We got a slow start...

...on Saturday. I was in Burlingame and we had big plans to have croissant sandwiches for breakfast before heading over to Ikea to start of list of things to get for the new apartment in 3 weeks. We didn't wake up until 9:30, and by the time the coffee and breakfast sandwiches were made and consumed, it was almost 10:30. I was off my game that morning and wasn't really in the mood to try to plan that night's meal. That, and I was preoccupied handling raw bacon. Because of this, after breakfast we decided to look for a recipe together. It's been awhile since we've used the crock-pot so we decided to head over to crockpot365 to find a recipe. We settled on the John McCain Rib Recipe. To complete the meal, we decided to make the iceberg lettuce wedge with blue cheese dressing from Ad Hoc at Home. Besides, we still had a lot of  bacon in the fridge.

While the cast iron skillet was being seasoned with bacon grease in the oven, we headed over to Mollie Stone's where we got 2.22 lbs of beef back ribs, a young (at least little) head of iceberg lettuce, 4 plum tomatoes, and sadly, croutons and bottled salad dressing. You see the Ad Hoc recipe has you making your own dressing, however we just weren't in the mood to buy all of the extra ingredients, especially so close to the move. The recipe also calls for homemade brioche croutons, but after looking at both Mollie Stones and Copenhagen Bakery we couldn't find brioche buns and gave up. I guess that's why Ad Hoc also has you make your own brioche...

When we got back to Matt's apartment he started working on the dry rub. The only modification (besides the adjustments for the amount of meat we had) was to add a bit of red pepper flakes.We forgot that we were low on pepper, and this rub took the pepper to the grave. Here is the dry rub, and the raw rubbed ribs in the crock-pot. Isn't raw meat appealing?

During this I was working on the tomatoes for the salad. They are considered slow roasted tomatoes, baking in a 200 degree oven for 5-6 hours.

I never could have guessed how gross peeled tomatoes would feel.

First, you start by using a paring knife to cut out the core of the tomato. I had to get crafty here (see, I told you this was a craft blog!). Of course the paring knife was in my apartment. I only had an 8-inch chef knife and a chopstick to work with. I had to use the very tip of the chef knife to cut and the chopstick to poke around and scoop out the core. It worked...at least it worked well enough.

 

I never said it looked pretty. After they are cored and scored you put them in boiling water until they start to peel. Transfer them to an ice bath and let cool. Then you get to peel them. This is the really gross part. Two of them were really easy to peel because I had scored them well, the other two not so much. I swear it felt like peeling a sunburn. And I never want to think of my food in relation to dead epidermis. And once I got that thought in my head, I couldn't shake it.

 

Once I got over it and finished peeling (props to Matt he peeled one whole one!) they got sliced in half, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Because we ran out of black pepper in creating the rub, we used lemon pepper. Here they are right before going into the oven, and once we took them out. 

 

Roasting them this way really concentrates the flavor. They can be stored in a container in the fridge for up to a week. The end product is delicious, despite the process of getting there.

 

Since we had 7 hours to kill we eventually made it over to Ikea. And Nordstrom Rack. And Barnes and Noble. And Crate and Barrel. And Williams Sonoma. And Ana's Furniture. And Pottery Barn.

Finally, around 8 o'clock we got to eat dinner. But not before we cooked up our second batch of bacon of the day for the salads. Despite failing with the dressing and croutons, it was still a pretty awesome salad.

 

We completed the meal with  focaccia rolls and Bogle Old Vine. And we both agreed that this was one of the best meals we've made in a long time. Plans are already in the making to use pork ribs with fennel added to the rub.