Our Favorite Barbeque Sauce

I love barbeque sauce.   Sweet and sticky meat is the best meat of all.   I love it.

So I was thrilled when I got a slab of ribs for cheap...well, cheaper than usual... and wanted to have it with some homemade barbeque sauce and then Claire hopped on my Pinterest food board and found this recipe for Brown Sugar Barbecue Sauce.   We tried it and loved it.  

Tip, via my fabulous sister:   Wrap the ribs in foil and cook them on low in your crockpot all day.   By dinnertime, the meat will be falling off the bones and all you have to do is slather it with sauce and pop it in the broiler to caramelize the sauce a bit. To. Die. For.  Or you can serve the sauce on the side.   Or both!     The same technique works for frozen chops as well.   Easy squeezy!

I love this sauce so much that I multiplied the recipe by a lot and canned it so we'd always have it on hand.   Here is the expanded recipe.  Enough for your own pantry and gifts as well.

Robin's Favorite Barbeque Sauce
www.rurification.com

7 1/2 cups brown sugar
6 1/2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
3 rounded tablespoons mustard powder
3 tablespoons salt
3 tablespoons paprika [smoked paprika is really good, too!]
3 tablespoons black pepper
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder  or 1 entire head of garlic, peeled and minced
1 tablespoon onion powder  or 2 onions, minced
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes


Mix all ingredients together in a large pot and bring to boil.   Ladle into clean jars; cover with lids and rings and process for canning. 

Makes 8 pints of sauce.  Perfect for giving as gifts. 

Autumn Olive Plum Chutney

A lot of you have never heard of autumn olive - also called Elaeagnus Umbellata - so check out my posts here  and here for the details.

We have a bunch of these - the thornless kind - and it's harvest time!   In no time flat we had a full gallon of berries.   These babies have a big seed in them so the first thing you do is cook them down and take the seeds out.   The first link above shows you how.

You'll get half as much sauce as berries.   We had 2 quarts of sauce when I was done, which was plenty for a batch of jam and some left over to experiment with.    I thought it would make a nice chutney paired with a few plums and this is what I did. 

Note: I was surprised to discover that this sauce tastes a lot like tomatoes, especially before you add the cloves. As in – everyone who tasted it said – “Did you put tomatoes in this? Are you sure?” If you want to see, then leave the cloves out until the very end of the cooking time. Autumn Olive and tomatoes are very high in lycopene, which contributes to their red color. It’s possible that has something to do with the taste thing.

This is a terrific barbeque sauce for your favorite grilled meat.    Terrific!   Mmmm.







Autumn Olive Plum Chutney

• 2 cups autumn olive sauce [from 4 cups berries]
• 2 cups chopped plums
• 1 tablespoon mustard seed
• 1 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2 1/2 cups sugar 
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped candied ginger
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/2 rounded teaspoon ground cloves

Combine ingredients and cook slowly over medium heat. This will get very, very thick, so feel free to add water [or juice] to bring it to the consistency that you want. With no added water, this makes 2 pints. When this stuff cools, it is molto thicko. [I just made that up.]  It takes at least a pint of liquid to bring it to a thick barbeque sauce consistency.

All of which means that you can put it up in smaller bottles, then when you need it, add half as much water for an easily spreadable sauce, and equal parts water for a pourable sauce.