It's 80 degrees in northern Indiana today. The sky is blue, the trees are budding, and our daughter is happily smeared from head to toe in the mud she's dug out of the backyard. To kick off spring, I whipped up these Maple Black Pepper Oven Spareribs. These spareribs are easy to make, don't require a smoker or any complicated equipment, and are absolutely delicious! These ribs forgo the traditional tomato-based sauce, and bring to center stage the fresh maple syrup Rebecca was given a few weeks ago from a local Amish farmer. Celebrate the changing of the seasons with Maple Black Pepper Oven Spareribs. 

Sometimes in the dead of winter, cooking needs a little extra oomph. Yucatán Dry Spice Rub, Xak, fits the bill. With a few minutes of work, your kitchen will soon be filled with warm, sweetly spiced, and earthy flavors. This easy and versatile spice rub stores well and provides a unique flavor boost to pork, poultry, fish, soups, veggies, or even garlic butter. Stay tuned for great new recipes in the next two weeks featuring Yucatán Dry Spice Rub to get you started. This spice rub recipe was inspired by Daniel Hoyer's book of Mayan cuisine. 

Without AC in the summer, our small Pittsburgh kitchen is not a place you want to be cooking with high heat. For us, summer eating often revolves around the grill, where our current go-to protein is North African Grilled Chicken. Inspired by the flavors of the famous North African spice mix known as Ras Al-Hanout (or "best of the shop"), our marinade uses a blend of warming spices, cinnamon, black pepper, turmeric, cumin, nutmeg, and cloves, balanced with punchy lemon. This fragrant combination is intoxicating. North African Grilled Chicken is a crowd pleaser on its own and an excellent light addition to sandwiches, salads, or tacos.

Check out our Homemade Pastrami  recipe featured by our friends at The Food Tasters! Its a great site for great food and all things Pittsburgh. 

We have a soft spot for home-cured meats, and often find ourselves making variations on these traditional brined and smoked delicacies. While corned beef was our gateway meat, Homemade Pastrami is our latest passion.  The name Pastrami comes to us from Yiddish, and appears to have originated as traditional wind-dried beef in what is now Romania. Our Homemade Pastrami develops layers of flavor through a two step process of brining and smoking.  The brisket first cures for 6 days in a brine infused with cloves, black pepper, thyme, and garlic before finishing for 11 hours in the smoker. The resulting meat is unbelievably good, especially on a homemade Reuben! 

For a time, my family lived on a farm in rural southwest Colorado. My brother was in charge of raising the chickens and ducks, my mom managed the greenhouse and gardens, my dad ran the fields, and I raised the pigs, usually about 3-4 at a time. Seeing the process through, from raising the animals to butchering and packaging the meat, made me passionate about nose-to-tail cooking: minimizing waste and maximizing flavor and value. Sausage is quintessential nose-to-tail cooking, using meat not suitable for the more expensive steaks, roasts, and specialty cuts.

This quick and easy Apple Sage Breakfast Sausage is my take on a classic fall breakfast sausage. It rich and unctuous without being greasy, is packed with apple and sage, and highlighted with generous freshly ground black pepper. If you've never made your own sausage, this is the place to start. The sausage is ready in minutes, and uses free formed patties to avoid the extra complexity of casing your own sausage.

A pastel-hued Cuban diner in Philadelphia was the site of my last fragrant bowl of Ropa Vieja, and I have been plotting to recreate this succulent dish ever since.  For me, nothing compares to a slow braised, big flavored, meat dish swimming in a pungent, aromatic sauce. This is my protein paradise!