Tuscan Ribs

I'm the sauce girl.  Salad dressing, gravy, barbecue sauce.  You name it.  I love it.  So, for me to eat ribs without barbecue sauce you have to be talking about some seriously good ribs.  I ate these with NO sauce. 

A few weeks ago I dredged three cookbooks out of the bargain bin at the grocery store.  They sell closeouts at wonderfully low prices.  This cookbook I bought because of a recipe called Hoosier Lamb Chops.  As I browsed through it I found loads of recipes I'd like to try.  Ribs sounded good.  Tuscan Ribs sounded fabulous.  And, I thought it'd be a great weekend meal.  Make the rub and slather them on Saturday.  Smoke them on Sunday.  Well, no, the recipe didn't call for smoking the ribs.  But,we love to smoke just about anything on our grill. 

We made these a couple of weeks ago and absolutely devoured them.  And, cut the other racks into serving size pieces and froze them.  For evenings when we get home too late and don't want to cook.  Tonight was one of those nights.  We pulled around the corner to our house and both of us went WOW - look at those!  

Crocus that were open and stunningly beautiful.  And, one little iris:

So, we spent about an hour wandering the yard and chatting about what we'd like to accomplish this year.  I wish I'd taken a notebook outside and started a written list of what we need to/want to buy (yeah, that's the financial planner coming out - distinguish between your wants and your needs...)  Here are some of the fun things we saw:

The old hellebore (aka lenten rose) has a couple of flowers open.  Rather buried int he leaves but open.  And, tons of buds.  The newbie from last year looks like it's going to do really well. 

No signs of asparagus in the garden but the srawberries are coming back nicely.  There are a few daffodils on the south wall of the house that are about to bloom.  The golden raspberries have loads of buds as does the wisteria.  The daylilies all over the yard are just going crazy.  As are the surprise lilies.  We'll have to divide those this year.  And, we really will have to divide our siberian iris.  All 25 have now gotten empty spots in their centers.  We'll probably have a LOT of those to give away.  If you live in this area and would like some starts, please let me know.  We've got plenty to share!

Now, it was time to head to the south side of the fence.  A total riot of crocus!  And, soon to follow, an equal number of daffodils.  This year we're hoping to put a path through here and mulch the rest.  Too many of our neighbors don't understand the theory that you've got to let the daffodil leaves die down to store nutrients for the next year...  With mulch instead of grass we'll not have to worry!

Finally, we were off to the herb garden.  The sorrel is starting to come back.  The blueberry bushes, small though they may be, are growing.  And the lavendar, thyme and marjoram look great.  Ok, so they need a bit of trimming.  But, to spring-starved eyes, they look fabulous!

Now, did I mention that we're supposed to get 6-9" of snow tomorrow?  LOL.  I guess I ignored that.  The good news is that snow is an insulator.  It's much better for our plants than fifteen degrees.  So, we'll enjoy what will hopefully be the last snow of the season and look forward to seeing our flowers again soon.

Now, on to our recipe: 

Tuscan Ribs

Ingredients:

2 T olive oil
2 T rosemary, chopped fresh or 1 t dried
1 1/2 T kosher salt
1 1/2 T fennel seeds
2 t freshly ground pepper
2 t fresh chopped sage or 1 t dried
2 t fresh thyme, chopped or 1/2 t dried
2 t paprika
1/2 - 1 t crushed red pepper (how much heat do you like?)
1 t ground coriander
1/2 t ground allspice
6 lbs pork ribs
3 T balsamic glaze

Directions:

Mix all the herbs and spices with the olive oil to make the spice paste.  Smear the spice paste over the ribs, cover and refrigerate overnight.  The original recipe called for roasting the ribs at 325 for two hours the broiling them for two minutes with the balsamic glaze drizzled over them.  Instead, we smoked ours for a couple of hours at about 325.  We used cherry wood. 

adapted from Fix It and Enjoy It