A note from me: In case you weren’t aware, I am in Los Angeles right now visiting my sister! But, I didn’t like the idea of leaving four days of blank pages on my blog, so I went and gathered a few of my old favorites to paste on here. I chose a good bbq post for today since warm weather is upon us and I am excited to make this again! So, have fun! Thanks for coming by! 🙂 

I don’t actually hate pig, I think they are fine animals – I am without further comment on that. It’s what we eat that comes from pig that has given me cause to put my guard up and my foot down for my whole life. That is until two weeks ago. Now, there is a small caveat to my no-pork-eating mentality and that is bacon, but it pretty much has to be burnt in order for me to eat it. I don’t know, can’t explain that. Bacon seemed easier to accept. My grandfather (much love) used to order his bacon from the restaurant that he frequented twice a day so that it would literally hang over each side of his fork if he picked it up from the middle. Ew. Maybe that was a mid-western thing, living on a farm and whatnot.

This transformation from a no-pork-eating gal to an enjoyer of baby-back ribs and grilled pork chops (so far) came as a surprise to me, even! Ha! Not to mention Chris, who still kind of stares at me while I’m enjoying said pork dish, with a bit of a kid-in-a-candy-store grin on his face-you see, the only home cooked pork he has gotten in the last, well, 16 years, was when his mom made it for him. Poor, poor guy!

I used to be a regular cooker and consumer of chicken. It was the safe protein for me – easy to cook, eat, etc… But, I became 100 percent grossed out by that bird over the past several months. It was gross to cook, think about and eat. No matter if I bought it from Walmart or Whole Foods, it’s quality was so inconsistent that I put the kibosh on cooking it in my house. I don’t think we’ve missed it for about two months now! When Logan began to turn his nose up to our recent pork recipes, we had to explain that this was a new meat that we would be eating from now on and he should really give it a try. This actually came from Chris, who, again spoke as if it were Christmas morning. He loved dinner last night. Let me show you:

That’s Brown Sugar Grilled  Pork Chop with grilled mushroom and asparagus on the side. It was in fact, wonderful. The kids ate it too, not sure that they loved it, but they ate it! We even delved into adventures with baby back pork ribs a couple of weeks ago. Check it out!

But then there were bones on the table and if I think about it too much, its weird for me. Makes me feel barbaric. I think I’m a real carnivore now. (Look out steak, you’re next!! – that may or may not be true, by the way-I eat it in restaurants!!).

Can you see Logan’s face in the background here? As if to say, “Uuugghhh, they never make me anything I like at dinner anyway, now this?” I’ve read that it takes ten servings of a new food for kids to actually decide if they truly like it or not. I don’t know if that applies to seven-year-olds. But, if so, look out, kiddo, you’ve got (at least) eight more chances to like it!

Here’s the recipe we referred to for the Ribs. Thank you, Paula Deen!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/sugar-rays-body-blow-ribs-recipe/index.html

And, the chops (see, I think I can call ‘em chops now, because I eat them!):

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grilled-brown-sugar-pork-chops/detail.aspx