Crock Pot Korean Style Ribs

Despite having been back at this whole law school thing for the past month, my body thought this past week would be a great time to make my sleep schedule go haywire. "What's that? You want to sleep in until noon this Saturday? You're waking up around 8:30 and you will like it." To put it mildly, it sucks. What the hell am I going to do on a punishingly early Saturday morning (Besides watch Animaniacs)?

Enter crock pot.

It's well established, to me anyway, that crock pots represent the pinnacle of human achievement. You can toss in whatever you want, spend the day doing cool things cool people do, come back and it's done! It's genius. And since I knew I had time on my hands, I figured I'd run to Jahn Iggle to grab the ingredients and fix up some Korean ribs. Let's fire up the "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" soundtrack and get to work, shall we?

Crock Pot Korean Style Ribs

Recipe Link:  Crepes of Wrath

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons ground ginger (The recipe I linked to calls for fresh minced ginger, but the one-two combo of ground ginger's relative cheapness and my laziness led me to using it instead. Seemed to work just fine.)
4 cloves of crushed garlic
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
4-5 pounds pork short ribs
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons cold water
4 cups cooked rice (for serving)

The Cookin':
First things first, toss your ribs in your big ol' crock pot.

Then mix together the soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic and red pepper flakes in a bowl.

Scrumptulescent. Anyway, when you're done with that pour it all over the ribs in the crock pot.

Now put on the lid and set it to high for six hours or low for seven to eight. We're going for the low setting because it's always better. Always. You want to set it to high? Your mother and I are very disappointed.

Now go off and do whatever. I decided to try to read law school stuff, which put me right to sleep (I'M CURED). I then woke up at halftime of the Penn State game, and made a face that looked a lot like this upon seeing the score.

We were losing to Temple. TEMPLE. Urge to kill. Rising. Anyway, after that wet fart of a game, the ribs were done! Let's get back to those.

Yessiree bob. Take out all the meat and bone that you can and put it all on a plate. Then skim all the excess fat off the sauce and pour it into a saucepan. This might be when you wanna start making the rice too, but really you can make it whenever.

Put the ribs back in the crock pot, put down the lid, and for fuck's sake, make sure it's turned off. Not to warm. Off. PAY ATTENTION. Now throw the cornstarch and cold water into the saucepan, and bring it to a boil for two minutes, stirring the entire time. Once it gets nice and thick, that's when to stop.

Time for the main event, folks. Throw some ribs, rice and veggies (I stir-fried what I had in my fridge up real quick) on a plate, and drizzle that sauce all over the ribs. I tossed on some sesame seeds, but if you've got some green onions sitting around somewhere, those work too.

I took one bite of the ribs, and came to one immediate, startling conclusion.

Quoth the prophet Martin Lawrence, "This shit just got real." The meat was a little dryer than I would've liked, but it was so tender, and the sauce and the veggies did a nice job of counteracting the dryness. And that sauce. Hoo boy that sauce. THIS is something I'm making again sometime soon, but not too soon, because there are roughly enough leftovers to feed me for a week.

Yes, I watched Wallace and Gromit while I ate Asian food. Deal with it. Now please excuse me while I go look for a job read for International Law play Halo.

Zucchini Lasagna, or How I Learned To Hate My Smoke Alarm

I first found this recipe while I was screwing around in one of my classes a few weeks ago, but I held off on making it because it seemed like it'd take too much effort. Fast forward to yesterday. I hadn't gone to the grocery store in about two weeks, it's roughly a billion degrees outside (In PA terms), and I'd just read an awesome article about the 20th anniversary of "Goodfellas".

That article really put me in the mood for some sort of Italian food, and considering I hadn't cooked anything since a big batch of chili a week and a half ago, I came to the conclusion that now was the time. After making a massive Giant Eagle trip this morning, I was all set for when I got back from school this afternoon.

Too bad my neighbors probably thought I tried to burn the building down by the end of it.

Zucchini Lasagna with Bechamel Sauce
Recipe Link: http://crepesofwrath.net/2009/09/02/zucchini-lasagna-with-bechamel-sauce/

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1 pound ground hot Italian pork sausage
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream or milk (I don't really think it matters which one you use)
28 oz. can diced tomatoes with juice
1 pint ricotta cheese
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 cups grated mozzarella
2 medium sized zucchini, sliced into thin rounds
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup flour
4 cups milk
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

As a quick aside, I know the recipe calls for ground sausage, but Giant Eagle didn't have any of that readily available. I decided to put the clamps to them and crush the sausages with my hands. That seemed to do the trick!

The Cookin':
First, heat up your olive oil over medium heat, and then toss in your chopped onion and celery. Saute all of until it becomes clear, then throw in your garlic, ground beef, and sausages.

Stir it around to keep breaking it all up until there's no pink meat left.

Mmmmmm. I was starving at this point, so you have no idea how hard it was for keep myself from quitting right about here and just scarfing this down. Lucky for me, I trucked on. Anyway, when it's all browned, throw in the heavy cream/milk/whatever.

Stir it a bunch to spread it around, and then simmer until just about all of it is evaporated. It's at this point that we dump in all our diced tomatoes and their juices.

Let the meat sauce simmer for about an hour, and stir it occasionally.

It was right about now that I looked at my skillet, which was damn near overflowing, and said to myself "Hmm, I probably should have used something bigger." This would become a running theme of the evening.

Anyway, now's about the time you oughta slice up your zucchini.

That is one big pile of shit zucchini. Sorry, I watched Jurassic Park this past weekend. Now that that's done, you should probably mix your egg, parmesan and ricotta in a small bowl. Oh, you should probably preheat your oven to 375 right about now.

Ahhhh, now it's time for the bechamel sauce. Now, before I made this, I had no idea what the hell bechamel sauce was. Cue Wikipedia to the rescue! It's apparently a big deal in french cooking, and used extensively in lasagnas. Considering the extent of my knowledge of french cooking comes from "Ratatouille", it's not much of a surprise I'd never heard of it. Lucky for me, it's really tasty and easy to make.

First things first, melt your butter over medium heat.

As soon as it's melted, toss in the flour. Whisk the mixture around for about a minute.

You then sloooowly pour in the milk, whisking the entire time to make sure nothing burns, and bring it to a boil. Once that happens, toss in the salt and let it simmer for about eight minutes.

Once that's done, set it aside. It's time for the main event, folks. Are you ready? Because BOOOOOOONESAW IS REEEEEADY.

Now, pour in juuuust enough meat sauce to cover the bottom of a 13x9 pan coated in Pam.

Then throw a layer of zucchini on top of that.

Then toss on 1/3 of your ricotta/parmesan mix, and some mozarella on top of it. Repeat this two more times. Finish it up by pouring the bechamel sauce on top of the heap. This is right about the time everything started going off the rails, because as soon as I started pouring it, it was like a fucking flood on my stove.

Ohhhhhh lordy did it overflow. I ended up having to paper towel the sides and spoon out some of the sauce to relieve the pressure. I hoped that'd do the trick. Anyway, time to throw on some mozarella on top of all this and send it on its merry way in the oven. If you're luckier than I was, leave it in there for 40 to 50 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.

Right about now I finally decided to wind down a little and relax. I put "Goodfellas" in the DVD player and laid on my futon so hard I never thought I'd get up again. I had watched the movie for an entire five minutes before I heard it.

Tss. Tss.

What the hell is that?

Tss.

Where is that coming from?

Tss. Tss. Tss.

Oh god. Oh goddammit, it's overflowing in the fucking oven. Cue me sprinting into the kitchen, and opening the oven so fast I nearly bust its hinges. Sauce is going everywhere. Shit. I take it out, a big hunk of sauce splashes onto the oven door. SHIT. Smoke everywhere all of a sudden.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT.

I transform into Usain Bolt for a moment and furiously open my windows. I start fanning out smoke like a mental patient. I look at my smoke alarm: Nothing. I'm thinking maybe I got lucky. I let my guard down.

BEEEEEP.

Dammit to fuck. I start swatting at it like it's a big annoying immobile fly. The ear-piercing beeping continues. I finally grabbed a chair, took it out of the ceiling and ripped out the batteries. Phew.

So how did the lasagna turn out? Surprisingly well!

Way too soupy, and if it had stayed in longer, the zucchinis probably would have been a little less crunchy, but the combo of flavors was amaaaaaaazing. I doubt I'll ever make this again, but hoooo boy was it tasty.

This is when I relax. Finally. Fucking smoke alarm.