That first 85 degree day hit me like I had just won the lottery! (Ok, I may be exaggerating.) But the weather was absolutely STELLAR. Clear blue skies with hardly a single cloud. Just the white, billowy, non-threatening ones. You know the ones. The ones you still like to gaze at to see a chicken, a fish, and a rabbit with 3 ears! It was a gorgeous day all the way around!

I knew beforehand, by catching the weather reports, that it was supposed to be a beautiful day, so I planned ahead and had  a nice rack of ribs all rubbed down and marinating in the back fridge! 😉  I changed one of my ingredients in my rub, and I think it was the best yet!

I’m a wee bit greedy, though, when it comes to barbecue. I like both a dry rub first, then a wet barbecue “mop sauce” to follow afterwards! The best of both worlds, I say! 😉

I wanted to have our first picnic of the season, so I whipped up an easy potato salad and made a pitcher of lemonade. We also had one odd french roll left, that I’d turn into garlic bread, too! We really weren’t going to need much more than that. Meat, potatoes and a nice piece of bread would do us just fine. 😉

Besides improving my rub a little, I also wanted to make a really nice, but simple sauce to go on last. Something even better than last summer’s sauces!

I just plain didn’t have enough ingredients to make a sauce from scratch, so I used one of my favorite bottled sauces as a base to start with!  Sue Bee makes several barbecue sauces that are really wonderful! For this I used their Original-Style Honey Barbecue Sauce, which I already had on hand.

Now I just needed to add a few ingredients to spice things up a bit! We’ve had a jar of peach preserves in the fridge that needed using up, so in went some peach flavor!

Next, I wanted a little heat!

My hubby isn’t big on spicy hot foods, but he LOVES sriracha sauce!  So I started with a just a little, added more, then ended up doubling it, but still only adding 1 tablespoon. You can keep adding to your own taste, though.

And that’s all there was to the sauce! The spice rub that goes on first has quite a lot of flavor, so not too much else is even needed or there might end up being a tug of war between the flavors trying to compete against each other instead of blending together and making friends.

I had a very nice rack of  baby back pork ribs, and though there are tons of different ways to cook them, I really prefer to wrap them in foil and bake them in the oven low and slow! Though competitions would laugh me out of town and give me the lowest of scores for this, we actually prefer our ribs succulently juicy, melt-in-your-mouth sumptuous, and “fall-off-the-bone” tender! 😉 (Why would anyone want them to be chewy and stuck to the bone??) I guess it’s just a matter of personal preference. 😉

Our first picnic was truly a fun day! The weather was perfect, the food was over-the-top delicious, and the star of the show, the ribs, were the best I’ve made yet! Just as we were finishing up, it rained lightly, so the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! Even the skies thought our picnic was terrific! 😉

Check out the rainbow!! (It was trying as hard as it could to become a double, note the second one starting to form in the upper right hand corner!)

These ribs are very rich, though, so one rack should yield at least 4 servings, possibly even 6 if you’re serving appetizers, lots of side dishes and dessert! So a little really does go quite a long way!

Well, at least they’re supposed to….. 😉
Nothing lasts long in this house! 😉

Let’s all have a fantastic summer! 😀

Yield: 4-5 servings

Sweet 'n Spicy Peach & Sriracha BBQ Baby Back Ribs

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Ingredients

• 1 rack baby back pork ribs, remove sinew from back, trim any excess fat if desired

For Dry Rub:

• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. Hickory Smoked salt
• 1 Tbl. smoked sweet paprika
• 1 Tbl. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. Cajun's Choice Creole Seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. cayenne
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

For BBQ Sauce:

• 1/2 cup Sue Bee Original-Style Honey Barbecue Sauce
• 1 Tbl. peach preserves
• 1 Tbl. sriracha sauce

Instructions

Mix rub ingredients extremely well in small bowl, set aside. Do the same for the bbq sauce. Warm in microwave to evenly mix in peach preserves and sriracha sauce. Set aside.

Remove membrane (sinew) from back of ribs using a spoon to scrape a corner to get it started. Pull back and remove in one long piece. Discard. Spray insides of a large sheet of foil with butter-flavored cooking spray. Place rack of ribs onto foil meaty side-up. Coat top side well with half of the rub. Turn over and coat bone side with rest of rub. Match up sides of foil and fold down repeatedly until touching meat. Roll up ends to seal well. Be careful not to tear or poke holes in foil.

Place onto foil-lined baking sheet. Marinate for several hours, overnight, or bake now in preheated 300º oven for 2 1/2 hours.

Remove from oven and open foil package carefully. Place meat back onto clean foil-lined baking sheet bone-side up. Coat well with bbq sauce. Pop into 350º oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and carefully turn over. Coat meaty side with rest of sauce and bake another 15 minutes. *If grilling, place coated meat side-down first, coat rib side with sauce, then turn.

Place onto a serving plate or platter, cut if needed, and serve!

*Double sauce if you prefer a heavily coated rib or would like extra for dunking.