It's A Wild World Out There

Does it get better than this?  Saturday, we spent the whole day at a safari park.  It was an incredible day.  We drove through the park, in our own car, and got to feed animals right out of our hands.  Such an amazing thing to do.

I've never been happier to have a sunroof on my car.  Thanks to that fun auto feature, I was able to snap this giraffe photo.  He even greeted us with a sweet smile.  What you don't see here, is that in a moment that sweet little giraffe is going to poke his head through the sunroof and want to be fed.

What an amazing day to get up close and personal with a myriad of animals.  The giraffes were the only ones we actually fed by hand, but we had such fun getting to throw food to all of them.  

It's so surreal to me, that I'm feeding them all from the comforts of my car.  It's truly like escaping to another world.  For me, it was so peaceful, and for the 4 year old princess, it was magic.  For my niece, I think it was both.

There's a halfway point, where you can get out of your car at a beautiful overlook, which we did.  There we enjoyed the lovely weather, a tasty picnic, and time with each other.

After an amazing day, we left drove home and enjoyed an amazing meal.  So amazing actually, we not only had seconds, but thirds and fourths.  What is it?  Well, of course I'll share it with you!  I have no idea what the name is, because it came from my mother.  She was making it one night, and I thought it sounded incredible, so she read me the ingredients over the phone.  I call them "Caribbean Short Ribs."

The beauty of this particular recipe, is that it is fantastic enough to serve to company, yet so easy it cooks in the crocky pot.  I simply prepped it the morning of our big safari day, crocky did all the work at home, and when we returned home, we were ready for dinner.

For being a cooking novice, I have managed to knock this one out of the park.  Originally, we would just serve the Caribbean ribs over some rice, but since the Raw Tropical Sauce from the Magical Moments post, I have been adding a mango salsa inspired by that sauce. 

Without further ado, Caribbean Short Ribs...

Combine the following ingredients in a bowl...

1/4 cup of BBQ sauce

1/4 cup of finely chopped onions

1 tsp. grated orange peel

1 tsp. grated lime peel

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup orange juice

2 TBSP. lime juice

Place approximately one pound of boneless short ribs into a crocky pot.  Pour the combined ingredients from above over them.  Cook on LOW for 7-8 hours.  

At least 30 minutes prior to eating, prepare your mango salsa.  Seriously, this salsa takes this recipe to new heights!  To make the salsa, combine small chunks of fresh mango, tomato, and onion, then add cilantro to taste.  I'm very generous with the cilantro, but it's all a matter of taste.  Once your salsa is prepared, keep it in the fridge until ready to use.

Prior to eating, simply prepare your rice.  The way we eat this around here is a base layer of rice, followed by a generous layer of Caribbean ribs, and a mango salsa topper.  This is one of my absolute faves, and I hope it will be one of yours too!  

When I made these this weekend, I just doubled everything to make a larger portion.  I'm so sorry I forgot to take a picture.  We were so ravenous, we just dove right in!  A picture of the Raw Tropical Sauce can be found in the post In A Word...