodle cookies have an unusual name, these rich cinnamon-sugar cookies are great for a holiday treat. They are a sweet sugar cookie with a coating of sugar and cinnamon. Easy to make, just mix, roll into a ball, roll the snickerdoodle balls in a mix of sugar and cinnamon then bake for 8 – 10 minutes.

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsps cream of tartar
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
  2. Cream together 1 1/2 cups sugar, the butter, shortening and eggs in a large bowl. Stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.
  3. Roll Snickerdoodle dough into 1 1/4-inch balls.
  4. Make the Snickerdoodle topping by mixing 1/4 cup sugar and the cinnamon.
  5. Roll balls in cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place cookie dough 2 inches apart on an un-greased cookie sheet.
  6. Bake Snickerdoodle Cookies for 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Remove Snickerdoodles from cookie sheet to wire rack and let cool.

Snow Crabs Legs Seasoned with Old Bay Seasoning

Picture of Snow Crabs Legs with Old Bay Seasoning
Having lived in the Mid-Atlantic region of the US for most of my life, the natural seasoning that comes to my mind for seafood is Old Bay Seasoning. Old Bay is a classic seasoning for Maryland Blue Crabs, Shrimp, and Crawfish. With all of those shelled seafoods that are eaten by hand, you’ll find that the Old Bay is sprinkled on the outside of the seafood. And since there is a shell on the seafood, the seasoning doesn’t get into the meat. So for the seasoning to work, what happens is that the flavor of Old Bay gets into the food by being transferred from outside of the shell to the meat by the hands as the food is eaten. It’s a little messy, but quite tasty too!

One of our favorite seafoods is Snow Crab. The Snow Crab meat has a nice flavor and unlike Blue Crabs, there isn’t too much labor involved in eating the Snow Crab meat. While the Maryland Blue Crab has an aura around these parts, and Crab Feasts are blue crab. Snow Crab has been steadily making it’s way into Maryland Crab Houses and probably for the two reasons just listed, they taste good, and are easy to eat. Since Snow Crab is also already cleaned and cooked, all you really need to do to make them is to heat them up and season.

Adapting Snow Crab to Maryland Style Seafood cooking is quite easy to do and here’s how:

  1. For each serving, you’ll need about 2 pounds frozen Snow Crab legs.
  2. Place the Snow Crabs legs in a large pot – large enough that the Snow Crab Legs can fit inside, and be covered.
  3. Sprinkle a layer of Old Bay Seasoning over the Snow Crab Legs.
  4. Pour 2 quarts boiling water over top of the Snow Crabs, and turn the heat on under the pan.
  5. Sprinkle with some more Old Bay Seasoning.
  6. Cover the pot, bring to a boil, and boil Snow Crab legs over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes.
  7. Meanwhile melt 1/2 stick of butter in the microwave or in a saucepan for dipping.
  8. Remove the Snow Crab legs from the pot with tongs to a large serving dish.

Serve Snow Crabs with the butter dipping sauce and with Baked Potato and Corn on the Cob.

Close up picture of Old Bay Seasoning on Snow Crab LegsIn case you’re wondering about just how much Old Bay Seasoning you need to put on the Snow Crabs, here’s a picture of the proper amount. This isn’t science, so you can use more or less. But if you use too much, it’s a little more messy then using the right amount. If you happen to use too little, simply sprinkle more over top of the Snow Crab legs. Serve with plenty of paper napkins or toweling as the Old Bay will spread to your hands — but that’s the point and is how the seasoning will get to the seafood, transferring from your hands to the seafood.

Tabasco Ham and Cheese Omelet Recipe

Picture of serving of a Ham & Cheese Omelet with Tabasco
Our favorite all around hot sauce is Tabasco Sauce. It’s great in lots of recipes, Tabasco is a key ingredient in the Buffalo Wing recipe in our last post. Besides it’s use in the Buffalo Wings recipe, it’s a necessity in Gumbo, Chili, and Nacho Cheese recipes. But we try to experiment with Tabasco, and find interesting uses for this pepper sauce.

You can always mix 4 or 5 drops of Tabasco into scrambled eggs. Break 2 eggs into a small bowl, add 4 or 5 drops of Tabasco Sauce, and beat well. Pour into a lightly greased non-stick pan, such as T-Fal, or Circulon, and cook just until the eggs begin to set. Then using a spatula, stir the eggs so that they cook evenly. When cooked through, season with a little salt and black pepper and serve.

Making a Tabasco Seasoned Ham and Cheese Omelet
Today, we made a Ham and Cheese Omelet that is pictured above along with hash brown potatoes. We have a post with complete instructions on how to make an omelet in a prior post, so we won’t go into those details. For our Tabasco Seasoned Omelet, add 1/4 tsp of Tabasco Sauce* to 3 eggs in a small bowl, and beat well. Add the egg mixture to a heated lightly oiled non-stick pan over medium heat, cover, and cook until set, then top 1/2 side of the omelet with chopped ham, and shredded Cheddar cheese. Cover, to let cheese melt, then flip the plain half on top of the ham and cheese hal.. Cut the omelet in half before serving. Makes 2 servings.

* You may want to start with 5 drops of Tabasco and adjust to taste to not make this recipe too hot for you and your family.

A Genuine Buffalo Wing Recipe

Buffalo Chicken Wings Serving
Chances are that you’ve had Buffalo Wings at one time or another. But unless you’ve been to Buffalo, New York, you haven’t had the real thing. We have a genuine Buffalo Wing Recipe that we got from a small Buffalo Wing shop located in Buffalo, NY. And it’s a killer recipe. This isn’t a quick to make recipe, the Buffalo Wings need to marinate in the seasoning sauce for 4 hours before cooking. They’re also cooked at 500° F for an hour. Preparation time is about 20 minutes. 4 hours to marinate, and 1 hour to bake makes about 5 1/2 hours from start to finish. There is no rushing this recipe if you want your Buffalo Wings to taste good. If you follow our directions in the Recipe for Buffalo Wings, you will enjoy a delicious meal of Buffalo Wings.

Buffalo Chicken Wings in Half-Pan
Here are some tips to making Buffalo Wings that aren’t in the recipe:

  • Use a blender to mix the seasonings.
  • If you use the Tabasco Sauce, and the 1 1/2 tsp of Cayenne Pepper, you’ll have a mild flavored wing. Use more Cayenne for more heat in the Buffalo Wings.
  • Our recommendation is to start with the middle of the road and use 1 1/2 tsp of Cayeene until you know if that’s too hot for you and your family, and then adjust the seasoning to your tastes for later recipes.
  • We marinated the Chicken Wings in a large gallon sized ZipLoc® bag Turning it over ever 1/2 hour or 45 minutes.
  • It’s easiest to use large 1/2 pan disposable pans lined with non-stick aluminum foil. Without the non-stick foil, the Buffalo Wings will stick to the pan.
  • Only place the wings in the pan. Dispose of the sauce. The wings absorb the sauce, and you’ll see there is plenty of liquid at the end of cooking.
  • Bake the wings covered for the first 45 minutes then remove the aluminum foil cover for the last 15 minutes to let the wings brown.
  • Serve with Blue Cheese Salad Dressing for dipping the wings, along with carrot sticks, celery sticks, and cucumber slices.

How to Grill a Delicious Pot Roast

BBQ Pot Roast RecipeIt seems to us that grilled foods have more flavor than foods that are simply baked or pan fried, so we BBQ our dinners about half of the time. For weeknight barbecues, we cook foods that grill in under an hour, these are the typical foods like steaks, chicken breasts, hamburgers, and pork chops. But when the weekend comes around, and we can start cooking our dinner earlier, we cook more interesting foods like pork roasts, and pot roasts. Earlier this summer we posted here in our blog a recipe for a delicious smoked North Carolina Pulled Pork Sandwich, which starts with a pork roast barbecued and smoked. It takes some time to make, but the reward is worthy of the effort.

Another roast that we love to cook on the barbecue is the chuck roast (pot roast). Chuck roasts are a very flavorful cut of beef that must be cooked slow in order to become tender. When baked in an oven, it’s typically roasted at 325° F for 3 hours. It would be a tall order to cook a chuck roast on the barbecue for that long, so we enlist the aid of Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer in order to cut the cooking time by an hour or so. The magic of Adolph’s is Papain (from papaya fruit) that breaks down the tough parts of the roast. Many folks think Adolph’s has MSG in it, since it looks almost the same, but there is no MSG in Adolph’s tenderizer.

So here’s how we make our Grilled Pot Roast:

What You’ll Need To Make a Grilled Pot Roast

  • 3 – 4 Pound Pot Roast
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup black pepper
  • 3 1/2 tsp Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer
  • 1/4 tsp Tabasco Sauce
  • Garlic powder
  • 1 onion, sliced into rings
  • Potatoes (optional)
  • Baby carrots (optional)

How to Prepare the Grilled Pot Roast

  1. Select a nice 3 – 4 pound chuck roast. Look for a roast that has less fat in it.
  2. Combine 3 1/2 tsp Adolph’s Meat Tenderizer with 1/4 tsp Tabasco Sauce, 1/3 cup ground black pepper, and 1/3 cup sugar. Mix the Adolph’s, Sugar, and Pepper together until well blended.
  3. Place the chuck roast on a large plate, and coat all sides with the seasoning mix.
  4. Place the roast in a plastic zippered bag, and refrigerate for an hour or so.
  5. Prepare your grill for cooking. If you’re using a charcoal grill, place the coals only on one side of the grill.
  6. When the grill is ready for cooking, place on your kitchen counter top 2 or 3 layers of wide, heavy duty aluminum foil that are large enough to completely wrap around the pot roast. Place the roast on top of and in the center of the aluminum foil.
  7. Sprinkle the top of the roast with garlic powder, and top with a thick layer of sliced onion.
  8. If you have room, you could toss some 1 1/2″ chunks of peeled potatoes and baby carrots into the foil around the edges of the roast.
  9. Close up the foil tightly, and place on the grill 3 to 4 inches away from the heat.
  10. Cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, turning every 20 – 30 minutes so that the roast cooks evenly.
  11. When you feel the roast is done, open and test the temperature with a meat thermometer. The temperature should be at least 165° F.

If you cooked this Grilled Pot Roast with the vegetables, you’ll have a complete meal all cooked on the grill. If not, serve with our Tabasco Garlic Mashed Potato Recipe, gravy and a vegetable of your choice.

BBQ Chuck Roast in Foil

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich Recipe

Serving of Buffalo Chicken Sub
If you’re like us, you often make too much of a good thing. That is, your eyes are bigger then your stomach, and you cook more food then you can eat. We don’t like wasting food, so when we made the Buffalo Chicken Thighs Recipe the other day, we had a few thighs left over. Since we used boneless skinless chicken thighs, they could easily be chopped up to make a chopped chicken sandwich.

This is a really easy recipe to make using leftovers. Since the chicken was already cooked, all we needed to do to prepare this recipe was to chop up the seasoned chicken thighs into small pieces. We find cutting up chicken is easier when it’s cold, and so we chopped up the chicken right out of the refrigerator, then put it in a bowl to be reheated in the microwave. Since the Buffalo Chicken Thighs are very flavorful, this recipe doesn’t require any sauce.Chopped Buffalo Chicken Thigh

Serve the chopped Buffalo Chicken Thighs on submarine rolls that have been toasted lightly in the broiler, and then spread with mayonnaise. Top with the chopped chicken, and lettuce and tomato.

This is a tasty sandwich, which could actually be prepared directly from the Buffalo Chicken Thighs as the main dish instead of as a way to use up the leftovers.