Friday (N0T!) Florida Food Fest: Barbecue Spare Ribs

I try, on a semi-regular basis to post something about food on Fridays, but last Friday I needed to continue the saga of the Waccasassa River clean-up. That left us without a good Friday Food Fest post. This is not good as it's obvious from the comments that we all enjoy this "eating" fad.

So, here is last Friday's food post, even though I didn't make these until last Sunday, which would have made it impossible to ...

Anyway, last Sunday we were prepping for paint and doing odd jobs here, so I needed to grill something that could be left for relatively long periods of time to cook on it's own.

Spare ribs to the rescue!

I had one of those double slab packs of ribs so the first thing I did was cut them roughly in half. Each half received a dusting of a commercial rib rub. Sometimes I add a little apple cider or vinegar at this step, but I did not this time.

I made two foil packages by placing the two thick ends together in one double wrapped foil pack and the two thin ends in the other pack.

I already had the coals going and I let them die down just a little before adding the rib packs to the grill. If you notice,they are off to the side and not over any fire. After I shut the smoker grill cover, I only had to go out and check on them every half hour or so.

In the meantime I was taking care of some (not all) of the remodeling loose ends I've created in the past two years. Little things like a piece of trim that was never replaced, an outlet extension not installed after wainscoating, ... stuff like that.

Stuff you get used to if you live here, but the sort of thing that a guest would notice immediately and wonder ... "What kind of trash are these FC folks?"

Think long and hard before you begin to remodel ... unless you win the lottery, then have at it!

Meanwhile, back out at the grill, enough time had gone by that it was time to open the foil and check the ribs.

Mrs. FC likes them with a little crispy char to them and to get that without drying out the meat, I needed to do the next step.

I took them out of the foil and laid them directly over the now barely burning coals for some searing. For this step, you do have to concentrate and stay on site as it only takes a few moments to get the right amount of crispy surface.

No day dreaming.

Here's the finished product.

After they received their brief charring time, they again went to the cooler side of the grill for a good thick coating of sauce. Then they sit in the dark smoky grill while the sauce reduces to a nice glaze.

Since you're gonna ask ... the sauce was homemade.

Not because we usually do that, but because after the ribs went on the grill, we discovered that there was no bottled BBQ sauce in the pantry.

Town is 15 miles away so going to get some seemed a silly waste of gas.

Into a sauce pan went ketchup, ground mustard, some leftover Texas Pete Wing Sauce, vinegar, garlic powder, Worcestershire sauce, and some dark brown sugar. This simmered on very low heat while the ribs were in their foil packs.

Somehow, all that blended into a wonderfully tangy sauce with just a little heat.

Necessity is the mother of invention ...

and of homemade BBQ sauce.

Now I'm off to continue my kitchen paintjob.