Tender Oven Ribs

This weekend I traveled home to St. Louis to surprise my grandma for her birthday.  I had a wonderful time relaxing with my family and getting some cooking and crafting done.  While I was home I wanted to make my grandma an awesome dish.  I decided to cook up some St. Louis style ribs. These ribs are super easy to make and got great reviews from the family. They are so tender they just fall off the bone.  Don't worry about putting knives on the table! My mom made us some awesome sides to go with them including cole slaw and bakes zucchini fries. SOOO yummy.

My lovely Grandma

Oven baked ribs

Ingredients:

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tbsp onion flakes

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp black pepper

1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp salt

2 slabs St. Louis style ribs

1 bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce

Instructions:

1) Remove the membrane from the bone side of each rack of ribs.  This can be done by firmly pulling with your fingers.  It is important to remove this to allow the rub to fully penetrate the meat.

2) Rince each slab in cool water and pat dry.

3) In a small bowl combine salt, pepper, brown sugar, paprika, red pepper flakes, onion flakes, cinnamon, and garlic powder.  Feel free to adjust the amounts to suit your tastes. 

4) Place the ribs in a pan large enough to lay flat.  Make sure the pan has decent sides because grease will build up in the pan as they are cooking.

5) Rub both sides of the ribs thoroughly with the rub.

6) Place the ribs in the pan so that they are meat side down.  Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.  

7) After 2+ hours remove the ribs from the fridge and pre-heat the oven to 225 degrees.  Remove the plastic wrap from the ribs and cover the pan with foil.  Place in the oven and cook for 5 hours.

8) Remove the ribs from the oven and very carefully drain the fat from the pan.  Then brush BBQ sauce on the bone side of the ribs.  Once both slabs are covered flip the ribs over gently and cover the meat side with sauce.  

9) Bump the oven temp up to 300 degrees and place the ribs back in the oven for 30 minutes uncovered.

10) Remove from oven and ENJOY!  

Quick Frito Burrito

The Frito Burrito from Taco Bell used to be my favorite 4th meal. Then, like most good things, they stopped making it.  That was a very sad day in my life.  After that I decided to make my own. Its super quick to make and mighty tasty.

Frito Burrito

Ingredients:

1 can of your favorite chili

1/3 cup of Fritos

1/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese

8"-10" flour tortillas

1/4 cup diced onions (optional)

Directions:

1) Heat chili in a pan on medium heat until nice and hot

2) Add 1/3 cup of cheese and stir together until completely melted

3) Place tortilla in the microwave for about 15 sec to make sure its nice and pliable 

4) Spoon on the chili cheese mixture and add a layer of Fritos

5) Wrap it up and enjoy!

Peach Margarita Salsa

Peaches are one of my favorite fruits.  Biting into a ripe juicy peach just screams summer to me. Also, peaches look like little butts. Where I grew up peaches were kind of a big deal.  Once late July hit you would see signs pop up everywhere for Calhoun County peaches.  You could buy them at every stand and being sold out of the back of trucks on any country road. They are some of the best peaches I have ever had.  While I wasn't able to get my hands on any Calhoun County peaches up here in Chicago, I was able to find some suitable California peaches at the local produce market. I decided to use some of these peaches for a yummy salsa.

Peach Margarita Salsa

Ingredients:

1 large tomato

2 peaches

1 yellow bell pepper

1/2 sweet onion

1 jalapeno pepper

juice from 1 lime

1/2 tsp. cumin

3 tbsp. tequila

Directions:

1) Chop all ingredients and place in large bowl

2) Add cumin, lime juice and tequila and stir it all together.

3) Cover and refrigerate for 3-5 hours before serving.

4) Remove from fridge and serve.

This can be served with chips or on top of your favorite grilled meat such as chicken or fish.  As you can see this recipe makes A LOT of salsa.  This is great for big families or parties, but if you're forever alone like me I recommend cutting the recipe in half unless you plan on eating nothing but salsa for awhile.

Blood bath

Happy Friday the 13th everyone!! I know by the time I got home today I was ready for a drink.  In honor of today I have created a drink aptly named...blood bath.  Pair it with your favorite slasher movie and you have yourself a solid night.

Ingredients:

1oz Pomegranate Schnapps

1oz Raspberry Vodka

1oz Lemon Lime Soda

3oz Cranberry Juice

Light corn syrup

red food coloring

Directions:

1) In a wide shallow bowl pour enough corm syrup in that you can dip the rim of your glass in.  Mix in red food coloring with a spoon to the desired shade of red.

2) Dip the rim of the glass in the red corn syrup.  Immediately stick the glass in the freezer to harden the drips.  

3) While the glass is chilling you can begin mixing the drink.  Grab a cocktail shaker and toss in some ice. Only vampires like their blood warm.  Pour in the vodka, schnapps, cranberry juice, and soda.

4) Shake, shake, shake

5) Once drips have hardend pour into glass and enjoy your blood bath.

Horn

Last week I was contacted about the unique opportunity to be a play tester for a new game coming out.  I immediately said I was interested and set up a time to go try out the game. So yesterday, dressed in my finest Yoshi t-shirt, I venture over to Phosphor Games in the West Loop to test out a build of their upcoming game Horn.

IGN Horn article

While I can't say much about the game due to my non-disclosure agreement, I can tell you a bit about my experience there.  I have never visited any type of game studio before so I wasn't sure what to expect.  The interior of the studio was a mix of stainless steel and wood beams.  Aside from a few skylights the main source of light was the soft glow of many computer monitors.  Upon arrival I was given a tour of the studio.  The walls were adorned with various game characters such as Megaman and Mario, as well as stills from their own games. They have a game room containing a ping pong table as well as an air hockey table and a kitchen well stocked with various snacks and sodas. Overall the atmosphere was very fun, and looked like a great place to work.

Screen shot from Horn

 I had a little bit of time to kill before they were ready for me to play the game, so played a bit of ping pong with one of the programmers.  Thank god my gaming skills are slightly better than my ping pong skills. After about 15 minutes of this they were ready for me.  In true gamer fashion I was offered my choice of chips, soda, and old pizza before I got started.  I selected some Cool Ranch Doritos and a Pepsi (no Coke, shame shame) and headed to the room where I would be playing the game.  I entered a small room that contained a couch (complete with pillow and blanket), two chairs and a small table.  I was handed an iPad loaded with the build of the game I would be testing and set to work making my way through it.  The entire time I played there was someone sitting right beside me taking notes on my every move.  Now I don't really perform well under pressure so this was a bit jarring at first, but after a little of game play and figuring out the mechanics I began to relax.  Three hours later I emerged from the room a victor.  I had defeated every foe I could find and thoroughly explored everything.  I was given a short survey to fill out about the game and was then free to make the trek home.  I can definitely say my first experience as a play tester was a good one and I hope many more opportunities like this come my way in the future.

Bob-omb Buckeyes

I made these awhile back for a group of my favorite fellas and they are too perfect not to share on here. You start with regular buckeye candy and with a few embellishments you can turn them into cute little bob-ombs.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 cups confectioners' sugar
• 4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• orange or yellow candies (I uses Reese's Pieces)
• vanilla icing
• Yellow taffy or fondant

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla and confectioners' sugar. The dough will look dry. Sample it, its quite yummy by itself. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a waxed paper-lined cookie sheet.
2. Press a toothpick into the top of each ball (to be used later as the handle for dipping) and chill in freezer until firm, about 1 hour.  Make sure those balls are nice and hard, you don't want them falling apart when you get them in the chocolate. 
3. Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until smooth. Sample it, it's also quite yummy by itself.
4. Dip frozen peanut butter balls in chocolate holding onto the toothpick. Make sure they are completely covered.  This can get messy. Eat all the mistakes, they still taste great. Use of a second toothpick is helpful. Put back on the cookie sheet and give eat one 2 candy feet.  Place in refrigerator until chocolate hardens and feet are secure.
5. Using a rolling pin flatten out fondant or taffy and cut out several turn key shapes for the back of the bob-omb.  I found using an exacto knife was best.  Make sure to leave a long enough section that it can be inserted into the buckeye.
6. Remove the buckeyes from the freezer.  Using the exacto knife cut a small hole in the back of the buckeye.  Dip the end of your turn key in chocolate and attach it to the back where you cut the hole.
7. Place icing in a baggy and snip off a tiny bit of the tip.  Carefully give your bob-omb 2 round eyes and wick.
8. Refrigerate until ready to impress all your nerdy friends.

Kirby and Lumas

Most of my weekend was spent playing two very good games.  The first is Kirby's Return to Dreamland.  You and up to 3 of your friends can fight your way through Dreamland as a variety of characters fighting all kinds of bosses and absorbing their abilities in true Kirby style.  The second game I started is Super Mario Galaxy. You play as Mario making your way through different galaxies finding power stars to help save Princess Peach.  You are also aided by some adorable little characters called Lumas.

These games put me in the mood to create some bead sprites.  Bead sprites are made by putting perler beads on a grid and ironing them together.  Here are a few patterns for some super cute Kirby and Luma bead sprites:

Adorable Sleeping Kirby

Flying Kirby and Victorious Kirby

Blue Luma

Happy Luma bead sprites