Father's Day dinner

Some friends gave us a couple heads of cabbage, some sweet onions, a case of cantaloupe, a half a case of oranges and 50 pounds of baking potatoes the other day.  I've given some of the potatoes and fruit away but still have plenty...

so even though I have very little space to work on, I decided to cook for my dear hubby for Father's Day.  He has been a pretty good boy this last year and the best way to show my man I love him is to cook a good meal so....Saturday evening I chopped up a head of the cabbage, added a jalapeño from our one plant and some miracle whip, honey, vinegar,  celery seed and called it coleslaw after it sat in the fridge till today's dinner.

This morning before church I seasoned the pork spare ribs

While dear hubby got the smoker going (yea, he went to church smelling like the smoker and cologne - what the heck, it's Father's Day) I peeled and boiled 4 of those baking potatoes and then made some potato salad.  While making the potato salad I remembered I needed to boil some eggs or the salad would be ruined.  The Boy brought me some eggs but one went to be with his cousin Humpty...

some of the white is mud from mudding and taping the walls...as you can see, The Boy drew a face on Humpty's cousin and it was proven that this family can not sit on walls...

After church, Dear Hubby took the ribs off the smoker - where they had been smoking at about 175 degrees for 4 hours - and we put them in a pan with some apple juice in the oven at 275 for another four hours (covered).  MMMMMMM!

                                  

I also decided that Dear Hubby deserved a home made cake - because I think I secretly like to abuse myself I went into the middle bedroom...the room that has almost everything from the kitchen and all of the contents of the former closet. The new closet hasn't been built and the kitchen obviously isn't done so it's quite the determined soul that goes into this room only to come out victorious....

yep - there's even a bathroom sink in there...that's going to have a home someday soon...I found what I was looking for though, which is amazing since I had the flu when the kitchen got packed up....

So, I'm going to make an orange cake...I look on www.cooks.com and I find this recipe for an orange chiffon cake so I decide to go for it...now if you notice in this recipe, no where does it say to put the cake mixture in a bunt pan...it says to put it in a pan - that's it.  It my hairbrained idea to battle that room.  Anyway, I squeezed several oranges and got some fresh juice, found my zester and got some of the orange zest like the recipe called for.  I did everything this poorly written recipe said to do...this is what my dear hubby got for his Father's Day dessert...

the thinnest pound cake ever!  I thought that it would be light and fluffy - that's what "chiffon" says to me...but NO!  At least I know I can brave the wilderness....Happy Father's Day my dear sweet hubby!  MWAH!