PYRC #23: Grilled Marinated Mushrooms, Crockpot BBQ Ribs and Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip

As a recap and in case you're wondering what PYRC means, it stands for Pinterest Yummy Recipe Challenge. Back in January I challenged myself to actually make the recipe pins that I tagged to my Yummy Recipes board. I started with mushroom soup and now over 10 months later, I'm 23 posts and 35+ recipes deep.

Grilled Marinated Mushrooms

I remember when I didn't like mushrooms, and after getting over that, I remember it still taking quite some time for me to think mushrooms were anything special. Now, I love mushrooms, especially when they are marinated or sautéed.

This recipe was a painless one. Mix ingredients to make the marinade, let the mushrooms marinate for a bit, next skewer them and then grill them. The only kicker is that the recipe calls for harissa (a Tunisian hot chili sauce), and I had no desire to make a speciality ingredient trip for just one half of a tablespoon. The harissa is really meant to add heat to the marinade so I substituted a half tablespoon of it for a whole tablespoon of some Grenadian hot sauce we had on hand. You can probably do the same with tabasco or any hot sauce of the sort. Also, in another diversion from the recipe, I used regular whole mushrooms rather than portabella halves. You can call me crazy, but I think that switch was just fine.

To make your own marinated mushroom skewers, grab the recipe here from Dinners & Dreams.

Crockpot BBQ Ribs

Let me start by making a few disclaimers.

1. I love crockpot recipes for their ease, not their complicated-ness.
2. I am not the meat cooker of the house.
3. Ribs are not really at the top of my list as far as meat. 

Now on that note, let me make my comments about the recipe.

1. The post-crockpot steps are not that quick or easy (for a crockpot meal), and therefore make me not the biggest fan.
2. I put too many logs on the fire this cooking round, so Mr. Meat Man Jeff swooped in and actually finished the second half of the recipe. He entirely doctored the sauce reduction by adding white wine vinegar, Tony's, white pepper and some other things, so I'm not really sure if our end result was even close to what was described on the blog.
3. It was okay, but nothing spectacular. That's due to the fact that either ribs aren't my favorite meat, the sauce recipe was a little weak, I bought boneless country ribs and not baby back (I have no idea what the taste difference is), or that the easy crockpot recipe was not as easy breezy as I thought it was going to be.

Next time, I'll do my own crockpot thing and leave ribs for Jeff and the smoker.

Just because I'm not in love, it doesn't mean you won't be. Test for yourself by using this recipe from the blog Mmm... is for Mommy.

Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dipping Sauce

First off, I do not recommend making this on a week night. Why I didn't read through the preparation steps before I chose to tackle it, I don't really know. I spent most of my evening in the kitchen for this one. Secondly, if you think there are too many parts and pieces to this recipe, do me a favor and at least make the sweet onion dip. Hands down the sweet onion dip made this recipe, with it's honey mustard-esque flavor. The zucchini strips were tasty and tender, but they were a little messy and a little too much work for me to want to redo. However, I will be shocked if the dip doesn't hit my kitchen again. It's great for sandwiches, yummy for dipping, and good for whatever else you can think of. I used it on my burger this week, and it was nom. I would love to try it with fried pickles or onion rings too.

Now it's your turn to duplicate. Here is the recipe for these baked zucchini sticks and sweet onion dip from King Arthur Flour.

All in all, in order of my favorite to least favorite, I rank these PYRC recipes in the following order:

1. Baked Zucchini Sticks with Sweet Onion Dip
2. Grilled Marinated Mushrooms
3. Crockpot BBQ Ribs