Blue Ribbon BBQ (Arlington, MA)

Growing up, my parents made a huge point of always eating our dinners together during the week.  It didn't matter if my dad was coming home late or if my sister or I had after-school activities.  No matter what, we waited until we were all home and ate dinner together.  At the time, this rule seemed a little annoying, especially as I entered my teenage years.  But now, I really appreciate the sentiment and even try to establish a similar rule in our household.  Sure, it is a small household with just the two of us, but no matter what, Bret and I always make plans for the two of us on Friday evenings.  It is a time for us to unwind and reconnect after a usually long workweek.

This past Friday night was no different.  We actually decided to go out for dinner and decided to head to Blue Ribbon BBQ.  Bret adores a good barbecue, and he is a big fan of Blue Ribbon.  I like eating barbecued foods but I definitely don't love it as much as he does.  As a result, I've never been to Blue Ribbon before and I was ready for my inaugural visit.

Despite the pouring rain, there was a line out the door at Blue Ribbon.  Bret got there early enough to snag a seat and I saved the table while he waited in line to order.  While we were waiting for our food to come up, we grabbed a myriad of sauces, which included sweet barbecue, gold barbecue, chipotle and hot barbecue.  Of course, we also grabbed some pickles too.

I ordered a platter meal, which included your choice of meat, two sides and a slice of cornbread.  I opted for burnt ends as my meat.  I've never tried it before.  Bret said that my burnt ends didn't have as many burnt ends as usual but it was still pretty delicious.

For my sides, I ordered the collard greens and the mashed potatoes.  It was all so delicious but I barely made dents in either of my side dishes.

The cornbread was good but a little dry.  Still, it provided relief when I used a little too much of the hot barbecue sauce.

My first trip to Blue Ribbon was definitely a filling one but a fun Friday date night.

Blue Ribbon BBQ has two locations.  We dined at 908 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, MA.

Cracklin' Cornbread

There were a lot of firsts this weekend and you know fried chicken was one of them. Cornbread was another one. I've never made cornbread from scratch. In fact, I've only ever used those little jiffy boxes and made corn muffins. They aren't very good actually. When I brought up my theme idea to my beeps (bakespace peeps - I know, I know, we're corny) they immediately had a ton of suggestions for me. One of them was cornbread and then to make it even better DD of DDPie's Slice suggested cracklin' cornbread. As soon as I saw that I knew it had to be on the menu. What is cracklin' cornbread you ask? Well, corbread with bacon in it, of course!

I followed the recipe that DD gave me and next time I'll only make two slight changes. The first would be to use the full amount of sugar. The recipe suggests 2-4 tsp and DD suggested that if I use the bacon I may not want it to be as sweet. I think I'd like the taste of sweet and salty together so I will try the full amount (I only used 2 tsp) next time. Keep in mind that cornbread isn't supposed to be as sweet as a corn muffin but I just like it sweeter. The second change I would make would be to take out the bacon and mix it with the batter and then pour it into the cast iron skillet. All the bacon stayed on the bottom and I imagined it throughout the cornbread. That's it. It was very moist, tasty and easy! Thanks DD!



Corn Bread

By: DD of DDPie's Slice

Ingredients:

1 cup Quaker or Aunt Jemima Yellow or White Corn Meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 to 4 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 large egg, beaten
1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425F

Place all dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and stir together. In a seperate bowl, whisk together milk, egg and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the milk mixture. Stir together quickly.

Pour into a greased pan and bake in hot oven for 20-25 min until golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For Cracklin' Corn Bread:

I always use my iron skillet for corn bread. I dice then fry about 3-4 pieces of bacon until crispy. I pour off excess grease, leaving only about 2 tbsp of the bacon grease in the pan with the bacon. Mix corn bread according to directions and immediately pour into the HOT skillet containing the bacon. Place in oven and bake accordingly.

FYI- if you are making regular corn bread, the key is the hot skillet. So when I'm doing "plain" cornbread, I put the skillet in the oven with a couple of tbsp of melted shortening in the skillet and let it get hot while mixing the corn bread. Then pour it into the hot skillet.