Korean-style ribs, FINALLY!!

**NOTE OF WARNING: Please excuse the messy kitchen!! In this case sleepiness is trumping shame, so I'm not bothering to edit the clutter out of the pictures. I am definitely working on it...I'll be PROMing the kitchen soon**

So the ribs are finally in the crock, after 40 minutes of trying to wrestle to cut them up. I wish I was joking. These things were frozen solid. Part of the reason it took so long is because I had to stop every 2-3 minutes to get feeling back in my fingers. I'll upload pictures of the epic battle later. (Edit: since not everyone wants to see raw meat, I wont post pictures here, but if you want to see my efforts so you can applaud my force, ingenuity, and perseverance, go to my photobucket

Anyway, here is what I mixed up for my "Soy sauce"

1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup+1tbsp water
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp Red Wine Vinegar
2 tsp Sushi vinegar
1/8 tsp salt

It yields somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cups, depending on how much honey and ketchup you're able to scrape out of the measuring cups.

I'll update this post later, just wanted to get the soy (fake crab=krab, fake soy=soi?) sauce recipe up before the dogs manage to lick it off the dry erase board...

Update:

Oh my goodness. These are amazing!!! While waiting for the pictures to upload, I keep getting up and sneaking bites out of the crockpot. Yes, they're that good. Once I got them in the pot (with the help of my wonderful husband, who did a fabulous job bulleting the brown sugar for me), I turned it on high for 40 minutes while getting ready for our lovely sushi date. I then put it on low for 8 hours when we went out. Wow. It smelled so good I didn't even care how sick it made me feel (husband and I tend to eat WAAAAY to much sushi when we go out. What? We had a coupon!! For the best sushi place in town, no less. Don't you judge me -_-)

I stayed up so I could taste them warm, and around 2ish (1 hour left to cook) I went to flip them over. Because they were so big, I had to stack them in the crock pot, so I wanted to make sure that the top layer got just as much flavor as the bottom layer had. I shouldn't have worried, as there was plenty of liquid to cook the top layer as well. However, I had to fight to flip them over, because I couldn't touch them without the meat falling off the bones!!!!! That made me a little nervous, but I am pleased to report that it was merely out of heavenly tenderness (which is great because DH doesn't like to eat ribs off the bone, says they're too messy for too little meat). I am so very pleased. We'll have leftovers for a while, and I have no qualms feeding them to our foodie friend who is coming to stay the weekend. The soy sauce alternative worked out great, and while I don't have the original to compare them to, I think this first attempt worked out pretty well, and there will be no complaints in my house. Such flavor!

*Update-Upon further tasting, the tops of the top layer did get a little dry and chewy, but as I will be storing them in a bit of their own liquid, it shouldn't be a problem.

Update again-I tried putting the pictures on here, but they were cut off, so i'll have to downsize them tomorrow and try again. Right now, I have to put the food away and try to cram in a few hours of sleep before going to get things prepped for my sister's baby shower!! Good night!

-Janelle
(Remorseful Nightowl)