I want my baby back, baby back, baby back. . .

Nothing makes me feel like a million bucks quite like the words, "This is good, Wife!" There's just something about creating food that is delicious that just makes me feel like I succeeded. When I hit the mark like that, we call the recipes 'keepers'. Ribs is one of those foods that I've really grown into appreciating. I hated them as a kid, but I am excited to say I have found my rib keeper recipe!

Pork Ribs (Baby Back or Spare)
note: this is more like a general guideline. If you don't have time to prepare a day in advance, then just go with what you have.

24 hours in advance prepare the ribs:
Rub Ingredients

1/4 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp. paprika
1 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. black pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder
1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne red pepper

This recipe was made for 3 racks of ribs. I halved it for my one 3 to 3 1/2 lb rack.

Remove the membrane from the underside of the ribs. I have yet to gain experience enough to tell you the best way to do this, but I just made a little slit and pulled. It came off fairly easily.

Cover the ribs with the rub and let sit in the fridge until you're ready to cook.

Cooking Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Wrap each section of ribs with one piece each aluminum foil. (I cut my one rack in two.) Bake the ribs for 2 1/2 hours. For the last 15 minutes of cooking, I unwrapped the foil and topped with bbq sauce.

These are fall-off-the bone tender. Play around with them - if you want them bbq'd, take them out at 2 hours, let them sit for a bit, add bbq sauce and throw them on the barbie to carmelize. I used Masterpiece brown sugar sauce, but there are so many options. And you can always make your own! It's so easy-peasy and SO delicious!

Side note: Baby back ribs are taken from the portion of the ribs closest to the spine. These tend to be shorter, curved, and have meat between the bones and on top of the bones. Spare ribs are from the belly side of the rib cage. These are flatter and generally have more bone than meat. Both of these are the typical steak-house eat-the-meat-off-the-bone kind of ribs. Country style ribs are cut from the blade end of the pork loin, next to the shoulder. They contain a lot of fat and may or may not contain bone. These are more of a fork and knife cut of meat. All of these are pork. Short ribs are similar to spare ribs but are beef.