NOT WINNING. :(

I have a sad cooking confession for you.

Last week pork ribs were on sale at Meijer. I was super excited because I love a good sale and because I haven't had ribs in a long time. Plus I've never made ribs at home. I usually just wait until I'm out to a nice dinner and order up something extra messy so that I can eat with my fingers and show off my amazingly proper table manners. Nowadays I don't really go out often because I eat most meals by myself. So I figured I would give the ribs a whirl at home. I had pinned this delicious looking recipe for bourbon barbecue ribs and I always get excited about a bourbon barbecue sauce so I knew this was the one. Plus to make it even more of a "Julie" recipe, it was in the crockpot!?!! And you know how much I love my crockpot. :)

So yesterday morning, I set it all up. I cooked up the ribs a little in the morning, mixed together the barbecue sauce and let the slow cooker do the deed while I was at work dreaming of the smells I would come home to at the end of the day.

Sadly, I came home to a burned mess stuck in the bottom of my slow cooker. I could salvage a few bites of rib meat here and there from the center ribs, but overall it was a total flop. I couldn't even bare to take a picture because it made me so sad. :(

What went wrong?

Here's what I think.

1. I cut the recipe down significantly from the 5 lbs of ribs she suggested to only about three quarters of a pound. I mean, there was no way I was going to cook 5 lbs of ribs for myself. I think there was just not enough liquid in the slowcooker and it caused the brown sugar and bourbon to caramelize too quickly and resulted in browning.

2. I did cook it for longer than the suggested 9 hours. It was close to 11 hours because that's how long I was gone from the apartment. I'm not sure it was the extra two hours that pushed it over the edge, but I'm sure it didn't help.


Moral of the story: Sometimes your cooking fails.

Suck it up, eat some burnt meat along with a big salad, and start planning your next excursion in the kitchen. I have some ribs in the freezer that are dying for a chance to redeem themselves. I think I'll have to use the oven to adjust for the smaller servings though. Don't worry, I'll keep you in the loop.