Here's an email from Denise in Columbus, Ohio who recently moved, so she had thrown away just about everything they had in the pantry. Glad to see that you kept your Survival Spice™!:
Since we're back in the Midwest, we can't exactly grill any time we please. So, we had taken out some ribs to thaw the other day and grilled ribs were on tonight's menu.Unfortunately, it has been raining off and on today and I am not sure what it will be like when my husband gets home, so I figured I had better just slow cook them in the oven. I hate to do this, but I am kind of busy today and thought I'd just dump in a bottle of bbq sauce. Well, we don't have any on-hand. I thought I'd check on one of my favorite websites for a recipe for bbq sauce that would utilize the few ingredients I have on-hand (always find out when it's too late what I should have picked up at the store....still don't have a very good selection in my spice cabinet). I do have ketchup and brown sugar, however....so, I found a recipe for cooking ribs in a stock pot on the stove which had ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar and some other ingredients I THOUGHT I had on-hand.
Well, I wrote it down and went into the kitchen to get started. I sprinkled salt and pepper on the ribs and browned them, then put them in my trusty blue-enamel pan and went to work mixing up the sauce. Ketchup, check. Water, check. Vinegar, check. Brown sugar, check. Salt, check. Paprika....uh-oh. Chili powder....uh-oh.
Well, this is looking like it is going to be some pretty blah bbq sauce at this point.....but then wait! Survival Spice to the rescue!!!! Mix it together, pour it over the ribs, thinly slice half an onion and scatter it on top, cover, and it's now in the oven at 275. I'll turn up the heat around 5:00.
I am glad that I was out of the chili powder and paprika because I am sure this will be MUCH better anyway. I really don't like ribs this way- I'm addicted to ribs on the grill with Survival Spice--and I normally hate eating foods that result in sticky, greasy fingers), but I think this might have possibilities!
Thanks, Denise! There's no shame in oven cooking anything when you can't grill, and your two temperature technique was exactly right. Low and slow until the meat's cooked, then high heat at the end to crisp them up. It's great that she kept her Survival Spice™ Survival Spice™ when they moved, I know if I could only have one spice in my cabinet, that would be it!
Survival Spice has saved all kinds of stuff for me: bland "diet" dinners, borderline stale tortilla chips, not-so-tasty grocery store tomatoes. Lots of things.
Survival spice was a hit up at the family reunion a couple weeks ago. I hit up a few people just to give it a taste and the idea was thrown out by one of the testers to put it on our deep fried turkey. We slathered that bird up really well. Jerry put the bird in way too fast, giving the sidewalk a hot oil treatment and the bird came out fantastic. I'm also putting a smoker together which means slow cooking with... you guessed it... survival spice!