Hello, All!

This weekend we had a bbq, which we failed to take good pictures at. Edward took one picture on his cell phone, so hopefully I can snag that so that I can post it. I made my Mommy's ribs and BBQ chicken. We took our yearly trip down to Costco in West Springfield, MA on Saturday. Since Edward still has his Costco American Express card we get money back at the end of the year. We can only redeem the rebates at Costco, so we've made it a yearly little road trip for our little family. While we were there, we got a pack of short ribs for our BBQ. It looked like two long pieces, but it was really three. It was a nice surprise for us since I was searching for the cheapest pack. I really wish that we had a Costco closer to us. For $23 we got a ton of ribs. I'd much rather have ribs for every BBQ than frozen hamburgers. They are way tastier. The ribs were my Mom's yummy recipe that I tell people I will use at every rib BBQ we have. Hehe. If we have ribs, this is how we're making them! The chicken was good too, but it was a bottled sauce. I have to say, more people raved about the ribs than the chicken. They can apparently tell the difference between homemade and bottled! Edward said that he at nine ribs by himself! Granted, ribs are small, but nine! He seemed quite excited at how easy the ribs were to make. He cut the ribs up for me while I made the marinade. I think that's the best part of these ribs. They're so easy! Here is the recipe that she emailed me in April of last year. I believe that she came up with this recipe when she was having a bbq for the scout parents. In fact, I may have posted this recipe before.

Mommy's email/recipe for ribs:

"Here's the recipe for the bbq short ribs, which I just "eyeball".

1/4 - 1/2 cups of soy sauce (preferrable light)

1/2 - 1 tsp. onion powder

1/2 - 1 tsp. garlic powder

pinch or 2 of ginger

1/2 tsp. of celery salt (optional)

crush red pepper flakes to taste

Splash or 2 of white wine (optional)

pinch of sugar

Mix all above ingredients in bowl & marinate in all beef, pork or chicken for several hours or over night. Use less soy sauce if you want a dry rub & it'll be more like a paste.

Please let me know how it turns out for you. You can always experiment with other seasonings as well."

These ribs were a hit! Usually we have left overs, but there weren't any this time. I just hope that everyone had enough to eat. During the day we spent a good portion of our time cleaning the apartment for this party and the place looks awesome! A friend of mine wrote a poem that stated that living with boys is better than living with girls. She said that boys do clean up if you tell them exactly what to do. She is so right! I have noticed that if I make out a list of things that need to be done and put our initials by specific tasks, Edward always gets them done. Woo! We have a good system going here. We vaccummed everything and I pretty much dusted every surface we have. I like to clean, but vaccumming and dusting are not chores that I enjoy. I thought that Neil was going to come and he is allergic to Emmy. He ended up not coming, but that's okay because our place looks awesome! I'm a little sore from hardcore vaccumming (the Roomba can only do so much), but I want to mop soon. I didn't want to tell everyone who came to take off their shoes, so now I have to mop instead. Oh well. I'm just so happy that it is clean!