BBQ Baby Back Pork Ribs

Tonight's dinner was tres easy.  I made the ribs, Jon made the garlic bread and peas and corn.  I love making dinners that don't require me to think too hard and yet seem to satisfying and fool proof.  Ahh...bake and slather with BBQ sauce.  What could be easier?

I think I started mixing my own BBQ sauce in college.  Back then the ingredients included ketchup, brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic powder and pepper.  Not too much has changed.  A few months ago a priest friend of mine who joined us for dinner quite regularly mentioned that his family used molasses in their BBQ sauce, so I gave it a whirl.  Now the BBQ sauce I make has less sodium in it because I stopped using soy sauce and only use molasses.  Did you know that Molasses (at least organic molasses) is a good source of potassium, calcium, and iron?  Cool huh?  So hey, my BBQ sauce has some vitamins in it.  Cool.

There's not much to the prep for these baby back ribs, just lots of sprinkling.  I'll be honest, I don't really know how much of any one powder I used in the process, so you'll just have to be satisfied with a "good sprinkling" as a guideline.



I almost forgot to take a picture!  I was literally about to cut into my hunk of ribs and dropped my utensils when I remembered that I was going to blog about tonight's dinner!  Sorry I didn't get a shot of the whole set of ribs!



BBQ  Baby Back Pork Ribs

(I made this up and looked up temperature and timings in the Better Homes and Gardens checkered book)

Ingredients

For the ribs:

2lbs baby back ribs (please make sure they are completely thawed when you start)
garlic powder
onion powder
salt
pepper

For the sauce:
1/4c ketchup
2tbsp molasses (organic and unsulphured!)
1tbsp honey
2tsp spicy brown mustard or Dijon mustard
1tsp brown sugar

1tbsp garlic powder

2tsp freshly cracked black pepper

salt to taste

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

2.  Give the ribs a good sprinkling of the onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and rub it in on both sides.



The ribs sprinkled and rubbed with the powders and salt and pepper.  If you like them spicy sprinkle them with cayenne pepper too!



3.  Bake on a rack in a roasting pan in the 350 degree oven for one hour.

4.  While the ribs are baking combine all the sauce ingredients.  Taste it!  If it tastes too much like ketchup, or too sweet add some garlic powder and a bit of salt.  If it's too salty add a bit more honey, brown sugar, or ketchup.  It's really a taste thing with bbq sauce.  If you like a spicy sauce try adding a bit of cayenne pepper or your favorite hot sauce.

5.  After the ribs are done baking for an hour slather them with sauce on both sides and return them to the oven for another 30 minutes.  Serve with the leftover sauce. 


See?  Super easy, very tasty, and a fraction of the cost of going out for baby back ribs.   One of these days I might try making a bbq sauce with some apple cider or some applesauce instead of honey to see what that tastes like.  Any of you have great bbq sauce making tips? 
I'd love to hear them since I'm such an amateur at this.


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear God,
  I thank you for two healthy children and a healthy pregnancy so far.  Thank you for their little bbq sauce smeared faces.  Please help my husband and I continue to nourish these wonderful little people and to lead them closer to you.  Amen.