Pam Anderson's Pork Ribs

This is the life.

That's seriously my first thought this morning. Three days in a row of zero commitments or responsibilities, not setting an alarm, not rushing like a mad person when I wake up and enjoying spending my day the way I would like to spend it.

Lots of people are complaining of cabin fever... call me crazy, but I don't get it? The snow days have been fabulous for this girl.

It's also been fabulous for my blog. Why? I've had time to make a few new things and do a little crafting which I can't wait to share!

The boy (have I mentioned he's stuck here with me?) mentioned that he hadn't had pork ribs in a long time and would like some. Lucky for him, I have an Xterra and a grocery store across the street.

The first place I looked was my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook. I read the ingredients to him, and he said he wanted something a little more brown sugar and barbecue sauce-esque.

Where did I turn next? Pioneer Woman, of course! When searching pork ribs, I found a post called The Other Pam Anderson. Now, this didn't appear at first glance to be a pork ribs recipe, but I knew that it had to contain something about pork ribs since that's what I searched.

So, I opened and started reading, and there it was... a recipe for pork ribs. Not any recipe, but one that included brown sugar (check one for the boy's request). It also required Dijon mustard, which I didn't have, nor did I think I'd like, so I substituted barbecue sauce and liquid smoke (check two for the boy's request) for the liquid rub. Get cookin'!

The ingredients (minus the stuff behind... I wasn't done putting away other ingredients when I got this started). I halved everything because this recipe is for 3 racks of baby back ribs and I had one rack of spare ribs.

 My sugar, paprika, pepper, garlic and salt rub. I realized while making it that I forgot to half the pepper, so I spooned some out. I think I may have forgotten to half the garlic, too, but it didn't taste like it?

 Barbecue sauce & liquid smoke rub.

 Away I went, brushing the rub on (with my adorable pink pastry brush).

 I got both sides nice and covered.

 Then sprinkled the dry rub on both sides & placed it directly onto the oven rack with foil below to catch and drippings (which weren't much).

 Came out looking like this.

After the boy cut some ribs.

First the boy's opinion: He said it wasn't what he was used to. He knew it wouldn't be when I put it directly onto the oven rack rather than in a pan of liquid. Even though it wasn't what he was used to, he said they were "really, really good."

And mine: I'm going to be really honest here, I wasn't too pleased with them. I was really weirded out for a number of reasons. First of all, I hate meat off the bone. To cater to my oddity, the boy cut it all of the bone for me. But, I still knew it was from the bone, if that makes sense. Also, the texture was strange. It had fat and tendons and stuff and I just couldn't get myself to ignore all the weirdness, so I hardly ate any.