cook: cola asian pork ribs

I’ve had bao buns in my freezer that I felt compelled to use. And so I bought pork ribs on sale and shredded cabbage at the grocery store. Do you see where I’m going with these ingredients?              

 

I marinated the pork ribs in some of what was in this jar in my fridge, which I'm sure included soy sauce, oyster sauce, and brown sugar and maybe fish sauce in addition to that lemongrass and garlic.     

On the bone-in pork ribs, I rubbed a dry marinade of garlic powder, onion powder, brown sugar, salt, and black pepper. I covered it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until dinner time. Next time, I must remember to use Sichuan salt instead.

Before leaving for my swim, I mixed a wet marinade of 3 tablespoons of my lemongrass garlic sauce, 1 tablespoon of seasoning sauce, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, and a mini can of cola and poured it over the ribs. 

I then covered the ribs, laying in that pool of marinade with aluminum foil and popped it into a 275 degree oven to roast, turning them over half way and removing the foil to cook off that liquid. There was still a lot of marinade at the end of the roasting, which I then simmered in a saucepot, made a broccoli banchan, and steamed jasmine rice. Told my husband dinner was warming in the oven and on the stovetop and bye! I went swimming. When I came home, I was starving and ate pieces of pork and mouthfuls of jasmine rice and broccoli. So much for fasting from 4 p.m. to 6 a.m. because of my small late dinner followed by red velvet cake for dessert! Patrick said he liked dinner because the meat was tender.       

Now I've leftovers to re-make into some other meal like my Filipino vegetable, pork and shrimp stew or bao buns with an Asian slaw--two meals from one afternoon of roasting a protein. And for lunch, I ate the rest of my leftover butternut squash thai red curry soup and a bit of the leftover broccoli as well as my favorite soft drink of choice, cola on ice.

And I went to yoga and meditation this morning and am free to do whatever I want for the rest of the day, whether it be the ceramics studio or going to my storage room to organize or hauling more stuff to the Goodwill and live a more minimalist life. I love summer break.