If you were wondering why I haven't posted anything in a while, it's because mother nature has been having some crazy mood swings and dumped a $hitload of snow and freezing rain on us in the last week or so and I have been shoveling out my backyard, my driveway, steps, walkway and the driveway of the old man next door who is alway crunked (because my tempo drops some snow on his side). Luckily I am in decent shape so i wasn't sore, but I was tired as hell, and my brain just didn't want to think of anything to type up. I think mother nature was hungover from her Christmas party, where Jack Frost kept sending her drinks, because after all of this snow, Mother Nature finally woke up and shook off her Grey Gooseitis and decided that she had been a bi*ch with us all week and decided to give us temperatures ranging around zero degrees celsius for the next 2 days....which made all of the snow melt and the street slushy during the day and icy at night. Awesome.Anways, this weekend was still a pretty cool weekend. I had 8 of my friends including their wags over for supper, where I made some homemade pappardelle with my wife and some slow cooked bbq ribs, ya that's right I went outside and stayed by my charcoal bbq for 7 hours with snow up to my knees.
And while the ribs tasted great, they still weren't as tender as I would have liked them to be. Here is what I did, I put them in a salt water and 19+ spice brine in just about equal quantities....black pepper, chipotle, paprika, rosemary, onion salt, garlic powder, black salt, cumin, saffron, cloves, thyme, sage, tarragon, oregano, chicken stock powder, coriander, red pepper flakes, and arabic 7 spice. There are probably a couple I can't remember right now, but feel free to add anything else you want, just make sure it doesn't unbalance the other 19 spices. After 3 hours in the brine/marinade, I used the same spices and made a dry rub for the ribs. After I massaged the rub into the ribs, I quickly grilled them to get a nice char on them and then placed them on the opposite grill with indirect heat. The temperature stayed more or less constant the entire time at 200 degrees, with some oak chips from a wine barrel that i received from a local winery to add some smokey complexity. After 2 hours in the bbq/smoker, I started to apply a baste which had a base of red wine, olive oil, vinegar, fresh rosemary and my favorite spices from the above brine every 30 minutes or so. As I mentioned earlier the ribs tasted fantastic, but they were still a little on the tough side, so I am wondering if the ribs (they looked like brontosaurus pork ribs) were just too big for 7 hours and need at least 3-4 more hours to become tender and fall off the bone, or if I did something wrong. I'm not sure yet but I will definitely keep on trying until I get it perfect.
As for the pappardelle, I have to say I surprised myself. The last time I made pasta for that many people was 4 years ago for my uncle's birthday (lobster ravioli) which my mother helped me with, so I was a little nervous about how they would come out. But they ended up being really good, and I received loads of compliments, most notably from my mother-in-law who said that her mother (my wife's grand mother) wouldn't be happy with me because she doesn't like it when someone makes things better than her. That's a huge compliment considering the woman has probably been making pasta on a regular basis for the better part of the last 60 years. Anyways here is my recipe it makes 3-4 servings: 3/4 cup of regular flour, 3/4 cup semolina flour, a pinch of salt and 2 eggs. Mix the 2 flours and salt in a bowl, and make a little well in the middle of the flour. Beat the eggs a little and drop them into the well, now its time to get dirty. Mix the flour and eggs together with your hands and knead it for about 10 minutes adding more flour if needed. The dough should feel firm but malleable and just a little sticky. Wrap it in plastic and set aside for 30 minutes. Cut it into 4 parts and run it through the machine and the pasta is ready to go. Now all you need is a sauce, which my wife is an expert at, so she made a nice bolognese sauce, which with the pappardelle were just awesome.
But the best part of the day was being with my friends and family over a nice meal, a couple bottles of wine, and Loup Garou!
Loup Garou!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!