Easy Smokey Country Syle Ribs

We decided to get a head start on our Labor Day cooking by doing it on Sunday. That way today we could do absolutely nothing but lay around and watch movies and eat leftovers...all day long. I ate some leftover potatoes for breakfast, and they were cold, and yes they were good. I'm on a mad diet if you can't tell. I'll start it over again tomorrow I guess, because I already blew it for the day. We haven't used the smoker much this summer because it has just been so hot and hubs is the one that is outside always dealing with it, I don't come near that smoker. It's his job, I'll make the sides and prepare the meat but he gets to burn up and drink his beer. I found some country style pork ribs at our local grocery store really cheap and thought those would be perfect for our little cook out. And I was right! They were just completely tender that you could cut it with a fork, even little Sadie chowed them down and she doesn't even have a whole mouth full of teeth yet, close, but not yet! I cheated a little though and didn't make my own rub, I was being lazy, but this is our FAVORITE store bought rub: McCormick Grill Mates Sweet and Smoky Rub with cinnamon and chipotle.  I love anything with any type of chipotle flavor in it. It is excellent on anything you put it on and it's cheap, around $2, and a little goes a long way! So this where alot of flavor on the ribs came from. Go get ya a little tub of this stuff, you won't be sorry!

Here's how we made our ribs if you feel like breaking out the smoker....

Smokey Country Style Ribs

3-5 lbs country style pork ribs, boneless

Sweet and Smoky rub

2 tbs liquid smoke, mesquite flavored

Your favorite BBQ sauce to brush and baste with

For the smoker:

Charcoal, of course, and we used apple wood chips, heated to 225 degrees

(Country style ribs can tend to be on the fatty side so I did trim some of the fat off, a little is okay though for a little more of the flavoring) An hour before you are going to put the ribs on the smoker rub it down real good with your rub. Put them in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes just to let the flavor soak into them a little more. Take them out and sit them down on aluminum foil. Fold in the sides a little so that when you put the liquid smoke on them it doesn't run off the sides. Pour your liquid smoke over them and brush with BBQ sauce. Completely cover them in aluminum foil and when your smoker is ready to go put them on in there. We let them smoke away for about 2 hours and took them off and basted them with BBQ sauce and do that every hour to get from drying out. We; well ok, hubs, cooked them for a total of 5 1/2 hours.

And 5 beers later. A beer an hour, I guess.

(Here's a pic to let ya know what I'm working with here!)

If you don't have a smoker, or the patience, or the not wanting to sweat and drink beers doing it, you could totally do it in the oven. Just wrap them still in foil put them in a casserole dish or deep pan bake at 250 for 2 1/2 hours, take them out, drain the juice, baste with BBQ sauce, reduce the heat to 225 and cook for an hour longer. (Maybe a little longer than an hour depending on how thick or how many ribs you have). This is how we do it in the winter time with we don't want to freeze our butts off.

I did try something different though, instead of using our family BBQ sauce (Which I STILL don't have the recipe for and probably won't ever get the recipe for, but even if I did it is TOP SECRET, sorry guys, my mom would MURDER me. Mom, recipe, please? I'm almost out!) Anyways, I did try a different kind of BBQ sauce for these ribs that sounded different but good, Texas people like there red BBQ sauce, white BBQ sauce sounds scary! But I was a little on the crazy side yesterday and decided to give it a shot. I got it from Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate and here's a link to her Alabama White BBQ Sauce. It was really good, we even dipped some chips into it! We made the PW's Potatoes au Gratin along side with it, or otherwise known as my breakfast! The best part of the whole dinner was how happy hubs was when he walked in with a plate full of ribs...

And 5 beers later.

Happy Labor Day to All!

Kirby