Culinary Elements: Color & Variety

When composing a meal, one must think about how the food will actually look on the plate. People eat with their eyes before they ever taste with their mouth. Meal planning means making sure you have plenty of variety in textures, colors, flavors and temperatures. I tend to not enjoy cold foods, so it is certainly a struggle for me to get multiple temperatures in the same meal (safely). At any rate, an extremely hearty meal that certainly pays homage to my southern roots, also provides a lovely example of the elements color and variety.

You are looking at dry rub, baby back ribs, french red onion and cabbage soup and roasted okra. Very tasty, low car, and quite healthy, as long as you watch the sodium in the rub and soup. I am not putting the recipe for the rub, since I think that totally depends on what your tastes are, but I will include the recipe for the soup and okra.

French Onion and Cabbage Soup:

1 med-large onion (any color, in the picture, I use red for the color)
3-4 cups chopped cabbage (red or green, again, I chose red)
3 cups chicken broth or water
2 cloves garlic, minced
Olive Oil
1-2 T butter
salt and pepper

On the stove top, turn the heat to med and warm the pot (without the oil). Halve, then slice the onion into half moons. Add enough oil to the heated pan to coat the bottom (roughly a 1/4 cup),the butter, then add the onions. Sprinkle a couple of pinches of salt over the onions to help begin the cramalization process. Keep the heat at low, and stir the onions until they are all coated in oil. Let the onions cook until brown (not burned) completely. This could take anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes, make sure you don't go too far! Toss in the cabbage and garlic. Stir well, and sprinkle with another couple of pinches of salt. When the cabbage begins to wilt, delgaze the pan with the water or chicken broth, scraping the bottom. Add a few dashes of pepper, give it one final stir then let it simmer for 15 minutes. Taste your broth, if it needs more salt, add it at this point and let it simmer for a couple of minutes further. If it is to your liking, you are ready to serve!

Roasted Okra

1 lb raw, whole okra
3 T seasoned salt (See below for my version)
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 450

Coat okra in oil, then sprinkle with seasoning. Place in pan (preferably on baking sheet) in a single layer, Roast until it starts to brown at the edges. Allow it to cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Cooking it this way helps eliminate the gooey, sticky liquid most people associate with okra.

Seasoned Salt

1 T kosher salt
1 T smoked paprika
1 T garlic powder
2 t onion powder
2 t ground black pepper

Mix together and store in an airtight container. Great on chicken, pork and veggies. For steak seasoning, omit paprika and use course ground black pepper.

Riiiiiibs!!

The grocery store here has some pretty amazing deals from time to time. Recently, there was a sale on some lovely HUGE pork ribs. $1 a pound!! Monday, I made some super yummy, oniony, slow cooked ribs. They absolutely melted in my mouth!

What you need:

Huge, well marbled pork ribs (not baby back ribs)
1-2 pkg onion soup mix
2 tbs worshire sauce
large plastic or glass container with lid
Olive oil


What you do:

Rub the soup mix and worshire sauce into each rib. They should not be soaking wet, just damp. Allow the marinade for at least 2 hours, but preferably 6-8 or even overnight.

Preheat oven to 375. In a super hot pan, add a about 3 tbs olive oil. Place each rib in the pan, but DON'T CROWD THEM! Let each side get well seared (dark brown)...roughly 3-4 mins per side, eye ball it. You're not looking to get them totally done!!

In a large, covered baking dish, lightly coat the bottom with olive oil...maybe 4 tbs. Put the ribs in the dish, and use a bit of water (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup) to deglaze the pan. Deglazing just means, adding enough water or liquid to get the crusty stuff off the bottom of the pan...it makes a lovely sauce, since that's where all the flavor collects! Add the juice over the top of the ribs. You can add chopped veggies at this point (potatoes, carrots, celery, turnips, etc.)

Cover the dish and bake for around 30 mins. Check the ribs, to see if they're done to your liking. There should be no blood, but a touch of pink is okay. Don't overcook them...unless you like super tough meat.

Happy eating!