Friday Foodie

So D finally emailed me the rib recipe, and I see that it's lacking the rub part - no malice on his part, probably just forgot. Here's what we know to be true: the cooking method is just as important, if not more so, as the flavor.

We usually use this rub that we get in Nashville from the greatest grocery store EVER - Fresh Market. We don't have a Fresh Market in St. Louis or even Missouri for that matter due to some crazy (to me) grocery labor unions. This is also the travesty the prevents us from ever getting a Super Target with legit grocery - painful. I digress. TFM has tons of rubs for poultry, steaks, potatoes, you name it there's a rub for it, but we always use the "Anything Goes" rub which includes: sea salt, paprika, sugar, cumin, fennel, brown sugar, coriander, mint, red chili flakes, cinnamon, cloves, and cayenne, in that order so you could probably guesstimate this. We ran out of the mix so we added in most of the above and ground it together with a mortar and pestle.

Once you have your rub fixed up, you follow the below instructions. It should also be noted that this is Big T's recipe that he has worked on for a LONG time and consulted lots of local butchers, chefs, etc. on. We keep using baby back ribs because that seems to be what's most readily available here in St. Louis but regular back ribs will be slightly more fatty but will also yield a more tender finished product - baby backs are fine, you just have to watch them and adjust accordingly if things look like they're drying out too much.

"Big T's Ribs"

adapted by D

with clarification notes by katie

Purchase Back Ribs or Baby Back Ribs. Remove membrane from bone side of ribs. Do this when they are all together before cutting racks into smaller sections. Easiest to work on this with a tea towel rather than paper towels to get a better grip - this is THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF GETTING TENDER RIBS.

Blot dry with paper towels.

Generously apply rub (see above) and brown sugar (about a cup total across 4 full racks of ribs) to both sides of ribs. Push spices in deep. Wrap each section of ribs tightly in plastic wrap and

cover in an aluminum pan overnight - in the fridge, duh. There's no time limit here but we usually prep them around 12 or 1 the day prior to cooking to give you an idea.

Next day, remove plastic and place all ribs in aluminum pan bone side down. Recover pan (with aluminium foil or the topper that came with it) and bake 3-4 hours at 225.

Put on grill on low-medium heat for 3-5 minutes per side. When they begin to get crispy, it's time for barbecue sauce. You can use whatever sauce you'd like. We usually use whatever's regional (as in nashville sauce in nashville, stl sauce in stl, and even Toronto bbq sauce when we were in toronto earlier this summer)

Move to indirect heat. Then brush sauce on heavily. Then grill on low heat for ten minutes. Brush again and grill another five to ten. Take off grill and eat. um i love that last part.

So there it is - enjoy! I usually serve this with these green beans a la my hero.

via. pretty sure i could be happy as a clam living in the hamptons,

cooking in this kitchen and being the barefoot contessa in training.

I'll be getting my foodie on in NOLA this weekend for my bestie's bachelorette party! Pics with the cute deets I've been crafting when I return. Hopefully we stay dry, apparently someone named Nadine is trying to crash the party.

xoxo,

KC

Fill it Up!

So I've had this post scheduled for a long time and never got around to posting it.  Seems like a good segway now what with the recent before and afters.

My interior design philosophy to date has been based soley around making the pieces I've been handed down work.  Luckily my mother, to be hence force known as Kath, is quite the interior diva with impeccable taste and quite the history of home relocations (for Big T's job) and redecorating projects.  Big T being my father - for those who know him- his personality couldn't be described as anything other than Big.

It's interesting visiting all 3 (myself included) of Big T and Kath's kids' homes now as you can clearly see the influence of all the places we've lived to date.  I currently have the big red couches that graced our home in Lawrence, Kansas, made their way to my second college apartment and now my first home. My sisters have some of the Kansas furniture, a few pieces from our Texas home and some black buffalo check club chairs from their current house in Tennesee.  Sprinkled throughout there's dishes and silverware from Baltimore, New Jersey and I even their first crock pot they got as a wedding gift in Milwaukee.

Given the choice, I don't think red couches would be my personal first pick, nor would buffalo check top A & M's lists, but they've served us well and best of all - they were free!

Given that the new place is roughly 2.5x the size of our old rental home, we've got a lot of rooms to fill.  The red couches will make their way to our Den but we've already ordered some fun new furniture for the living room that I'm excited to share.  Whereas we were much more in the French Countryish camp, the look of the new house is much cleaner, more modern and more us.

Red Couches in their new home in the den.  Don't judge the floppy cushions and lack of coffee table.  On the replacement list already.

Building on the Silver Tinsel paint color and awesome new wood floors we restained we wanted to keep the more "transitional" flow rolling with some new furniture.  Enter my favorite furniture store EVER: Arhaus.  If you have not been to an Arhaus store or checked out their online store front, let me share the greatness!  http://www.arhaus.com/

We are always on the look out for beautiful pieces from this store but they can be quite pricey so you have to wait for a good sale.  We'd been watching this piece for a long time. The Holden Console Table.  It's also available at Crate and Barrel but a bit more expensive.

We knew we wanted this piece the second we saw it.  It's got a nice rusticy look but none of that weird fall-apart-on-you wood that you see in a lot of today's "reclaimed" pieces.  I don't know about you but I'm not into bugs and dust. And it's topped with a beautiful piece of bluish-greyish soapstone that ties in well with the paint color.

We ended up finding this exact piece for a little less at a local furniture store that had purchased a small "lot" of these tables - woowhoo!  We were actually there, looking for a new sofa and possible some arm chairs for the same room.

Phillips Furniture has been GREAT to work with and super affordable. Highy recommend a trip if you're in STL. We ended up getting a custom sofa in Porpoise (cue my excitement about picking a dolphin-esque color - we can discuss that obsession later) that's kind of a muddy grey/taupe color.  Much prettier than it sounds. 

Porpoise

It's kind of exciting because they let you choose the arms, cushion type (T shaped or straight) and skirt (or lack there of)  We went with straight arms, T shaped cushions and no skirt but no wood liner either, you'll just see 4 little wooden feet at the bottom.

We also picked  up two chairs that you can only describe as the tiniest seafoam lepoard print design. Yes, it sounds heinous but thankfully I, and the very few others that I've actually allowed in the still barren house, seem to like them.  Pictures of these bad boys to come. We're also keeping our glass and limewood coffee table for now, but may swap it out for something more fitting in the future.

Still need:

- shutters - I want big white ones for those 11 feet of windows!

- some sort of curtain, more likely as an accent on the sides than functional, given the shutters and maybe with some sort of complementary color that hasn't been used, thinking mustardy yellow or coral?

- huge rug - using the old one now, preferably graphic

- need some new lamps - something with color to spice up the space, and tie into the curtains?

-bookcases - I'd LOVE custom built in's much like Miss. Lindsey's over at fificheeck but we'll have to see what D says.  I'd also take two of these puppies from Arhaus in a heartbeat (it comes in a super light, almost limewood finish) right now we've got some older black ones that I'm repurposing

That's all I've got today from Canada.  More tomorrow on some bookcases in the living room, and the first phase of zhushing.

xoxo,

KC

Weekend Recap: Canada, eh?

Sorry for the radio silence around here.  We've been seriously working on building up our frequent flyer miles/points/whatever they call them now and hotel rewards lately.  In fact, D and I experienced a strange first the week before last, both ending up on a business trip in Boston at the same time.  It was strange seeing my husband in a different city, not on vacation, and only for a few fleeting hours.  Needless to say Emma is pretty peeved with us but happy to have gotten in some serious bonding time with my in-laws (who we COULD NOT live without at this chaotic juncture.)

As you can imagine, not a whole whole lot has been completed in the past week and a half with all this travel, but I do have some fun updates on what we've done to date to share this week. I know, I know, I've been promising pics and entries for a long time now but D sweetly uploaded all our before/after pics of the floors and paint last night.  The beauty of DSLR pics is only overshadowed by their size and difficulty to resize and compress on an old laptop.  (a replacement is on the list, but WAY far down I'm afraid)

Anyways!  We did take a quick jaunt to Canada this past week for some R&R with my family.  I know, this is VERY unAMERICAN of us, have no fear the irony is not lost on us, but my father works in Canada currently and we've never experienced the "Canadian Cottaging" lifestyle (this is a thing, look it up) so we decided to give it a go.

We stayed in a lovely log cabin, REAL logs that were roughly 1.5ft in diameter and a beautiful cedar looking stain (not sure if it was true cedar though, likely pine) on such a quiet lake. The closest town was called Rosseau, population 250 and was super charming.  Here's a pic I grabbed off Flickr of the adorable grocery we shopped at everyday.  We took some of our own, but they aren't uploaded yet for the above mentioned reasons.

I've been thinking about taking a large photo and creating my own triptych for a while now for one of the big walls in the dining room.  With such a bold color, I'm thinking a black and white photo would be beautiful but would need some high contrast in it to be visually appealing.  I'm kinda digging the blown out, grainy look of some of the canvases designers have been using lately in rooms, but I'm not sure that's in line with D's clean aesthetic.  May need to do some convincing...or compromising!  At any rate, I think the country grocery in Rosseau might be a nice fit especially with those gorgeous umbrellas and the Canadian flags red and white (obviously showing up dark gray and white in a B&W pic)

via Little Green Notebook

Speaking of which, right before we left for Canada I scooped up this beauty on super sale from Pottery Barn!  Cannot wait until she gets here end of July.  I'll be sure to post some picks once we install her on the patio with our teak table and chairs.

via Pottery Barn

Hope you all had a LOVELY 4th!

xoxo,

KC