BBQ ribs has to be one of my favourite things about summer and I have just been itching to try cooking them in the slow cooker! Getting perfectly cooked, juicy, fall off the bone tender ribs can sometimes be tricky but the slow cooker makes it almost effortless! With the slow cooker you just need to season the ribs, place them in the slow cooker with the ribs vertical, wrapped around the inside, pour on the BBQ sauce and cook on low until nice and tender, about 6-8 hours. Once the ribs are cooked you can slather on more BBQ sauce and throw them onto the grill (or under the broiler) to get that smoky grilled flavour! Speaking of sauce, for these ribs I went with my roasted strawberry BBQ sauce which is perfect for the summer!
If only that book had been available back when I first started cooking eggplant, I would have had a better understanding of the vegetable from the beginning. I highly recommend it for anyone in need of vegetable understanding or inspiration. First, he uses the term aubergine for eggplant which is so much prettier sounding, and I wish it would take off here in the States. Then, he fondly mentions the different varieties and their shapes, sizes, and colors. He writes of the ivory ones: “their pale skins blushed with lilac or rose as if someone had taken an artist’s brush to them.” He goes on to poetically discuss cooking aubergines: “The aubergine is at its most sensuous in a haze of olive oil and garlic, onion and sultanas, pine kernels, yoghurt and fresh mint. The fragrance is beguiling, sumptuous, heady. The flesh of Solanum melongena loves the muskier spices such as cumin and saffron, the piercing sharpness of pomegranate seeds, the faintest breath of rosewater. But nothing does quite so much for it as being grilled over charcoal. Smoke seeps into the spongy flesh, lending a note of intrigue and exposing an altogether darker undertone.” Now, that’s what eggplant is about. When a nice, big aubergine appeared in our CSA box, it was most certainly going to be cooked over charcoal. 
