A Little Help From The Crock Pot

I usually make ribs in the oven -- that is when the grill isn't set up. We still haven't rolled out the bar-b-que at the new place. Now that our oven is "on the fritz" as they say (don't know why) I'm looking for other ways to get dinner on the table. Today I piled pork spare ribs in the slow cooker with a mound of chopped onions underneath and a dousing of homemade barbeque sauce on top. I could have made it easy on myself and bought a bottle of sauce but I just couldn't do it. Instead I whipped up what I hear is Oklahoma style sauce -- or at least so says the recipe from Chicago chef Rick Bayless' family's restaurant, Hickory House. The sauce couldn't be easier. I mixed together 2 cups of ketchup, 2/3 cup brown sugar, 4 chopped cloves of garlic, 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce, 3 TB white vinegar, 1 tsp New Mexico chili powder, 1 tsp of salt, 1 tsp oregano, 1/2 tsp dried thyme and about 3/4 tsp of black pepper into a saucepan and brought the mixture to a boil. After about 10 minutes cooking time (because I knew it would cook more with the ribs) I poured the sauce into the crock pot and set it to cook on low, covered. A mere 8 hours later James was enjoying ribs that literally fell off the bone with a tangy homemade sauce.