I have been terrible about posting this month, which is unfortunate because I’ve been up to some crazy stuff! I’ve been many places and eaten many wonderful things. For starters, I’m going to shoot back a few weeks to the weekend of July 16th-18th. That weekend I went on a girl’s weekend to Bainbridge Island. There we ladies indulged in a buffet of such extravagance that it is hard to describe. But don’t worry, I’m going to try. 🙂 And will list as many recipes from the weekend as I can.

The first night, we had pasta with pesto cream sauce, shrimp kabobs, and a beautiful salad. I made the pasta dish and it was decadent and wonderful. Making a great alfredo sauce is easy as pie, easier even!

Katie’s Alfredo and veggie pasta:

Get a little half pint of heavy cream and put it in a saucepan over low heat. Add a 4oz log of goat cheese and mix. Let this mixture simmer down until about 1/3 less than where it started. Add about 1/4 cup of julienned basil as it is simmering and loads of black pepper. Also, my mother always told me that a pinch of cayenne makes any white sauce better.

While this is going, I cut up two yellow squash and two zuchinni and sauteed them with butter, salt and lemon pepper. When they were almost done, I added a container of storebought, fresh pesto. Probably was 4 oz or so, whatever a regular small sized tub is. More or less to taste.

We boiled 1lb of pasta and when everything was ready, tossed all these things together. Creating this!

It was so yummy! Creamy and rich, but with a freshness of flavor from all that basil. Easy and a crowd pleaser.

The shrimp were just marinated in a storebought lemon deal and grilled. The salad was beautiful with carrots, radishes, and all kinds of goodies mixed in. This was a wonderful start to our weekend.

Also, for dessert one of the ladies brought cream puffs and we warmed up chocolate syrup to dip them in. So good!

We made breakfast each day with eggs and bacon, yogurt and fruit, and other wonderful things and even did a pork tenderloin for bbq sandwiches for lunch, but I must say that my favorite meal was dinner on Saturday. We had ribs, cornbread, fried okra, and sauteed spinach. Everything was amazing. Not a weak spot in the meal.

Let’s talk ribs. My brother gave me directions. My man and I have perfected them to a simple science. Everyone can do this. I showed my lady friends how to do this. Here is how it goes.

First, buy some pork loin back ribs. The night before you want to serve them, remove the membrane from the bonier, inside of the ribs. This is not as complicated as it sounds. Get a sharp knife under the edge of the fat on the underside and slide your fingers under there. Gently start to pull. Suddenly you’ll find there is a thin layer of film over the whole side that if you’re gently, you can pull off in one sweeping motion. It will look like this:

Why are we doing this? Well, because it makes them more pleasant to eat (otherwise there is that weird papery layer) and also because you can get more flavor into the ribs without that there blocking the path.

Then I pat them dry, rub the ribs down with salt, pepper, and Emeril’s Creole seasoning. I then toss them in a large bag, turkey oven bags work well or just use a garbage bag. And then, toss in a whole bottle of this kind of wonderful:

Stubb’s Pork Marinade. This stuff is good.

Once the ribs have been marinated all night and you’re ready to start cooking, follow these simple instructions.

Place your ribs on a foil lined, lipped cookie sheet. Turn your oven to 275 degrees. Cover the ribs tightly with foil. Cook them for 2.5 hours at this temperature. Every half hour, quickly open them up and baste with your favorite bbq sauce. I personally like a half and half combo of Stubb’s original and Sweet Baby Ray’s sauces, but whatever you like.

After they’ve cooked for the 2.5 hours, have your grill ready and toss them on for another 15-30 minutes to firm up the sauce to a nice, gooey finish. Be careful getting them on and off the grill! They’ll fall apart on you they are so tender at this point. If you have a gas grill, I like to stick them on the top rack of the grill with a metal pie plate of water underneath them on the grill, this keeps them extra moist. If you have a charcoal grill, put them on off the heat and keep them on for a shorter time so they don’t dry out.

It’s easy! And look what you get:

Just beautiful.

Anyways, onto side dishes. Fried okra is one of my favorite things in the world. My mama made some while I was home in Arkansas last weekend and I nearly fell over from happiness. There is nothing as lovely as some fried okra with a slice of home grown tomato.

Fried okra is a easy thing. There are different schools of thought on this, I keep it pretty simple. Wash the okra and cut into popcorn sized pieces. Then you let it sit for awhile so the okra can start to get really gooey. (My uncle likes to toss an egg in at this point to make it gooier. I don’t think it is really necessary, but his okra is pretty tasty. ) Then, toss in a half flour and half corn meal combo with  some salt and lots and lots of pepper. Mix until everything is coated evenly.

Get a large skillet and heat up about 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom. When the oil is hot, add in the okra. It should be in a single layer. You may have to do batches.

Now for me, this is the hardest part. I always want to mess with things on the stovetop. Don’t do that. DON’T TOUCH THE OKRA AT ALL! At least until it is well on its way to browning. If you mess with it too early, all that awesome coating will fall off. Once the coating is on securely, you can gently flip it. Personally, I like to get my okra really brown, but don’t take it out until it is at least golden brown. As soon as you take it out, toss it with salt while still hot so it sticks.

It is heavenly. Just heavenly.

I could eat fried okra all day like popcorn.

The cornbread was a Krusteez mix, which are awesome and the spinach was sauteed with butter and then had bacon and Parmesan tossed in at the last minute. It was heavenly.

My lady friends and myself, we don’t mess around. No low cal, no fat, pansy girly food for us on our weekend! It was a festival of food. And epic event. Sure we also did crafts and went for walks on the beach, but our heart was in the food. Hope you try these recipes out sometime!