Grill adventures!

I finally did it! I made things. Things from scratch! These things being a rib rub and barbeque sauce. Before I get too cocky, both need work. The sauce just lacks, something. It's a tomato paste base with brown sugar, dry mustard, vinegar worcestershire, cayennne, and salt, and liquid smoke, and maybe something else I don't remember. Oh yeah, chili powder, and garlic, and onion. I don't know what I'm missing. My plan is to experiment. Yep! If anyone out there thinks of anything, let me know. Anyway, here it is:

We made ribs. I mixed up a rub, it needs something too, but I think I'm on track for that one. It needs more brown sugar. Then we'll see. The problem I have with that is that I have to make ribs every time I want to try it. I know Jason is out there thinking "what's the problem" Hee. These ribs, our first came out BEAUTIFUL. Take a look. Jason is grillmaster. We tried three different rubs, the one on the far right is a simple one I made, the center the complex one and the far left is "control" from a jar.


Here they are cooked. Check out Jason's pink smoke ring.


Too bad we completely lost track of which rub was which sometime during the cooking. There wasn't one that stood out as best...

We also had the staples (you know if you've grilled with us) of baked potatoes, corn and jalapeños. They were good, but I totally burned my lip on a pepper, and not because it was cooked to a high temperature. Whoa!

So, if you've got an idea let me know! I'm open for suggestion, maybe more garlic? If you want to come over and taste it, let me know!

Fair!

This weekend, Jason and I ate our way around the Indiana State Fair. Mmmmm. There's really nothing like fair food is there? If it was around all year, Richard Simmons would have to cut me out of my house, and go weigh me on a truck scale. We ate:

A corn dog (I shared the breading with Jason, because he doesn't like the dog part, mmmm dog)

Ribbon Fries with red hot, and yum

Fiesta Potatoes (potatoes with salsa, cheese and sour cream I give them 5 out of ten fair burps)

Honey Sticks (I think the fair might be a flop without those)

Fried Cheese

Corn

and my two old and new favorites. My old favorite, and probably eternal love, is fried vegetables. That is just good stuff no matter how you come at it. The funniest part was that they were provided to us by a stand called "Dr Vegetable". On the stand were pictures of each veggie, in white coats. I laughed so hard, but not too hard to eat my fried goodness. My new favorite is the pineapple whip. It was delicious, and if a temporary sign in a giant pineapple is to be believed, had only 20 calories. It was like soft serve, but pineapple. yum!!!!

Now that I've talked about the most important parts of the fair, on to the "other stuff". We saw a lot of animals, Jason and I both really like that part. There were some interesting goats, and Indian antelopes that we fed carrot slices to. Did you know that for some reason, angora goats (or at least 2 of the species) don't like carrot slices? Hmmmmm. We saw many bunnies, very soft and cool chickens. The cows were HUGE and some of the pigs were bigger. The biggest, and my favorite animal we saw there were the Belgians. If you've never seen a Belgian horse in person, you don't know how to feel tiny. I love seeing them every year, and last week there were more than I've ever seen before.

Even bigger than the Belgians, were these:





Steam tractors. I'd never seen farm equipment this big, and I work in the sticks. A lot of it was running too. I saw one going really fast, and because I had no idea what it was supposed to do, I dubbed it a hand remover. Because, yeah, it would do that in a jif. We also saw breaksk8. They are cool, but the crap rap we had to put up with as an opener was awful. No just because I don't like rap, but because these guys were really bad. And they really had a bad crowd, not in general, but for them. We were all trying not to laugh, and feeling sorry for them.

There's the fair! Weather was great, and fun was had. yay.

Another Rant

Where are all of the married/no kids bloggers out there? I know this rant is a tangent from the last rant, but still! I enjoy reading about your kids, bloggers of the world, but I also want to read about other people in the same place as I am. Getting used to being a wife! I love it! It is fun every day, really, honestly. Just me and Jason, that's perfect company! We have a great time doing things, and I think it would be fun to read about other newly-or not- married couples doing fun things too! To me it's like one of my favorite books/authors of late. "Good In Bed" by Jennifer Weiner, was just what I needed when I read it. It is the story of a single girl, heartbroken by her first love. She makes it! She gets her act together. Weiner's next book, "In Her Shoes", also great. But then, I think she got married. Good for her, bad for me. See, then, I was still in the painful, single, no 3rd dates stage (for some reason I always had 2nd dates, but it would fall apart then). Her next book, "Little Earthquakes" was about a new mother. I couldn't get into it. It wasn't where I was. I guess I'm selfish, but I want to read about other people where I am. So, where are you happily married, but no kids yet blogs? Lay it on me!