Last Saturday, at 10:00 a.m. I put three racks of baby backs in the #3ff. About noon, I was reminded that we had a wedding to attend at 3:00 p.m. at a location about an hour away. So, I turned the temperature down from 225 to 200 thinking they would be ok for a couple extra hours. Unfortunately, we didn't make it back to the house until 7:00 p.m.
When I took the baby backs out of the cooker they were literally falling off of the bones. Just wrapped them up in foil and put them in the fridge. So, thought I would just cook up a couple pounds of black bean and make some rib stew. Next morning, I put the black beans on the stove with about three chopped onions and some garlic cloves. After the beans were done, I added three cans of diced tomatoes and a can of Original Ro-Tel along with three heaping tablespoons of some Santa Fe chili powder and cleaned out what was left of a jar of some BBQ sauce. As soon as the mixture got up to a slow boil I threw in all of the rib meat I had stripped off of the ribs. Brought it all back to a low simmer for about two hours and then put it outside until the next morning.
Put the pot back on the stove at about 11:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and heated the mess back up to a low simmer for about 30 minutes. Added some salt to taste then dipped out a bowl full for lunch. It was and outstanding. I'm not advocating that this is a good way to eat your baby backs. But, when faced with a disaster it sure turned out damn good.
I love a good stew and this one hit the spot. The downside is that it looks like I will be eating Baby Back Stew for the rest of the week.
