Jim Beam Country Ribs & Nigella Ice Cream Cake Recipe

Ribfest-but-better ribs

Ingredients:

• 6 racks of baby back ribs

• 2 large onions

• 2 apples

• apple juice or cider (small)

• I use aluminum disposable roasting pans you buy at the grocery store (I just used regular roasting pans as I couldn't find big enough disposable ones)

• Plus all the stuff below for Dry rub and BBQ sauce

Pre-prepare the following;

Dry rub (mix it all together and put in a jar - can be done way ahead of time):

• 2.5 tablespoons paprika

• 1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

• 2 tablespoon dark brown sugar

• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

• 1 1/2 teaspoons celery salt (I couldn't find this so I used regular salt)

• 2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1 teaspoon dry mustard

• 1.5 teaspoon cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

BBQ Sauce (I usually prepare the night before - can be done a couple days before and kept in fridge)

• 1/2 sweet onion very finely chopped

• 2 Cups Ketchup

• 1/2 cup light flavoured molasses

• 1/3 cup bourbon (I use Jim Beam - but if that's not available any bourbon will do. If they don't have bourbon Down Under, skip it) I used Chivas Regal scotch whisky as I didn't have Jim Beam

• 1/4 cup Dijon Mustard

• 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

• 2 teaspoons paprika

• 1 teaspoon garlic powder

Drop a splash of vegetable oil into a saucepan and add onions, cook until they start to become clear. Turn heat down to low-medium and add rest of ingredients. Stir regularly for about 20 minutes and then bring to a simmer for about an hour (stirring occasionally). Let cool and refrigerate

For the Ribs:

Get a whole bunch (6) of baby back ribs, and the night before rub the dry rub into them well on both sides. Wrap them in foil or saran wrap in the fridge overnight.

Now on the big day.

Heat your oven to 250 degrees fahrenheit (120 degrees Celcius)

slice up the onions and apples and lay them on the bottom (mixed) of the pans

Lay your ribs over them and put the whole lot in the oven for about 4.5 hours. Every half hour or so spray (or lightly sprinkle if you don't have a sprayer) the apple juice/cider on the ribs

At the 4.5 hour (or so) mark take them out of the oven and put them on the bbq. Set the bbq at low-med (around 350 degrees or less is good)

Start slopping the bbq sauce all over the ribs (I buy a paintbrush for this - I don't need to tell you to use a new one right?). Coat the ribs in the sauce real good. And keep slopping it on every few minutes for about 30 minutes. That's about all the time you'll have before the crowd gets surly from the sweet smell.

If you're really gung ho about it you can use your bbq as a smoker and smoke the ribs at the end vs. straight grilling.

Ice Cream Cake from Nigella Express

I don't think a cook's job should be to deceive, but there is something appealing about the fact that this looks and tastes as if it were incredibly hard work and yet involves no more than a bit of stirring. You must, though, serve a warm sauce with it-the crowning glory-and I've certainly given you options below.

To be frank, you can choose different biscuits, different nuts and nobbly bits to mix in with the ice cream and give crunch, texture and sudden shards of flavour. I find it hard to believe, however, that this could be in any way improved. Sorry, but that's just how it is.

• 1.5 litres of vanilla ice cream

• 100g honey roasted peanuts

• 200g Nestle swirled milk chocolate and peanut butter swirl chips (or chocolate chips of your choice) I used Reese's Peanut butter cups and Dime bars which are like Hershey's Skor bars

• 40g Crunchie bar

• 150g bourbon creams broken up into crumbs and rubble

• 1 batch butterscotch sauce plus 1 batch hot chocolate sauce or 1 batch chocolate peanut butter sauce

Step 1 - Let the ice cream soften either in the fridge for while or out in the kitchen

Step 2 - Line an deep 20cm springform tin with cling film both in the bottom and sides of the tin so that you have some overhang at the top.

Step 3 - Empty the slightly softened ice cream into a bowl and mix in the peanuts, 150g chocolate and peanut butter morsels or chocolate chips, Crunchie shards and 100g of the Bourbon biscuit crumbs

4.Scrape the ice cream mixture into the springform tin, flattening the top like a cake, cover the top with clingfilm and place in the freezer to firm up.

Step 5 - Serve the cake straight away from the freezer unmoulding from the tin and pulling the clingfilm gently away, before putting on a plate or cake stand. Let it stand and soften for about 5 minutes before cutting.

Step 6 - Sprinkle the top of the cake with the extra 50g of chocolate and peanut butter morsels or chocolate chips and the remaining Bourbon biscuit crumbs.

Step 7 - Cut into slices and serve with the butterscotch and chocolate sauces, letting both dribble lacily over each slice. If two sauces sounds like too much trouble-they're not-just opt for the chocolate peanut butter sauce. Its hard to find an argument against it.

Recipe by Nigella Lawson from Nigella Express

Bloomin' Onion

Slice onion as pictured and spread out petals .

Dip in egg and milk mix and then in seasoned flour and paprika mix.

Dip again and deep fry.

Spinach Dip

• 1 block of frozen spinach (thawed with as much moisture squeezed out of it as you can)

• 1 block of Light Philadelphia cream cheese

• 1/2 packet of French onion soup mix

• 1 cup shredded tasty cheese to taste

• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise

• 1 Cob roll, hollowed out

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly and stuff back into Cob "shell".

Havana Beach cocktail

• 1 part rum

• 2 parts pineapple juice

• 1/2 lime juiced

• 1 teaspoon sugar

• 4 parts ginger ale

• Ice

Combine all ingredients and enjoy!