Barbecue Sauce – Canning a Condiment

I had been looking for a good barbecue sauce recipe for a long time. This sauce is pretty good. I wanted a tomato-based sauce that I could make from my own garden and for the most part I found it. I did end up using one canned ingredient, because I had used up half the can two months ago and the rest was in my freezer…chipotle peppers in adobo sauce.

I wanted my sauce to be very sweet and reasonably spicy. As I was cooking the recipe I found in the Ball Blue Book (1987 edition) I could taste that it wasn’t going to be NEARLY as sweet as I wanted, so in addition to the 1/2 cup brown sugar I added a heaping half cup of molasses as well. If I were going to make this again tomorrow I would jump right in with 3/4 or more.

Then again, I think if I really wanted this to be sweeter I would have to start with a sauce with less tomatoes in it. The last thing I wanted to do was to put in corn syrup. Yuck!

My biggest concern as I was cooking this was that it was going to be CRAZY spicy. There was a time while I was cooking it that I thought I had ruined it with the chipotles. After processing and opening a jar and having it on some ribs yesterday I was pleasantly surprised at how much the spiciness had settled down.

The usual disclaimer about canning at your own risk applies here. I am 100% sure that this modified recipe is a safe recipe, but I know that I have used acidic tomatoes and quality vinegar, and that all substitutions were done with like-quantities of similarly p.h.’ed items.

Give this a try and let me know what you think.

• My garden: tomatoes, bell peppers
• Local: onions, molasses, garlic
• The store: celery, brown sugar, dry mustard, paprika, salt, peppercorns, vinegar, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

June 1st Garden Panorama

Click the picture for an insanely bigger version.

If you look closely enough you can see a few of the “stitching” mistakes.  Oh well, you get the idea.

Great Green Garden Gab

Baby Broccoli Bed

Optimistic Onions

Cheerful Cabbage

Proud Purple Primero

Strawberries Stretching Sunward

Barraged with Baby Broccoli!

Cherry Changing

Cardinal in the Creek

Cluttered Corner

Lovely Layout

Onion Sets 2010

I’m glad I saved these mesh bags. I figured I would eventually find something to use them for. Anyway, onion sets were on sale at a local farm store for 45 cents per pound, so I got this huge bunch of onions to grow for like two bucks. Very nice!

May 2009 Backyard Garden

     

Gardening by numbers

Bed 1 is my wife’s herb garden with an 8 foot row of cucumbers along the fence. Just seeded this weekend.

Bed 2 has strawberries, three kinds of peppers and a couple eggplants I got at the farmer’s market this weekend.

Bed 3 is seeded with sweet corn on the left side, white onion sets down the middle and melons on the right.

Bed 4 is seeded with bush green beans, beets, sweet potatoes and carrots.

Bed 5 has rapidly maturing broccoli and was seeded a few weeks ago with beets and radishes.

Bed 6 has broccoli, a zucchini, cabbages, a couple lettuce and my sons’ 2×2 squares on the left corners.

Bed 7 has hybrid Big Mama tomatoes, supposedly a huge paste tomato. The perimeter is planted with radishes.

Bed 8 is planted with 8 heirloom tomatoes and has a perimeter ring of carrots.

Bed 9 is a row of straw bales planted with lettuce and a couple extra herbs.

Bed 10 is an 8 foot wide narrow bed planted with a double row. Cucumbers and snow peas will climb the lattice.

Not this year

This post is just a personal reminder of things I’d like to start growing in the yard but probably won’t get around to this year.  I’m sure I’ll edit it whenever I think of something else.

• Strawberries
• Asparagus
• Blueberries
• Cherry Trees
• Raspberries
• Big Onions
• Red Onions
• Peanuts
• Celery
• All the herbs in a great salsa recipe

So what AM I planning on trying to grow this year?  I say TRYING because I have no idea what will grow for me in my partially shaded back yard.

At this point I have seeds or seedlings for:

• Tomatoes (Rutgers, Super Marmande, Cold Set and Gardener’s Delight)
• Broccoli and Cauliflower
• Iceberg and Butter Crunch lettuce
• Cabbage
• Sugar Snap Snow Peas
• Jalapeño and Green/Red Bell peppers
• Sugar Baby and Charleston Gray Watermelons
• Cantaloupe
• Jackolantern and mini pumpkins
• Carrots and Radishes
• Pole and Bush style green beans
• Zuchini and Cucumbers
• Green onions