The mind of a 12 year old

In our family you can pick the menu for your birthday... no holds barred.  My youngest just turned 12, the candy kid.  She loves sugar so much I swear it oozes out of her pores.  This is the kid you find candy wrappers in every nook and cranny of her room, pockets etc.  That said she recently saw a title in a food magazine for Root Beer Ribs, she loves root beer of course and asked me to make her that and plain angel hair pasta.. she even threw a salad in there for good measure.

We had a "family" dinner, which in our neighborhood means you invite all the neighbors since we don't live near our families.  Having 17 people to dinner on the Sunday following Thanksgiving is enough to make anyone tired just thinking of it.  But, you only turn 12 once!

The rib recipe is something I concocted after doing some research online.  I will give you a bit of a warning here....  I am notorious for never following a recipe and just shooting from the hip on how I think something should taste.  Sometimes this means I can never make the same thing twice :)

It went a little like this....

Marinade
6 pack of good Root Beer
1 cup of fish sauce
Ground Pepper
Grated Ginger
Ice Cubes

Baby Back Pork ribs sat in this bath for about 8 hours.  I think took them out dried them off and dusted them with s&p.  I wrapped them TIGHTLY in foil and threw them in the oven for about 2 hours at 325.  In the meantime I reduced about 2 bottles of Root Beer till it was thick and syrupy- I added this to a pretty generic BBQ sauce.  I grilled the ribs while I basted them in the sauce until they were charred and pretty yummy looking.  I think you could do this in the oven at about 400 or higher to get the same effect.  For garnish I quickly grilled a few bunches of green onions and combined them with chopped cilantro, the lime was the perfect thing to cut through some of the sticky sweetness of the ribs.  All in all a good success story!

The cake was something I had seen online about a year ago.  It stuck in my mind for this daughter loves all things bright and colorful...

Lets just say this was a big cake and cutting into it in front of 17 people (hoping it worked) was a little nerve wracking but it turned out pretty awesome even if a slice didn't really fit on the dessert plates!