Sweet and Spicy Ribs

A long, long time ago my husband and I lived in the dingiest basement apartment in Provo. Seriously, it was so bad that I cried the day I moved in, and sang praises the day I moved out. The upshot of the deal was that we had a fun ward, although I had pretty much lost touch with everyone until just the other day.
I was on Today's Mama and saw this cute girl from our previous ward. Her name is Karen and she did this crazy project of cooking in her crockpot for a full 365 days (maybe you've heard of her?). Anyway, of course she had a blog to accompany her project, and it was wildly successful, and now she is a published cookbook author! Why is no one coming to me and asking me to write a book? Because I'm simply not as cool as Karen!!
But I digress.
So Karen is doing this fun thing on her blog to go with March Madness. She created a bracket for her 64 favorite slow cooker recipes and is having readers compare them and pass the winner along to the next round.
I am the lucky girl who got to try this yummy recipe for Sweet and Spicy Ribs. They were awesome! For sure the best ribs I've ever made. My kids and husband loved it too, although they were more interested in the fancy rolls I made to go with it.

The original recipe was enough to serve 10, so I cut it down to size for our family.

2 lbs. ribs (I used pork because they were way cheaper, but I'm sure beef is yummy too)
2 cups BBQ sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 Tbsp Cajun seasoning
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. onion powder

Stir together barbecue sauce, brown sugar, Cajun seasoning, garlic powder, and onion powder in medium bowl. Remove 1/2 cup of mixture; refrigerate and reserve for dipping sauce. Place ribs in large slow cooker. Pour barbecue sauce mixture over ribs. Cover and cook on LOW 8 hours (high for 3.5 for me) or until meat is tender. Uncover; remove ribs. Skim fat from sauce and serve with reserved sauce. Serves 4.

One thing I both love and hate about using the slow cooker is how good your house smells while the food cooks. I almost always have to spend the afternoon outside away from the smell, or I end up snacking my heart out on junk food because my nose tells me I'm hungry! This recipe was definitely like that-- I could taste the tangy barbecue sauce in the air, my neighbor even commented on it!


I'm looking forward to trying out the competitor recipe, Creamy Black Bean Chicken. Monday, I think.