Today is the thirty-fourth consecutive day with a rain shower, I spent the morning at the farmers’ market, setting things up, hiding from the rain, setting things up, drying things off, setting things up, running from a thunder storm and heading home.
The plan was to celebrate the Fourth at a potluck picnic with friends. Having run out of time, I decided to ‘cheat ‘ by doctoring canned baked beans. At the grocery store, I picked up a rack of spare ribs and and small head of cabbage along with the beans in case the picnic was the victim of yet another downpour. I got ready while the beans where baking, (heating) in the oven. You don’t need a recipe to doctor canned beans but here’s how I did it:
Baked Beans
In a baking dish, I combined two varieties of baked beans, a can of drained and rinsed kidney beans, a heaping tablespoon of grainy mustard, a good dose of hot sauce and a medium onion, chopped. I put it all into the oven at three hundred and fifty degrees while I got ready for the picnic.
The beans were ready, I was ready and then Charles wrenched his back and headed for the pain meds and a hot bath. I called our friends to express regret and then I headed into the kitchen to pull together an easy, quick (at least in prep time), dinner of spare ribs, baked beans and coleslaw.
A meal that says summertime, picnid and fire works.
Never mind that it was raining, AGAIN, cold enough to need a woolly sweater and the fireworks will probably be cancelled.
Baked Spareribs
I put the ribs on a rack in a baking dish lined with aluminum foil, tented them with more foil and baked for an hour at three 350 degrees. Then, I removed the foil, and used a silicon basting brush to apply a layer of barbecue sauce, (right from the bottle), to the ribs. I baked the ribs for another forty-five minuets, adding more barbeque sauce every fifteen minutes.
On to the coleslaw while the ribs cooked.
Coleslaw
I transformed half a small head of cabbage into fine shreds, combined it with a tablespoon of kosher salt and left it to wilt and soften. After half an hour, I rinsed the cabbage with lots of cold water and then squeezed it to get it as dry as possible.
In the bottom of a serving bowl, I made a dressing consisting of half a cup of mayo, a teaspoon of red wine vinegar, a big pinch of sugar, one shredded carrot, and a teaspoon of celery seeds, added the cabbage; stirred it up – done!
Dinner was picnic worthy. The ribs were tender, tasty, not greasy; the beans had the right amount of zip and the coleslaw added a fresh kick.
This was not a fussy meal made with loads of planning, preparation and fancy techniques; but just right for a ‘last minute, sore back, rainy night with no fire works expected’ dinner at home.
Happy Independence Day!
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