football sunday marmalade meatballs

We're officially in my favorite sports time of the year - NFL is in full swing, and college basketball is just getting going. I start planning my meals around the games, since making sure you've got some great snacks is just as important to me as making sure you've got your jersey on (for the record, I alternate between Julius Peppers' Panthers jersey, Heath Miller's Steeler's jersey, and a UNC hoodie). Anyway, I remember having a neighbor's family recipe for meatballs years ago at a Super Bowl party, and he told me the secret ingredient was grape jelly. I still haven't tracked down that original recipe, but I found one I could use as a starter. I make my own meatballs (half beef, half pork, minced onion, garlic, parsley, fresh bread crumbs, a couple eggs, and a tiny bit of milk, then sauteed in olive oil), and then added them to the slow cooker with this sauce for a couple hours. They were great on their own, and the slow cooker meant you could graze all Sunday afternoon.

Grocery list: 2 pounds of meatballs, a 16-oz bottle of french dressing (original says Catalina, but WF doesn't carry much by way of super processed dressings), orange marmalade, worcestershire sauce, red pepper flakes.



Add meatballs (either your own or prepared frozen ones) to a slow cooker with 1 16-oz bottle of dressing, 1 cup marmalade, 3 T worcestershire, and red pepper flakes (as hot as you like). If the meatballs are already cooked and warm or room temp, cook on high for 30 minutes to an hour; if you're using frozen ones, the recipe says to cook them on high for 2-3 hours. Turn the slow cooker to the warm setting for as long as the games are on.

slow cooked ribs with lisa's secret* barbecue sauce

*That is, secret until I posted it here (sorry Lisa, this is too good to NOT share!). Cooking ribs in a simmering slow cooker all day seems like a great idea at first: as minimal prep work as it gets, and you have the most delicious fall-off-the-bone tender ribs you've ever tried. The only caveat? Having to sit around and smell ribs cooking for 8 straight hours. Not a big deal unless, like me, you work from home. Anyway, the best part of these ribs is the sauce. And for me, the best part of the sauce is hearing Lisa (A's mom) TALK about the sauce. A is the oldest of 3 boys, so when Lisa tells me how to cook anything, it's always "the boys used to love this." With the ribs, it's "when the boys were all home, I used to have to make 3 crockpots full, I'd have to quadruple the sauce recipe, the boys ate 40 pounds of meat each" etc. I don't know why, but I absolutely love stories about "the boys". Anyway, try this sauce, and you'll know why a mom of 3 200+ pound "boys" has to make 4x or more of the recipe. It's that good.

Grocery list: however many rack(s) of ribs you want to cook - one full rack baby back ribs serves 2-3, technically. Ask the butcher to cut the membrane off the back for you and it will save you a lot of work at home. For the sauce (I make a double batch to cook the ribs in, and another double batch for dipping later on), per batch: 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 medium onion finely chopped, 1.5 T worchestershire, 1 T white vinegar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp mustard, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp salt.



If you're making the sauce for the crockpot, you don't need to cook it first, just mix everything well and drop it in on top of the ribs. Set the slow cooker for 8 hours on low, and then vacate the premises lest you drive yourself crazy with how good it smells. When the ribs are almost done, you can make another batch of the sauce - heat it in a small saucepan on the stove at a low simmer for about 20-30 minutes (the onions will get super tender and all the flavors meld together the longer you let it cook).



This is what the ribs look like when they're almost done. (Note to self: never blog on an empty stomach, especially NOT about ribs.)

hoisin pork roast with rice and sesame broccoli

I'm a little obsessed with my slow cooker (known around my house as the silver bullet, although I'm not sure if I can continue calling it that now that my friend Teddy has pointed out what the term "silver bullet" means around her own establishment...). I just got it 2 months ago, so I'm still in that phase of wanting to try everything at least once. If you put a slow cooker recipe in front of me, I'm compelled to make it.

This one I saw in a Rachael Ray magazine. It turned out well enough, but I'm personally not as big a fan of hoisin sauce as I thought. I think I'll try this recipe again but with a sweeter sauce. Or, like I do with barbeque pork ribs in the silver bullet, make a batch of fresh sauce when the cooking is done. This one calls for the sauce left in the cooker to be reused, and maybe that just grossed me out a bit?

Here's the recipe: tie up one big (2-3#) pork loin roast (it won't look like it needs to be tied when it's raw, but trust me, it will fall completely apart when it starts to cook if you don't tie it at least a couple of times), the put in the slow cooker. Mix sauce in a bowl: 1 bottle (10 oz) hoisin sauce or duck sauce -- I'll have to try the duck sauce next time, bet it's sweeter -- plus 3 smashed garlic cloves, 2 T grated fresh ginger, 1 T chili paste, 1 T rice wine vinegar, 1 T soy sauce, 2 tsp dark sesame oil, 4 tsp cornstarch. Pour this over the meat, set the cooker for 8 hours on low.

When it's done, you take the roast out and set on a platter for a few minutes to rest, then slice it, sprinkle with a little chopped scallions and cilantro, serve over jasmine rice w/extra sauce.

I also made a simple recipe for broccoli from the Moosewood cookbook -- steam a bunch of broccoli florets, then toss with a simple dressing made of 2 parts rice wine vinegar + 1 part dark sesame oil. Salt, pepper, a few red pepper flakes, and shake some sesame seeds on top = nice new way to have broccoli.

(Here's a pic of the silver bullet. What a beautiful baby.)