Tonight we wanted to make a special dinner for mom so we asked her what she wanted: she said she wanted us to make her ribs, a green vegetable and a fruit-centered dessert.  So we decided to make her Cantonese-style ribs, bok choy, and strawberry pie.  We also made corn-on-the cob in case the bok choy didn’t work out AND because we wanted to try out the new cuisinart we gave her, we made hummus as an appetizer.

The full meal

We actually made the strawberry pie first (in the morning) because it needs to set for a few hours.  It’s a combination of fresh strawberries and cooked strawberries (you mash them up and cook them with a little sugar and corn starch to make a lumpy sauce)

We also had to start early for the ribs because they need to marinate for at least two hours.  We have made these once before and mom loved it so I guess that’s why she chose them again. The marinade is pretty simple: chopped garlic, chopped ginger, hoisin sauce and soy sauce.  You let the ribs marinate for 2 hours to overnight and then you cook them in a pan with water in it.  After an hour of cooking, you brush them with honey and cook for 10 more minutes…DELICIOUS!

For the bok choy we just made a fairly simple preparation. We had chopped extra garlic and ginger when we made the marinade so we added that to olive oil and then cooked the bok choy (it really cooked down so we added spinach).  We also added some soy sauce.

For the hummus, we first minced the garlic then we put the garlic, sea salt, ground cumin, lemon and olive oil in the cuisinart.  While it mixed those ingredients up, we peeled the chick peas (they have this thin skin which you don’t have to take off, but if you do, it makes the hummus creamier.) Once the chick peas were peeled, we put them in the mixer and ground until smooth. Then we scooped it into a dish and added olive oil and paprika.  We served it with pita chips.

Here’s the plate we made for mom (and the dessert)