Ribs

The whole point of a slow cooker is to cook things over a long, long time. So last Saturday when we went out for barbecue I finally made the connection between a slow cooker and ribs.

Luckily, there's always plenty on the internet for things like this. Would they really cook in there all day? Or would they just turn out a big mess? I was particularly fond of the money grubbing lawyer's take on it but a little grossed out about the coke. Yes, I'm aware of the underground soda cooking tricks. But somehow, it's just wrong.

Before we had our own "barbecue" (hypothetically speaking, since apartment complexes aren't exactly barbecue friendly), I wanted to try it out just to see what would happen.

We got some vacuum-packed pork ribs and a small pack of beef short ribs to try. No water, no barbecue sauce, just a little bit of Lawry's seasoning salt (I didn't have most of the ingredients to make a "rib rub" - that just sounds wrong - but Lawry's is basically the same thing).

In they go ...


And out they come ...


Over and over, you'll hear that ribs should "just fall off the bone." So, that was sort of the measure of success. Ignoring the inch deep of oily fat at the bottom of the pot, these certainly fell off the bones cleanly. Do they sell wire racks that would lift the meat up and let the fat drain?

Even better with a little bit of barbecue sauce. I don't even like pork, and I liked these!