Recipes that remind me of things.

I'm not a big fan of cooking bone-in meat. I don't need another reminder that my meal used to be a living, breathing creature with four legs and a tail. In fact, so far, I've made only one exception to my "rule". Ribs. I love tender fall off the bone ribs and you can't have ribs without bone. Ok, technically you can, but, c'mon...they're ribs and ribs are bone. I made this recipe a few weeks ago, but I think I bought short ribs or something. I forget. I just know they weren't baby back. It was good then and it was good today. The meat is tender AND falls off the bone when you're taking them out of the pot, so you might get lucky like I did and end up with some boneless boned ribs after all.

Sweet & Saucy Baby Back Ribs (6 quart pot)

~2 lbs pork baby back ribs
~1 t black pepper
~2 1/2 cups bbq sauce (not mesquite flavor)
~1 jar (12 oz) Smucker's cherry preserves
~1 T Gulden's mustard
~1/4 t salt

Trim and discard excess fat from ribs. Sprinkle black pepper over ribs. Cut ribs into 2-rib portions and place in crock pot.
Combine BBQ sauce, preserves, mustard and salt in small bowl. Pour over ribs.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

4 servings.

This was one of my favorite things to eat when I was a kid. (Who am I kidding...it is STILL) For special occasions like church pot luck dinners and family holidays, my maternal grandmother made the BEST crock pot spinach. Then, my mom got the recipe and now she makes the BEST crock pot spinach. It's the only vegetable my dad will eat (he has the eating habits of a two year old) and one of the few my brother will actually have seconds and thirds and fourths of...unless dad and I beat him to the bottom of the pot. It's the dish that convinced my other half that he didn't actually hate vegetables and started me adding a little bit of green into his diet. It is crack pot spinach and it is AWESOME.

Crackpot Spinach (3.5 quart pot)

~2 10 oz packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
~2 cups cottage cheese

~a stick of unsalted butter, cut up
~8oz American cheese, cubed
~3 eggs, beaten
~1/4 cup flour

Combine ingredients and pour into greased crock pot.
Cover and cook on high for 1 hour. Then, turn to low for 4 hours.

8-10 servings.

Amusingly, I found a recipe for "Spinach Casserole" in one of the 4 cookbooks I have and it's ALMOST exactly the same as our family recipe. It adds a bit more of one of the ingredients, but everything else is the same. Ingredient for ingredient. Amount for amount. Word for word.