During the delicious success of our coffee BBQ sauce experiment, we ended up making more coffee rub than got used at the tail end of the summer months. For a fun Fall twist on the coffee seasonings, the leftover base rub was mixed together with a specialty maple cinnamon ground coffee.
We've had the good fortune to find pork babyback ribs on clearance at one particular grocery store with some frequency, so we haven't ended up having to spend and arm and a leg to get a beautiful piece of meat like this one.
The new Fall-themed coffee rub is sprinkled across the cleaned and trimmed ribs, which are sitting on plastic wrap for easier clean up and storage. We recommend tightly wrapping your ribs and allowing the rub flavors to really work into the meat in the refrigerator for a few hours prior to the actual cooking process.
Since it was too cold out for grilling, the ribs are going to be cooked indoors in the oven this time. This necessitates a few changes in the cooking process. Here the rubbed ribs are set on foil on a large cookie sheet.
An injection can really make a huge difference in the flavor of finished ribs. Some folks like to do a marinade, a rub, or an injection, but not more than one at the same time - and we think that's crazy. There's no reason your meat shouldn't be as flavorful as you want it to be. Remember the root beer BBQ sauce we made a few months back? That base idea was tweaked several times over the summer, including an orange soda variation. For our injection here, we've taken some of that orange BBQ sauce and cooked it down a bit with caramel to add another aspect of Fall to our meal.
After being injected, the ribs start out facing meat side down, bone side up as they first go into the oven.
To get the best flavor and texture, you want to cook ribs "low and slow" style. For the oven instead of the grill, you want to cook at about 225 degrees for several hours. For extra flavor, brush on some extra sauce periodically.
Towards the end of the cooking process the ribs are flipped over and the tin foil comes off for the last half hour or so to get a little crispiness on the edges.
Even cooking with such a low heat the ribs still ended up with a much different texture than when grilled over coals in the backyard. These Fall-themed ribs came out almost like the most delicious pot roast ever, as the meat fell straight off the bone. I didn't even need a knife to cut them apart!
The meal was rounded out by a baked potato (with sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, and green onions) and dinner rolls.
There's no question this was a filling and immensely satisfying meal, but for a birthday bash we also needed something sweet to round the night off (albeit a few hours later after our tummy's had settled down...) For the dessert we put together a "pumpkin pie" cheesecake. Here' we've taken our base cheesecake recipe and modified it to included canned pumpkin.
After cooking and then cooling, the cheesecake is topped first with "easy caramel." To make easy caramel, simply put an (unopened) can of sweetened condensed milk in the crock pot, and then fill the crock pot with water until the can is submersed. Throw on the lid and cook for about eight hours. When it's done, the sweetened condensed milk inside the can has turned into perfect caramel that requires no effort at all on your part. Simply open the can and spoon the caramel wherever needed.
In addition to caramel, we add a crunchy element by throwing on some various nuts. Pecans and walnuts are good choices.
Normally we would do a graham cracker or Oreo crust, but for to match the pumpkin flavor we instead did a ginger snap cookie crust.
It's finally time to get a slice of heavenly pumpkin cheesecake and dig in!
Coming soon we'll have more on interconnecting meals (including making a truly amazing stock using both chicken and pork bones), more ways to use pasta outside the normal spaghetti and tomato sauce, and a final look back at some of our 2012 Summer grilling.
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