Off-Brand Barbecue Sauce

We are not huge fans of bottled barbecue sauces. Too sweet. Too tomatoey. Too fake-smoky. I usually concoct something, with mixed results. This time, however, I made a wonderful sauce to paint onto a chicken before barbecuing, so I thought I'd share it with you. It's actually pretty funny to see all the name brands that went into this no-brand sauce.

The proportions are entirely up to you - this is one of those add-and-taste-and-add-more recipes. I'll give you the approximate amounts but, really, you should just taste as you go and stop when it reaches your own definition of nirvana.

2 Tablespoons Deborah's Hot Cranberry (this is like cranberry sauce with a kick of peppers)
1 teaspoon Mrs. Dash original flavor
1 heaping Tablespoon Edmond Fallot Dijon mustard
1 scant quarter cup of Heinz apple cider vinegar
1 heaping teaspoon Simply Organic garlic powder
4-5 dashes of Triple T Ranch Hopn' Jalapeno sauce
2 Tablespoons Heinz tomato ketchup
1/4 cup The Persimmon Branch Apple Butter (from a trip to North Carolina - substitute your own)

I wish I had thought to add a little coffee leftover from breakfast, just for fun, but I didn't. Maybe next time.

Whisk all the ingredients together and paint your chicken liberally. Indirect cooking would likely be better than the direct heat I used, but the blackened skin really did taste wonderful with this sauce over it.

Bummer Chicken

Well, phooey! I'm still bummed about my broken glass plate and have been boycotting the kitchen since that disaster. I did venture out to the barbecue and grill this demure little butterflied chicken, but mostly I've just been pouting.

I cooked the chicken using indirect heat, heaping the coals to one side of the trusty Weber and placing the chicken on the other side until the last turn, when I wanted to crisp and brown it a bit. It was basted once or twice with some bottled balsamic vinaigrette dressing to which I added a splash more vinegar and a big pinch of dried mixed herbs. The method worked well - the chicken was moist and flavorful - but it took quite a bit longer than the more direct heat. I'd recommend it if I was wasn't still pouting.

The Big Easy

Not New Orleans, honeychild, but a nice big package of ribs in barbecue sauce from Niman Ranch. Looking for something I could cook on the grill and not start the oven during our recent unlamented heatwave, I stumbled upon these pre-cooked and pre-sauced pork ribs. All I did was light the charcoal and flip them once. They were done to a turn in 10 minutes flat - even beat the veggies to the table!

They were good. Seriously, stickily, finger-licking, red mustache-making, three paper napkin using, bless my soul good!

If I were the nitpicking kind, I might suggest that you baste them with a little of their sauce from the package mixed with a tiny bit of apple cider vinegar to just slightly temper the sweetness (that's what I'll do next time) but I'm not the nitpicking kind. We tucked right in to these big beauties and enjoyed every bite. One rack of these meaty darlings was plenty for the two of us and you could easily stretch them further if you served them with more sides than we did - maybe some cornbread or hush puppies?

Anyway, they were big in flavor and dead easy.

Turkey? In June?

Perhaps it seems like a madcap, crazy thing to those of you who eat turkey only at Thanksgiving or in dynamited and pressed form in a sandwich, but My Beloved and I love turkey all year 'round. One of our favorite ways to prepare it, since we are only two in the house (not counting the ever-eager Cora), is to put half a free-range turkey breast on the kettle grill and let the charcoal do its magic.

Before committing it to the flames, I place the turkey on a square of tripled aluminum foil folded to the size of the breast, just to protect the bottom from the full blaze of the heat. I usually smear or sprinkle stuff on the skin - this time, some olive oil, a sprinkling of garlic powder and a dusting of rubbed sage, plus pepper, of course. I slide the foil-backed breast onto the grill and clap on the cover.

As the smoke swirls out the holes in the lid, I prep whatever veggies we are eating that day - in this case two of our fresh Pezzini Farms artichokes steamed - set the table, pour the beverage and by the time I'm finished, so is the turkey. It takes about 40-45 minutes for a large one at roughly 300 degrees (our Weber has a thermometer built in to the lid). You'll know when it's ready if the juice runs clear when pierced in the thickest part; be sure to check often toward the end of the cooking as it's a small window between "perfect and juicy" and "white and dry."

We serve it with cranberry sauce even though it's summer; call us nutty, but we think this is a summer meal fit for a king.

El Jefe

Perhaps you will recognize this man, who I am now calling El Jefe, from his blog, Mad Meat Genius. Please note that he has a strip of bacon emblazoned on his tshirt. There's a reason for that.

Perhaps you will recognize one or two of the plethora of grills, barbecues, chimneys and smokers operating yesterday in Dr. Biggles' back yard and will realize that the bacon sizzler in this picture is made of a repurposed plowshare.

Perhaps this will give you some idea of the extensive education in the art of grilling My Beloved and I received yesterday from three extraordinary grill men, Dr. Biggles, El Jefe and their pal Abram. We nibbled on the fruits of their labors - bacon (fried, grilled, smoked), ribs (Hawaiian style), chicken (smoked to juicy perfection), tri-tip (ditto), sausage (ditto), walnut-cranberry cornbread (a Dutch oven classic) all afternoon, augmented by Cranky's seriously delicious potato salad with chives and chive flowers, and Cookiecrumb's killer guacamole. They even put a smoky twist on the lamb sliders we contributed to the event, making them even more eye-rollingly delicious than I thought was possible. Juices flowed, chins were wiped and fingers licked

We sat at the feet of the masters. We are in meaty awe.

J-Yah Strikes Again

Cousin J-Yah is an inveterate garage sale shopper; she cruises garage sales almost every Saturday morning and finds wonderful things for a song. When she sees culinary bargains, she often thinks of me.

This was her latest find, a handled metal basket for grilling veggies and cubed meats on the barbecue. I can't wait to try it out - I'm already imagining the smoky taste of grilled zucchini and mushrooms.

Because you often have good ideas that you are willing to share with me, I thought I'd also ask if you have any favorite ways to use a pan like this? I know it's winter and not exactly barbecue weather but think of it as a way to recapture those delicious memories of summer.

Simply the Best

"Nobody does it better.
Makes me feel sad for the rest.
Nobody does it half as good as you,
Baby, baby, Biggles, you're the best."

This is the last scrap of a tri-tip roast, presented like a rosy gift on his grandmother's beautiful enameled china, that the Reverend Dr. Biggles smoked, out in the torrential rains of yesterday, for me and my fellow luckies at Meathenge Labs yesterday.

Truly a religious experience, beef made holy. There was jerky to taste, sausages to savor and pork to roll our eyes over but this beef, this blessed beef, was simply out of this world. The man is truly a master.

Smoked Michigan

In true Fourth of July fashion, we were invited to a barbecue - this time, in an exceptional show of Up North hospitality, by two people who had never met us before, friends of our Michigan hosts.

The couple live on lovely Manistee Lake in northern Michigan. The lady of the house welcomed us warmly, introduced us to the collection of family and friends, and showed us an incredible spread of nibbles, salads and desserts. The husband, pictured here with his contribution to a memorable meal, is a great guy and a marvelous cook of meaty ribs and, best of all, smoked brisket.

He proudly gave me a tour of his smoker when I drooled over his handiwork and generously shared his recipe for moist, deeply smoky brisket.

He bakes the brisket in a slow oven in, of all things, classic Coke or Pepsi for several hours before putting the whole pan into his smoker with charcoal under the pan and apple wood in the smoker which, in his barbecue, is attached off to one side. The cola simmers and evaporates and turns into a sweet, syrupy consistency which keeps the meat moist. Then the charcoal and applewood have their turn and, after a couple of more hours, the result is truly out of this world. He trims the excess fat as he carves the now-tender meat and the guests stand around snatching bits off the brisket before he can even get it on the plates.

Smokin' Michigan hospitality at its best!

Summer Song

Another reliable sign of summer's fast approach is the annual urge to cook outdoors. When I found half chickens at the Marin Sun Farms booth at the farmer's market, it seemed like a sign from heaven - not only did I not have to deal with the sad little heads and feet on their whole chickens, this is the perfect cut for the barbecue.

My Beloved built a small fire with the few pieces of charcoal we had left, positioning it to one side of our trusty Weber grill. I made a vinegary, tangy marinade from this and that and this, as my first father-in-law taught me to do, and settled the chicken down into it. When the fire was ready, the chicken went under the hood positioned a little away from the direct heat for about half an hour. We nibbled on the skin ever before plating it. Oh, yeah! You can almost hear the rich contralto singing, "Summertime and the livin' is easy..."

This and That and This Barbecue Sauce, adapted from Dad Trenholme's recipe

Soy sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Red wine vinegar
Fresh lemon juice
Dry mustard
Dry tarragon
Freshly ground black pepper
Minced garlic
Green onion, sliced
Fresh chopped parsley

I can't really give you proportions since I just play it by ear when I make this sauce. It's a little different each time and that's half the fun. Once you get it all mixed in, stick your finger in the sauce and taste - you'll know what you need to adjust.

Pork and Beans

If I ate leftovers like this every day, I might actually enjoy it when My Beloved is away on a business trip. A happy accident occurred when I decided to combine the last scoop of baked beans with the last few slices of a barbecued pork tenderloin that we enjoyed a few days before.

I don't think I have ever eaten Mrs. Ferguson's baked beans with anything besides hot dogs in all the years I've been eating them! Just goes to show you that you're never too old to learn. The smoky flavor of the pork that My Beloved had grilled outside on the slow side of the barbecue until it was only very slightly pink really, really enhanced the sweet-tart of the beans with onions and citrus peel - even without the salty layer that frankfurters add, this combination was much, much better. Pork and beans with a kick! Almost compensation for missing that man.

Weather Report From Heaven

Two blissfully warm days in a row - it must truly be spring, Time to start barbecuing again. Oh, we've sneaked in the occasional charcoal-grilled meal during the slightly cooler months that Californians call winter but now it's serious, so we hauled out the Weber grill that My Beloved's generous mother gave us years ago. It lights the charcoal using a bottled gas boost - easy as pie.

I had a pasture-raised tri-trip roast from Marin Sun Farms and half a pot of leftover coffee so, taking a leaf from Cookblog's book, I made a sort of bastard teriyaki sauce with soy sauce, ginger, brown sugar, garlic, wine vinegar and coffee and marinated the beef in that for several hours before throwing it onto the grill. Served with My Beloved's contribution of artichokes and some of the leftover gooey rice, we basked in the flavors and the warmth of the late-setting sun.

Sometimes, life is so good that no words will suffice.