Fall Off the Bone Crockpot Spareribs

In my house, ribs rank right up there with pulled pork. There’s something about gnawing the succulent meat right off the bone or something. Maybe it’s my inner cavewoman coming through? IDK, but I love me some fall off the bone crockpot spareribs! And so does everyone else in my household 🙂

And, what’s even better than ribs? How about that wonderful, beloved invention that became a lifesaver to working moms everywhere – the crockpot. The slow cooker. Whatever you call it, it’s a godsend. Truly!

I adore loading that baby up with food, walking away and having an amazing ready-to-eat meal later on in the day.

Talk about convenience, right?

Of course, writing about the crockpot got me to thinking about the crockpot and how it came to be, so off to research I went 🙂 The perils of being a writer – you WANT to know everything! At least that’s how my brain works.

Anywho, according to Culinary Lore, the crockpot was originally sold by the Rival Company, but invented in 1938 by a man named Irving Naxon. The story is that he was attempting to re-create one of his grandmother’s recipes. His small company was purchased by Rival and the known version of the crockpot became popular around 1970.

Yay, Irving! Thank you so much 🙂

I personally can’t imagine not having the crockpot in my life! Just sayin’ – it’s kind of important!

As an aside, I’ve also been trying to recreate family recipes for years and have yet to invent anything resembling the crockpot! Darn it! I, too, could be a wealthy inventor by now 🙂 Hmmm…maybe I should pull out the sketchpad and begin some schematics for a new invention.

C’mon cooks! What do you need? What’s missing in your arsenal of kitchen gadgets?

OK, OK – enough dreaming about inventions and money – I’m going back to the ribs. This is another one of those recipes my momma used to make, just like her meatloaf, that I’ve tweaked a tad over the years.

Her recipe was somewhat similar to this one, but I chose to add Coke to the recipe, while she always used water. I also added the Italian dressing, which she didn’t use at all.

When I’m creating or even tweaking recipes, I generally toss in a little of this and a little of that just to see how something works out! How about you? Is that how you come up with new recipes?

Often, those tweaks will stem from me trying something and immediately knowing that it needs something else or that something needs to be removed from a recipe. Sometimes, one of the boys will tell me something’s amiss.

Essentially, it’s the one time it’s perfectly okay to play with your food 🙂

OK, back to the ribs, again. I keep getting off track!

We generally pair our ribs with whatever I happen to have on hand for sides. Usually a veggie and a starch – I’m kind of old school like that! Well…maybe because I’m kinda old 🙂 Honestly, I love homemade mac and cheese with pork for some reason, so that’s often on the menu! Plus, it’s just kind of nummy 🙂

Anyways, grab yourself some spareribs, pull out the crockpot and get dinner on before you head to work. It will be ready to go by the time you get home and all you’ll need to do is prepare the sides and serve!

Then you can spend your evening enjoying time with your loved ones instead of in the kitchen.