Crockpot Ribs and Vegetables

Last weekend, I finished off the last of the forest fed pork I had in the freezer. I was feeling lazy, so I just threw some ribs in a crockpot with a bunch of vegetables. Turned out pretty good.

Ingredients:

• Pork ribs from the forest
• Marinade - about 20 hours
  
• Apple Cider
• Cumin
• Cloves
• Vegetables
• Celery Root
• Green, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers with red onion (I saw a pre-cut pack at the grocery store)
• Carrots
• Seasonings
• Garlic (about a bulb and a half)
• Shallots (diced from a jar)
• Apple Cider (~1/2 cup)
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Red pepper
• White pepper
• Paprika
• Celery salt
• olive oil
• honey
• Sauce
• Drippings from everything above
• Apple Cider (~1/3 cup)
• Cane sugar
• Cloves
• Cumin
• Red pepper

Procedure:

The night before, I knew I'd want to cook the ribs so I threw them in a freezer bag with apple cider, cloves, and cumin to marinate.  The next evening, I took a pre-cut pack of various bell peppers and red onion, put it in the crock pot, added celery root and carrots, all the seasonings, and tossed all that in a crockpot, coating the vegetables with olive oil and seasonings. I then cut the meat into individual ribs, placed them on top of the vegetables, sprinkled on some more pepper, honey, and a little apple cider. That was cooked at about 200-250 for about an hour and a half.

After everything was done, I pulled everything out of the crockpot, leaving the drippings - mostly some pork fat, cider, and garlic, all of which had been flavored by all of the great vegetables. I added a little more cider, a little raw cane sugar, cloves, cumin, and red pepper, then reduced it for about 5-10 minutes. If reducing sounds fancy, it is not - you just simmer it until it gets thicker - the sugars get caramelized and you cook off some water. I then added the ribs back to the sauce for about 5-10 minutes, stirring most of the time to really coat them well.

Resulting Deliciousness:

These ribs were pretty good, but the vegetables stole the show - they were absolutely fantastic. I think this was because I don't have a very good crockpot, I have a multipurpose thing that's mostly good for frying. The low temperature controls aren't very good, so I basically steamed this stuff in an hour and a half instead of slow cooking it over about 4 hours, as I intended. As a result, the vegetables were nicely done, but the ribs had a very slightly chewy texture, not the perfect tenderness you want for ribs. But, they were still really good. If you have a real crockpot or a dutch oven, this would probably turn out better, texturally speaking. 

  

If you want to see some really well-done ribs, check out my Spring Break '08 Ribs.