Baby back ribs are one of my absolute favorite things to make when cooking outdoors. Of course I love to smoke mine, but you don’t have to in order to make some delicious ribs for you and your friends. However, this preparation will be smoked ribs cooked on my barrel smoker.

I start with a pack of baby back ribs, which usually come 3 slabs to a package. The reason I like to use baby backs is because they cook in about 3 hours on my smoker, which is also the amount of time it takes the coals to burn on my smoker. You can use St Louis style, or full spare ribs. They just take longer to cook.

In 1989 there was a restaurant in Farmington called Rueben’s Rueben which I ran with my family for 3 years. It has been many different places since then, and is currently Taqueria Victoria. Rueben’s Rueben featured sandwiches and subs, burgers and fries, and homemade chili and soups. I’m not 100% sure how or when it started, but sometimes on Wednesdays my mom (being the southern woman that she was) would make chicken and dumpling soup. It was an instant hit and became so popular we made it our regular Wednesday soup. It was so popular that people would call the day before to pre-order it for the following day. We only made a certain amount and some days we would run out before noon…and we opened at 10:30.