Never Send a Vegetarian to Buy Meat!

So, this weekend, Ramses (my darling dog) was sicker than a damn dog. Scary sick. Of course, this was also the weekend that we all decided to use my "venue" to celebrate our friend Mike's b'day. So, I ferried between my barfing dog and my guests. (Oh, brother! Now, there's a mental picture . . .)

What I learned this weekend? Truer words were never spoken ~ never send a vegetarian to buy meat.

So, we decided to make use of the wonderful weather and do a combination BBQ / picnic.

My next door neighbor, Chuck, thought BBQ'd spare ribs would be great. (OK. OK. My first thought was ~ eeesh but, hey, it wasn't my birthday.) I headed to the store and stood in front of the meat case. Gawd, I had no idea. By the process of elimination, I decided on country style (have no idea what that is) spare ribs. Of course, I also bought wild salmon for me and anyone else who might want to nosh on it.

When I got home, I went to epicurious.com for recipes for spare rib recipes. Oh, dear! The majority of them called for preparation to start the night before. Mmmmm, that's not going to work. I need the fast method. One called for boiling them. That didn't sound so appetizing. Another called for cooking them at a very low heat for several hours and then finishing them up on the BBQ. Bingo! That's for me.

So, here was the menu: BBQ's Country-spare ribs, Smoked wild salmon, red potato salad (used the brine from my pickles for the sauce ~ oh! Yum), Caesar salad, smoked salmon mousse, mixed olive tapenade, sourdough bread, red wine, Prosecco with brownies for dessert.

Here were the successes and more about the misses:

The red potato salad. Utterly delish! Used the brine from my pickles and added diced green onions, chopped McSweet's onions, a little mayonnaise, Plochman's mustard, capers, my pickles rough chopped, garlic, red pepper flakes, Frank's Red Hot, kalamata olives, fresh parsley from my little kitchen garden ~ and other things that don't come to mind right now.

The wild salmon mousse. This was really nice and the first time I've made it. My feeling about most salmon mousse is that it's a whole lot of cream cheese and not really much salmon. Well, I had some of my smoked salmon that I wasn't happy with the texture so I put it into the Cuisinart and chopped it up. It was actually very nice and crumbly, then I added a little cream cheese ~ enough to hold it together but not drown it. Then I started adding things that sounded good. Green onions, garlic, some pica de gallo spice, red pepper flakes, a couple of dashes of Worcestershire sauce, some nice creamed horseradish, fresh parsley and then started tasting and re-adding until I liked the final outcome. Excellent! 'Course, it made a bunch, so a small container went home with each person as they went out the door.

The spare ribs. Mmmmmm ~ not my finest hour. I believed the suggestion of slow cooking it in the oven for two to three hours and then putting it on the BBQ. I decided to put it in the smoker since it's a very low heat. When the time was nearly up, I added a rack at the top for my salmon. Well, I thought the spare ribs looked dry and over-done. I didn't even think sauce would save them. Yes, everyone ate them but maybe they were starving and/or just being polite. The worst of the smoker drama was my salmon. It was overcooked! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat! Jeeze. What was a surprise though was that it was delicious over the weekend once it had rested in the refrigerator. It's a mystery.

The Caesar salad was very nice. Audrey brought fresh lettuce from her garden on Bainbridge Island.

The pictures are of the aftermath. We got so focused on eating we forgot to take the pretty pictures for the blog. Bad Heidi!

Day 62 Everyday Grateful ~

Cool this morning.

Sunny predicted by this afternoon. 

All is right with the world!