Angie's Crock Pot Country Ribs

Angie is a good friend of mine - we met under somewhat unusual circumstances, but bonded over our mutual love of cooking and distaste for newbie wedding planners. Angie's blog can be found at right - Adventures in Home Cooking. I took her country ribs recipe and adapted it based on her comments and our penchant for all things spicy.

Crock Pot Country Ribs

3-4 lbs. of country style ribs
1/2 c. ketchup
1/2 c. BBQ sauce (we LOVE Robinson's hot recipe)
1/2 c. beef broth
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. cider vinegar
2 tbsp. dry mustard
1 tbsp. Penzey's black and red pepper blend (or 1/2 tbsp. each black and cayenne peppers)

Whisk all ingredients together (except ribs) in the bottom of a crock pot. Add ribs and immerse so that they are covered with the liquid. Cook on high for 4 hours or so, or on low for 6 hours. You can definitely cook them for longer, but they do start to fall apart.

Angie's recipe calls for serving the ribs with the pan juices; however, we found the resulting juice to be far too greasy for our tastes. I fished the rib meat out of the crock pot and put it into a saucepan and ladled just a bit of the pan juices over the meat to keep it moist. I served the rib meat with additional BBQ sauce at the table. Yummmmmmm.

This went fabulously with the Yukon Gold and Sweet Potato Gratin below and a green salad.