Hey guys! Sorry about the delay in getting this out. I wasn’t quite sure when I was going to have time to write everything up so I figured a recap of this past weekend, with several recipes, would be a good idea.

Friday night started out with leftover Chicken Soup with Noodles. There was an SF GIANTS game on we were watching that evening and cooking time got away from me. Fortunately I try to keep something good in the freezer for just these types of nights. It definitely hit the spot with a red leaf lettuce salad on the side that had an apple cider bacon vinaigrette for the dressing.

Saturday morning had me wanting to either make a big breakfast casserole, it will happen, or something with the pint of blueberries I had. After mulling it over I decided a Blueberry Sour Cream Coffeecake would be a good idea. This is one time that I’m not going to share that recipe, I could have been better and it look way too much like the Mixed Berry Cobbler I recently made. I will come up with something worthy of sharing, I promise.

Saturday evening I grilled a meaty half-rack of Baby Back ribs, topped them off with an Apple Chipotle BBQ Sauce, and made Cheater Baked Beans. We had salad left over from the night before so veggies were covered. In fact, the vinaigrette from the night before was better after sitting overnight. And the BBQ sauce also had overnight for all the flavors to marry as I made it on Friday, a very good move indeed.

Sunday was an easy cooking day. I had originally planned on doing roasted Cornish game hen, mashed potatoes, and some sort of veggie. There were a few preparations in store for that hen so I got the first on underway which was an apple juice brine.

My theory on brining is that pork and poultry can always benefit from some sort of brining or injecting, both types of protein are usually very bland on their own and they need flavor help. This is why I brine chicken when I can, wings are the exception, and I like to brine pork chops and pork tenderloin. I also brine my turkeys at Thanksgiving, or any other time of year for that matter. I will do a post about roasting the game hen, that is dinner tonight. Enjoy!