Homemade No Cook BBQ Sauce

Our book club book for the month is

Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together by Ron Hall.

I haven’t started it yet, but I did pick up Marina Keegan’s book The Opposite of Loneliness during our Fall Festival at the library.  I saw her on the news a couple of years ago due to her tragic death at the height of all she had accomplished by age 22.  Here are some quotes:

“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. ”
“Some of us know exactly what we want and are on the path to get it: already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you I say both congratulations and you suck.”
“Our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.  But the thing is, we’re all like that. Nobody wakes up when they want to. Nobody did all of their reading (except maybe the crazy people who win the prizes . . .). We have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. But I feel like that’s okay.”

I like the last one the best 🙂

Recipe:

Yes, Fall is upon us.  But who doesn’t grill up a nice juicy burger in the garage or outside every now and then?  I know most guys are outside unless it’s -30 degrees.  And any burger needs a good BBQ sauce.  We were craving some BBQ sauce and were out… but had all the ingredients in the pantry.  #1, I try to stay away from high fructose corn syrup.  #2 I try to stay away of processed junk.  Okay, so the first ingredient is processed… sorda.  I think Trader Joe’s organic ketchup is pretty close to the homemade thing.  #3 – I don’t like Trader Joe’s BBQ sauce.  It’s way too spicy hot for me and I can tolerate a good medium heat salsa.  So, I stopped buying it and made this one.  It’s even BETTER.  I promise.

The secret to great BBQ, sauces and smoky flavor without all the time and wood chips?  Liquid Smoke, my friend.  Sigh.  It deserves its own book even.  One of the best ingredients ever.  Amazingly cheap.  And all natural.  If you can count smoke as natural.  Ugh I would hope so.  I’m sure some paleo policeman will come after me.  

Homemade No Cook BBQ Sauce

1 and 1/2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup molasses
2 Tb. cider vinegar
3 Tb. honey
1 and 1/2 tsp. hot sauce (I left this out for the kids’ sake.  I’ll stick to that story.)
1/2 tsp. liquid smoke (I like Figaro’s hickory smoke.  But try the smoke you like the most.)
2 Tb dijon mustard (or the mustard you have on hand)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix it up and eat!  Always taste test as you go.  Add more honey for a sweeter sauce.  Add more hot sauce if you like it with a kick.

Recipe adapted from America’s Test Kitchen