Lazy afternoon tag team dinner!!

Hello fellow foodies and food lovers, I hope you have been enjoying food summer and the endless adventures to be had when joining the two together!  Tonights adventure is a little bit different because I am not the soul mastermind behind the outcome of tonight's mouth watering meal.  That's right tonight I called on help from "THE GRILL MASTER" aka my husband.  Typically I am the cook of the house the kitchen is my area, however when we grill I leave the fire and flames to him. One of our favorite things to do on a lazy weekend day around the house, is fire up the grill cook something low and slow open a few beers and just hang out.  The guilty pleasure of tonight's low and slows was mouth watering fall off the bone ribs.  Ribs are are perfect choice for low and slow for two reasons. First being the obvious the are ribs meaning a lot of marbling aka fat, allowing to cook for a long time without drying out.  Second reason the ribs have a lot of connective tissue and cooking them slow allows time to break down those connective tissues.  End product is a tender fall off the bone rib.

Seasoning the ribs is a personal call wet? Dry? sweet? Smokey? All good all work me I like to do both a dry rub and a wet application.  I do the dry rub first the night before and let all the flavors marry on the ribs in the fridge over night. My wet application I cheat a little and use a store bought BBQ sauce towards the end to give almost a candy like coating..... Now more then low and slow I am not much of an expert on cooking ribs so this post is more about flavors and the side dish.

Dry Rub

Chili powder 
Cumin powder 
Garlic powder
Mustard powder
Salt & pepper
Brown sugar

Now we have the star of our show the ribs they are perfect and delicious, we just need something to go along side our ribs. A side that stands on it's own with strong flavors, yet does not over sing or shadow the star of the meal.  To me every perfect meal has one main star everything else is a supporting roll to help the star of the dish stand out.  I tend to stick with same over all feel and flavor without being the exact same flavors.

A roasted warm sweet potato salad played perfect with the ribs and still stands alone in flavor.  Also a super easy dish that you can make ahead of time and serve at room temp or hot.  Heat your oven to 400 degrees chop one sweet potato into bite size pieces along with one red bell pepper spread on a back sheet. Add half a red onion diced small toss everything with olive oil salt and pepper till potatoes are tender and golden about 40 minutes.  To make the dressing you need a container with a lid add apple cider vinegar, mustard, honey, salt and pepper and shake to well combined. Toss all together and serve.  A good tip when ever you make something like a potato salad you always want to finish with something green and fresh such as basil or parsley. (Tip if you do not have any fresh herbs in your fridge a good replacement is Arugula because of it peppery pungent flavor.)

So there you go a fun relaxing food adventure! Remember cooking is about having fun and trying new things so take the over all methods and use your own flavors.  Until next time have fun and play with your food.