Today is about food. Let me tell you something about food. I love food. Food is good. Food is GREAT!
I found myself craving some barbecue chicken today. The problem is that the plan of core foods that my wife and I happen to subscribe to does not allow for such frivolous things as barbecue sauce. So, I am left to invent something. Unfortunately the nature of barbecue is terribly secretive. Nobody wants to share. Secret recipe this and family recipe that. Blah blah blah. Its really annoying and hard to find anyone that is willing to lay it all out there for someone else to play with. So here's what I had for dinner.
barbecue sauce v0.1
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1 - 6oz can tomato paste.
1/2 cup regular old white vinegar
1 cup water
1/2 medium onion finely diced
2 tbls Worcestershire sauce
3 or 4 tbls low sodium soy sauce
1 tbls lemon juice
6 tbls baking Splenda or other multodexrine & sucrolose sweetener
1 tbls onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbls chili powder
1/8 tsp red pepper (amount can vary but remember that red pepper blooms very well in an acidic environment this amount tends toward the spicy side)
4 beef bullion cubes
1 squirt of olive oil spray
In a hot high walled frying pan, squirt the oil and add the onion. Let it cook. Its ok if the onions burn a little; call it carmelization and move on. It just adds some flavor anyway. In a bowl mix the rest ot the stuff. don't worry about the cubes they'll dissolve eventually. When the onions are fully cooked and you've stopped crying, add the mixture of other ingedients and start crying again. Hot vinegar is a bitch. Now all that's left is to cook the shit out of it on low heat until it look and tastes like barbecue sauce. Now let simmer another half hour (I never said that its a quick process). Remove from heat and let it come down to room temp. Proceed to bottle for later or use on your favor grilled barbecued or broiled food.
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For a first wack at bbq sauce, I think it was good. There is a lot of room for improvement i.e. some liquid smoke and fresh ground mustard seed. On the whole it turned out pretty damn good and came in just over a dollars worth of ingedients.
I used my sauce on some boneless skinnless chicken breast. This was served with some french fry like baked potatoes and psudo-ranch dip. The chicken breast was baked in foil with some of that lovily bbq sauce for about 40 minutes at 375 deg. F. Then I added more sauce and finished in the broiler. The potatoes were cooked in much the came manner. They where cut french style and put on a baking sheet. Squirted with olive oil spray, sprinkled liberaly with kosher salt and lightly dusted with garlic powder, ground red pepper and paprika. Again cooked in the same 375 degree oven for 40 minutes this time with a break after 20 minutes to de-stick and finish in the broiler. The dip was comprised of the following:
psudo-ranch dip v0.3
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1/2 cup fat free sour cream
1/2 cup fat free mayo
1 tsp Worchishire sauce
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp fresh dill weed
1 tsp fresh oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
black pepper to taste
salt to taste
Just mix it all up in a bowl. I like to let it sit for a while and the flavor sortof come out a little better but technically its ready to eat now.
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All in all I was very pleased with dinner tonight.
