These ribs are what I grilled to go along with the salad recipe from the previous post. When I decided on ribs for the entree, I had to look back through the blog to see just how many baby back rib recipes I have on here. The answer is eight, there are eight more baby back rib recipes that I’ve posted. Is nine too many? I don’t think so.

These remind me of Hawaii, so you know they are going to be good!

Luau Baby Back Ribs

Soaking Liquid

• 4 cups water
• 1 ½ cups soy sauce
• 1/4 cup ponzu
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 4 bay leaves
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced 
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 4 cups ice cubes

Ribs

• 3 to 3 ½ pounds pork baby back rib racks
• 2 bottles of beer of your choice

Dry Rub

• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon allspice
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

Glaze

• 2 cups pineapple and/or mango juice
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger root, peeled and grated
• 1 teaspoon Sriracha 
• 1 cup reduced soaking liquid

My ex-husband, Dave, was born and raised in Illinois and is a CPA. If you’ve followed along for any amount of time, you are already well aware of that. Honestly, it’s strange for me to refer to Dave as my ex-husband. After being together for 35 years, it’s awkward and difficult to use the word “ex” when he is still a part of my life. So from here on out, I’m just going to say Dave, and that will be that.

Anyhow, Dave came for dinner over the weekend to help me gather together my tax stuff. Since he is from Illinois, he loves Portillo’s.  It’s not as though Portillo’s was around when Dave lived in Illinois. He moved to Arizona in 1982. Portillo’s started as “The Dog House” in a Chicago suburb in 1963 but didn’t open their first Portillo’s in Chicago until 1994, long after Dave was gone. But it’s an Illinois institution now, so as an Illinois native son, apparently he is obliged to love it.

Arizona got its first Portillo’s in 2013, right here in Scottsdale. I’m not a huge fan, but I do like their chopped salad. For our tax dinner, Dave requested a salad and something on the grill. He’s the salad guy and I’m the soup girl. I’d have soup over salad every day of the week. But he was doing me a favor, so salad it was. My requirement for a good salad is that there are lots of goodies. I don’t like a salad that is all or mostly lettuce. Hey, I’m not a rabbit! Portillo’s Chopped Salad fits my salad requirements.

Notes: Portillo’s uses ditalini (small tube) pasta, I used pesto-filled mini tortellini from Trader Joe’s. They use sunflower seeds; I prefer chopped pistachios or almonds. For their vinaigrette, they use dried oregano (about 1 teaspoon) I didn’t want to dig out the dried, so I used fresh from the garden oregano. You could add diced cucumber, summer squash, or whatever floats your boat. If you want to bulk it up with protein, add shredded rotisserie chicken.

I used the Joseph Joseph Rotary Vegetable Peeler with 3 Blades to prep my carrots. The julienne blade makes long thin strips of carrots instead of shredded carrots, which I think look and even taste nicer. Here is a link to the peeler, but shred away if you don’t want to get all fancy!

We’ve been celebrating my mother-in-law, Patricia Hopkins, and her upcoming 92nd birthday all weekend long. She, along with her oldest son, my brother-in-law, Roger, and his daughter, my niece, Megan, flew in on Thursday. Mom’s birthday isn’t until the 13th, but this was the weekend that worked best for everyone’s schedule. Marissa is also in town, making it doubly special.

On Saturday afternoon, Megan was craving an espresso martini. She’d asked my nephew, Brandon, to make one for her a while back in Chicago and was disappointed when he didn’t create it for her. Brandon fancies himself as quite the mixologist, rightfully so. You may remember one of his creations that I just had to reproduce when I returned home from a trip to the windy city.

Anyhow, after I put together the makings for the espresso martini, Megan and Marissa felt the need to taunt Brandon on Instagram.

I put together a trio of Harmony Boards for our appetizers last night. I found the cute little pumpkin-shaped boards at Michael’s a couple of weeks ago. They were on clearance for 70% off!

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For the bridal shower, I not only made a quadruple recipe of the breakfast potatoes, but I also made 5 of these frittatas. The most challenging part of that was finding a place to slide the frittatas out after I cooked them. It had to be something that could then be transported to the home of the hostess, Whitney, and placed in her oven to reheat. The best I could come up with was to turn over baking sheets and place 2 frittatas on each sheet.

It may not have been the perfect solution but it worked. Once again, when you see the photos, don’t be alarmed by the quantity of food. If you make this, it will be a fifth as much.

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The weekend before last, my friend and former neighbor, Whitney, hosted a bridal shower. She asked me to help with the food and she ordered a Harmony Board too.

The menu was a green salad, frittatas, and breakfast potatoes. Since I’m Irish and I love potatoes, I’ll post that recipe first.

I quadrupled the recipe, so when you see the photos, do not fret. It looks like a lot because it is a lot!

I bought a mix of baby potatoes from Costco. The tri-color of the potatoes and tri-color of the bell peppers really make for a pretty dish, as pretty as you can get with potatoes, anyhow.

In the recipe, I say to roughly chop the potatoes, think bite-size. With the baby potatoes, that was as easy as cutting them into quarters.

Since I was just dropping the food off, I didn’t get a photo of the finished product (I did the last stage of roasting at Whitney’s house and left them in the oven as I left) so, I’ll just leave you with a photo of one the lovey buffet tables she had set up for the food.

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Cute mama-to-be, Chanté, posing in front of the cocktail station at the Harmony Boards launch party. She is the sweetest!

I’ve posted the recipes for the two signature cocktails we made for the party, so now it’s time for the mocktail. A mocktail that Chanté and others, who choose not to imbibe but still want to feel festive, could enjoy.

I wanted to try something new. I know so many people who are lovers of the elderflower flavor, such as the famous St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur. I’ve made several cocktails with St. Germain, such as this Champagne Cocktail, but to be perfectly honest, I’m not a fan of the elderflower flavor. It’s a bit too, let’s just say, flowery, for my taste.

But since I had no intention of drinking the mocktail that evening, I went ahead and created one using elderflower syrup.

Where can one find elderflower syrup, you ask? Amazon, of course.

Oh, and in the photo of the ingredients below, there is a bottle of agave. That is because I tried making it with a 1/2 teaspoon of agave nectar in my first attempt and … NO!  It was way TOO sweet for not only my taste, but for anyone except maybe a six-year-old.  Pretend that is not there!

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I have a thing for cucumber in cocktails, it’s so bright and refreshing. My all-time favorite is the Cucumber Martini.

What makes this drink different is the addition of mint simple syrup and the infusion of cucumber into the gin instead of muddling.

This is the second of two signature cocktails we served at the Harmony Boards launch party.

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I created a couple of signature cocktails and a mocktail for the Harmony Boards Launch Party last week.

photo credit: Robert Westerman

This first recipe was the big hit of the night. You’ll know why when you see the ingredient list:

• Fresh lemon juice – check.
• Sugared rims – check.
• Fresh ginger – check.
• Everyone’s favorite alcohol, Vodka – check!

Of course, not everything can go off without a hitch. I’d made the Ginger-Lemonade and other components for the cocktails at home earlier in the week. Then Kim and I transported and prepped everything at the venue on Tuesday, the day before the party.

(I should stop here to say that the venue is one of the charming Airbnb that Kim’s son and daughter-in-law, Cody and Chanté, operate. Cody and his Chisel Built company do the remodel and Chanté does the interior design. You can visit this home, known as the Zona Rosa, and their other vacation rentals at Chisel Built Stays.)

Late Tuesday night, around midnight, I woke up from deep sleep to remember that the lemonade had to be poured onto sheet pans and frozen. Oops!

photo credit: Robert Westerman

I was so concerned that I’d forget in the morning, that I got up and put the sheet pans in my car. It wasn’t until I arrived at the house, pans in hand, that I realized they would not fit in the freezer. Now what?

I poured the lemonade into a couple of dozen small plastic cocktail cups and put them in the freezer. I knew I wasn’t going to get the same easy effect as I’d get by spreading it on sheet pans, where the frozen slushy-like mixture could be simply scraped off into a pitcher. I was going to get frozen lemon cubes. But, in a pinch, a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do!

photo credit: Robert Westerman

When it came time to mix up the cocktails, a few of the cups were still slushy in texture, which is what we needed. But most were rock hard. Poor Kim took on the task of breaking and mashing those lemon ice cups down. It all worked out in the end – everyone raved.  Thanks, Kim!

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… to the Harmony Boards Launch Party!!!

Yup, it’s official and it’s finally happening. Harmony Boards has hit the ground running. We have already delivered several boards and have several more on the calendar.

If you’re local, we’d love to see you at our Launch Party, a week from today. Be sure to RSVP to the email in the invite or you can do so by leaving us a comment here.

Linda Hopkins & Kim Howard invite you and a guest

to the Launch Party of their new venture

Harmony Boards

Wednesday, October 3

at the oh so chic

Zona Rosa Residence

7819 E. Culver St.

Scottsdale, AZ 85257

Signature Cocktails & Wine Bar 5:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.

Please RSVP by Monday, October 1

to [email protected]

*Each attendee who has RSVP’d is entered into a drawing to win a free

Harmony Board

In the meantime, please visit us at AZHarmonyBoards.com

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It is well known that I love soup. French Onion Soup is at the top of my list. I have been craving it since my dear friends, Scott and Amy Kilpatrick, went to Paris to celebrate their 25^th Anniversary back in June.

While planning their trip, they asked me for recommendations on where to eat and things to do. I sent them This Link to one of my blog posts from nearly 8 years ago.

At the top of my must-eat list is the French Onion Soup at Royal Madeleine. They went and I was soon receiving texts that the restaurant does not serve the soup in the summer.

Dang, it! I had no idea. I cropped off more of Scott’s text since it was too derogatory and obscene towards “French Frogs” for me to repeat here. I do love him, he’s a funny and adorably sarcastic guy! And Amy is just the sweetest, I adore her and you already know her too. She is The Amy of Amy’s Famous Taco Soup.

Anyhow, the last time we were there it was late May and the soup was on the menu. I guess it comes off at the end of May. It made me sad they missed out but I understand. I don’t enjoy soup as much in the heat of summer either, which is why, even though I’ve been craving it for months, I have yet to make it.

Well, I tamed a bit of the craving when I made this French Onion Soup inspired recipe for our Sunday supper. I should have thought to invite Amy and Scott over to make up for their disappointment.

A few notes before we get to the recipe. Do not rush to process caramelizing the onions. It takes time, about an hour, to get them just right. In the photo above, they had been cooking for 45 minutes. I had browned off all the chicken in the meantime. It took another 5 minutes or so after that for them to get even the slightest bit of color.

But then, just like that, they were done about 10 minutes later. It will happen. Don’t get frustrated.

Also, don’t fret about the chicken not being cooked through when you’re browning it. It will cook to perfection in the oven later, I promise.

Lastly, four pounds of onions is a lot of onion! You’re going to need a very large skillet to not only cook them all down in but to also fit all the chicken thighs in one layer. If you don’t have a big skillet, the reicpe can easily be cut in half. And I call for 8 to 10 chicken thighs, because when you buy the family pack from the grocery store, that is what you get, somewhere between 8 and 10 thighs per package.

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