8-62: Oven-Baked Baby Beef Ribs

8-62: Oven-Baked Baby Beef Ribs

Simply Delicious has a lot of rib recipes, however I think 8-62: Oven-Baked Baby Beef Ribs might be the first one I’ve covered that features beef ribs instead of pork. Here’s an article that breaks down some differences between the two types–I haven’t eaten real meat in like 5 years at this point, so I don’t feel like it’s my place to have that discussion with you.

They show their ribs with some baby carrots (you can buy them already cut/prepped to look this way, but perhaps should consider roasting them) and green beans, but if you’d like an unhealthier option (who wouldn’t), you can serve them with some “Kenji” onion rings instead like we did.


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11-24: Salmon and Halibut Kebabs

11-24: Salmon and Halibut Kebabs

Fish kebabs are probably not high on your Christmas dinner idea list (unless you’re reading from the Southern Hemisphere), but that doesn’t mean that you still can’t file 11-24: Salmon and Halibut Kebabs away for when it warms up a bit. Or if you’re not crazy like us and still grilling outdoors in late December, you can do this one inside on the broiler as well.

I know, I probably can’t convince you to eat grilled fish in the middle of winter. But like I said–save this one for spring/summer when it warms up. It’s a perfect light meal for a warm night where you don’t want to heat up the kitchen.


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8-23: Beef Kebabs with Red Wine Butter

8-23: Beef Kebabs with Red Wine Butter

I can’t quite figure out if 8-23: Beef Kebabs with Red Wine Butter are supposed to be used for when you are serving fancy food in a casual situation (like a truffle and foie gras burger in Las Vegas) or casual food in a fancy situation (like food trucks at a wedding). I suppose this one could go either way, depending on the circumstances.

This recipe features not only kebabs, but a compound butter to serve with them. Simply Delicious is big on beef + compound butter–another example is 8-4: T-Bone Steak.

If you’re looking for some other types of kebabs/skewers for your hypothetical casual yet fancy grilling party, try 10-14: Lamb on Skewers or 9-23: Fruity Sausage Kebabs.


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2-22: Salad Bar with Warm Dressing

2-22: Salad Bar with Warm Dressing

I love a good salad bar, or did, before coronavirus turned everything in our lives upside down. One of my family’s favorite restaurants when I was a kid featured an impossibly long salad bar. A friend and I even entered an essay-writing contest at Souplantation back in college and won ourselves 30 free meal passes, which we blew through quicker than you’d expect.

2-22: Salad Bar with Warm Dressing is equivalent to most of these at-home solutions we’ve seen during this pandemic–a pale imitation of the real thing. Consider this recipe the “haircut I did myself because everything is closed” of salad bars.

I suppose if you just lumped all the same ingredients on top of some quinoa and called it a Buddha bowl instead, you could send this recipe forward in time from the 1980s to modern day.

Of course, you’d have to take an artsy picture (or 100), slap some filters on it, and post it to social media with a bunch of hashtags first to really modernize it. Do you think they really eat the food after they take pictures of it, or is it just for the ‘gram? 🤔

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8-65: Sizzling Skirt Steaks

8-65: Sizzling Skirt Steaks

You may recognize 8-65: Sizzling Skirt Steaks as basically fajitas, one of the standard Mexican restaurant menu features.  If you’re looking for something different on taco night, consider this dish. This can even be modified for different types of proteins, or even add in a few more veggies or a meat substitute and go meatless.

Flank or skirt steak is taken from the underside of the cow, and is tougher than most other cuts of meat. Therefore, marinating it (especially with some acid) breaks down some of those fibers and gives you a more tender piece when it’s cooked. Cooking fast/hot works well with this type of cut–low and slow will give you tough and rubbery.


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7-19: Cajun-Style Pork Ribs

7-19: Cajun-Style Pork Ribs

Chili’s, Applebee’s, Red Robin…I’ve enjoyed racks of ribs at almost every restaurant that offers ribs as a major offering on the menu. Freshly smoked ribs are a delicious delicacy. These oven baked ribs lack the smokiness of ribs cooked in a smoker. The flavor profile for 7-19: Cajun-Style Pork Ribs is influenced by the alcohol-infused marinade and the Cajun spice rub mixture.

Simply Delicious thinks these spices are fiery, however, I’ll have to disagree. Maybe I’m too desensitized to spice now, but I could have used about 30% more spiciness. I wasn’t always a fan of spicy food, but now some of my favorite hot sauces are sriracha, Tapatio, and Tabasco.


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9-17: Ham-Wrapped Meat Loaf

9-17: Ham-Wrapped Meat Loaf

A good friend from high school once had the genius idea to open a meatloaf based restaurant, based on his family’s famous meatloaf recipe. If he ever got the place off the ground, I’d expect he’d add a dish similar to 9-17: Ham-Wrapped Meat Loaf to his menu. I think it’d be weird to have a fast casual restaurant that is based around meatloaf. What would you call it? Meat Loaf Market? Meatloaf-ology?

Wrapping a meatloaf in bacon or ham is a tried and true way to make any ordinary blob of ground meat taste more interesting.


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5-31: Oven Pizza Pancake

5-31: Oven Pizza Pancake

Cooking a pizza on a pancake dough creates a very kooky, weird pizza experience. 5-31: Oven Pizza Pancake is not your usual pizza–this soft-crusted abomination is another dish created when the Simply Delicious editors decided to have one too many beers at the office.

The beer in the background of this image should have been my first clue that this was a strange dish.

Editor’s note: I used this recipe for when I taught cooking in an after-school program for K-8 kids a few years ago–I didn’t have the time or resources to make a traditional rising dough using yeast on that particular site, so this method provided me a somewhat valid shortcut.


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6-33: Lime-Marinated Chicken

6-33: Lime-Marinated Chicken

Two-packs of whole chickens were on sale at Costco and the other chicken in this pack was used to make 6-20: Rosemary Chicken. This recipe, 6-33: Lime-Marinated Chicken required me to rub a few brain cells together to prepare the chicken as written on the card.

Lime flavor added to anything is a winner with me. Chicken and lime is a great combination, the white wine sauce added a unique twist.


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1-14: Avocado Halves with Spicy Shrimp

1-14: Avocado Halves with Spicy Shrimp

I don’t make appetizers very often, so I made 1-14: Avocado Halves with Spicy Shrimp for us to eat as a snack while cooking other dishes. đźŤ¤

I was lacking lettuce at the time, so my dish was served on a platter instead of a bed of crispy lettuce.


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