Grilled Pork Ribs

I just love to grill in the summer.  It does have its downsides being in Phoenix and standing outside in the roasting heat over a hot grill, but it creates significantly less dirty dishes and doesn't heat up my kitchen by using the oven.  Plus we have a pool, so a lot of times whomever is grilling will take pool breaks or just hang out in the pool while dinner cooks.  It's a pretty sweet system.

I've always been a fan of boneless ribs.  Gnawing on ribs with the bones in them has always seemed gross and honestly a little barbaric to me.  although for a lot of years I wouldn't even eat meat with bones in it because it reminded me that it once was walking around.  Can you tell I lived with vegetarians in college?  I don't think I had my first buffalo wing until I was in my mid-20s.  I've gotten over it now, but I still won't eat bone-in ribs.  Recently boneless ribs were on sale for a super good price, so I bought a package of them planning on grilling them.  I wasn't really sure how to grill them, if I just threw them on there or what, so a little Googling directed me to a brine recipe, and I ran with it.  My uncle makes really fantastic grilled ribs, but I knew I'd need ingredients I didn't have, and I try to limit grocery store trips in the summer since I have to drag both kids with me.  This was also my first attempt at a brine, so I was pretty excited to try it out.

Grilled Boneless Pork Ribs

1 cup water
1/4 salt
1 T. sugar
3 pounds boneless country style pork ribs

In a gallon Ziploc bag, combine water, salt, and sugar.  Add in ribs, squeeze out excess air, and let sit for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight.

Preheat your grill for indirect heat grilling (is that the right phrase?).  My grill has four burners, I turned on all four to heat it up, then reduced the middle two super low.  Lay ribs in the middle of the grill and cook for 10 minutes.  Flip them over and grill another 10.  Their internal temperature should be 145 degrees.  Remove from grill and serve with your favorite barbecue sauce (or make your own if you're an overachiever like me).

*****

I really had no idea how this was going to turn out.  I'll be honest--I had visions of dried out, tough, inedible ribs, and I was working on a back up dinner plan in the back of my head the whole time.  My original plan had been to only cook about half the package of ribs, but Boy #2 was helping me make dinner, and he said we should do all of them so there'd be leftovers.  Thankfully he's a lot more optimistic than his mama because I didn't know if we should plan on leftovers in case they were awful.

These turned out AMAZING.  I don't know why I doubted myself.  Normally my go-to method of cooking boneless ribs is throwing them in the crockpot with a sweet and sour barbecue sauce that's my great aunt's recipe, but this may very well be my new go to.  It was a huge hit with my family.  There were leftovers but not many.  They were good on their own, they were good with the barbecue sauce (although my kids preferred them without the sauce, the husband and I were torn on which was better).  This was an all around winner!!

 My grill could maybe use a cleaning.

 I tried to make this one a little scenic.  See my failing garden in the background?  Those green things are my sad basil plants that are the only remnant of what I had hoped to be a successful summer garden.