Today, (well, actually a combination of tomorrow and yesterday) is officially the one year anniversary of Love and Olive Oil. Way back on Valentine’s day of 2007, I got the wild idea to start a food blog. Inspired by our continuous search for recipes, and my newly acquired slr camera and macro lens, I sat down and set up the first version of this blog. Which, surprisingly (given my pension for re-designing things every 4 1/2 weeks), lasted up until just last month.
It’s been a great year for us. Big changes, plenty of driving (far too much of it taking place in Kansas), and most of all, lots of good food.
To celebrate, we decided to recreate that very first recipe, or part of it anyways. Since good sushi-grade tuna is hard to come by (at least reasonably) in Tennessee, we couldn’t recreate that part of the meal. But the salad, well, Taylor admits he doesn’t remember the tuna, but he remembers the salad.
A zesty salad with avocado and grapefruit slices (if I miss one thing about California it’s the abundance of blood oranges – my absolute favorite). The dressing is refreshing, slightly sweet, and a perfect accompaniment to the citrus. While I don’t foresee us making a life-long tradition of eating this salad on Valentine’s day, it’s something I didn’t mind eating two years in a row. And that says something about it.
Enough about the salad already… I know you’re wondering what we decided to cook WITH the salad!
Well, it WAS Valentine’s day, after all. And while we eat quite economically the rest of the year, our gift to ourselves on this holiday was a nice rack of baby back ribs.
I had originally picked out this recipe to make. It sounded delicious enough, slightly intimidating, with the caramel and all, but delicious nonetheless. And hey, it only takes 90 minutes! Delicious indeed. That is, until we discovered that our 6-month old fish sauce that we kept in the cabinet had REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING prominently displayed on the label. And if there’s one thing I don’t double cross, it’s fish sauce.
On to plan B.
A quick google search (keep in mind it is already 4:00 here) brought up one of my favorite blogs, Steamy Kitchen, and her recipe for Baby Back ribs with Asian Orange Ginger glaze. After the first two sentences, we were sold. Except, oh no! 4-6 HOURS? Please say it isn’t so.
Seeing as we actually wanted to eat our dinner ON Valentine’s day (and not at 1:00 in the morning on the 15th) we persevered. Upped the temperature to 275Ëš, and sure enough, after just over 2 1/2 hours, they were falling of the bone and ready to be devoured. I can only imagine what these must taste like after 4 hours, because they had me at 2 1/2.
If you like ribs, or even if you don’t but are willing to give them a try, make this recipe. It’s a keeper, and screw the salad — this just might become our lifelong Valentine’s tradition. Pair this with some from-scratch Brioche bread, pomegranate sorbet, and chocolate dipped almond wafers – now THAT’s what I call a Valentine’s day to remember. I’ll take an almond cookie (ok, three) over a bouquet of flowers any day! (Don’t worry, I’m just teasing you with sweet temptations. I’ll post the recipes for the rest of our meal tomorrow).
So here’s a toast to you, our readers, and thanks for your comments and support this past year. We hope you’ve gotten the same enjoyment out of seeing our food as we have from eating it. And rest assured, we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon!
