Grilled Baby-Back Ribs

I want my baby-back baby-back baby-back...

After going to Costco in the morning, I was home with tons of meat and vegetables.  I was thinking of trying another stab at the Beer Can Chicken that was a massive failure back in May, but we've been having so much chicken lately that I wanted ribs.  I'll try the chicken on Wednesday when Nick is coming over to supervise.  So I marinated my ribs all day and threw them on the grill.  I thought that the char looked really nice, but when eating it, they were a little more done than I'd like.  Char = bad.

I was also trying out grilled artichokes.  It was done on a whim, which doesn't always have the best outcome.  Our family really likes plain old boiled artichokes, but half way through the boil I decided that I would try something new.  This was definitely an experiment.  The recipes I had read instructed to boil the chokes first.  So I did.  But I guess I didn't boil them long enough.  They were only half way done when I pulled them out of the water, but I didn't want them to get over cooked on the grill.  Instead, they were undercooked.  I figured that they would continue to cook on the grill.  My dad has never been a fan of artichokes and will give his up for grabs if he gets to eat the heart.  For once he actually liked it, which I was very surprised about.  He said that he liked the flavor.  I had drenched them in EVOO and sprinkled salt, pepper, and garlic powder on the top.  No wonder he liked it.  I will definitely be making these again, but will boil them longer.  I guess they don't really do a whole lot of cooking while they're on the grill.

I was extremely pleased with the pasta salad and it was super easy.  All I did was mix a dry bag of Italian dressing together as the directions instructed and add it to pasta, olives, diced tomatoes (drained and rinsed), and a can of kidney beans (also drained and rinsed).  The trick with pasta salad is to let the dressing soak into the pasta and tomatoes.  I let it sit in the fridge for about four hours and would give it a good shake every once in a while to try to evenly coat the pasta.  Last minute I chopped up some stuffed green olives from Costco and threw them in.  Yum yum!  It was the biggest success of the night.