Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Civilized Caveman Cooking Beasty BBQ Sauce with bonus Roast

One thing about adopting a paleo diet has meant for me is giving up condiments and sauces as most commercial/restaurant versions are full of high fructose corn syrup, other sugars, and other undesirable ingredients.  The solution: make your own.  As you know from my kombucha experiment, I'm not one to shy away from taking the time to make my own food.  The issue I have with making condiments is that with many, like ketchup or barbecue sauce, I have been conditioned to expect a certain taste.  If a ketchup doesn't taste like Heinz ketchup, then it is simply not good to me.  I'm getting a few posts together with condiment recipes I'm trying out that I'll be posting over the next few weeks.  Keep a look out for my quest for paleo ketchup.

I'm a native Texan who was raised on barbecue   I love barbecue sauce.  More likely, in the past, I loved the sugar in barbecue sauce.  Lately, I've really had a craving for that flavor.  Today, I'm putting Civilized Caveman Cooking's Beasty BBQ Sauce to the test.

Today's post is a good example of why you should gather your ingredients before you start.  I decided, without really looking at my pantry to double the recipe.  I had a roast I wanted to slow cook in barbecue sauce, so I wanted to make sure I had enough for that plus extra.  I stock pile tomato products, so I figured this would not be an issue.  Wrong!

First, I diced my fresh tomatoes, onion,  and garlic and added them to my pot.  I put my homemade beef broth into the microwave to defrost.

I added my first can of tomato paste and then realized I needed another since I was doubling the recipe.  I went to the pantry and my tomato paste shelf area was bare.  Oh no!  I quickly texted about four of my friendly neighbors and the lovely Sara M. came through!  Thank goodness!  I see a roast in her future.



I added all of my spices.



The recipe calls for 1 can of diced pineapple.  It did not say what size can.  I have been avoiding fruit for a number of personal reasons, but knew that if I was going to get the flavor I wanted concessions would have to be made.  I added a 8 oz can of crushed pineapple for a double batch.  I figured this was a minimal amount that I could live with.


I mixed up the sauce and waited for it to boil.  Once it did, I put the lid on, the burner on low, and set a timer for an hour.  This is what I had when  I returned.

I decided to use my food processor to blend the sauce.  I ran my processor for a long while until the sauce appeared smooth.  It still seemed a bit grainy.  I wondered if using my blender would make a difference.  Once I poured the sauce into a container, I took out my immersion blender and to see if I could get the sauce to be smoother.  Nope.
Once I was completely done making the sauce, I went to heat up some lunch, opened the microwave door, and found my beef broth that was supposed to make it into the sauce.  Shoot.  I had put it in the microwave to defrost right before I discovered I needed another can of tomato paste.  I completely forgot about it.  Oops.  I wonder if I hadn't have messed up, would the consistency/texture of the sauce have been smoother.  Here is my completed sauce.



Accessibility and Cost of Ingredients: I had all of the spices included on hand except for the smoked sweet paprika.  Do not skip this ingredient.  I think its flavor made the sauce.  My tin was $4.49.

Preparation / Cook Time:  The stated preparation time for this recipe is 15 minutes.  I'm going to say my prep time was about 20 minutes.  My stopwatch had me at 30 minutes when I finished.  I guesstimate I took about 10 minutes to go borrow a can of tomato paste from a neighbor. I simmered the sauce for the 60 minutes as directed.  It took about another 10 minutes to process the sauce once it was cooked.

Clean Up: The clean up was minimal.

The Paleo Review:  Thumbs Up!  While cooking the sauce, it smelled as barbecue sauce should to me.  It had a deep sweet aroma.  The flavor luckily matched!  I bet the next time I make this and I have all of the ingredients on hand and don't forget the beef broth, the flavor will only improve and perhaps the texture will improve as well.

Since the sauce tasted great, I used it on my roast.  I simply put my 4 pound beef roast in the crock pot.


I poured 16 ounces of the sauce over the meat and used a spatula to make sure there was sauce all over.











I set the crock pot on low for 11 hours.  I had an art "salon" to go to after work and knew I would not get home until late.  By the time I got home, it had been on keep warm for about an 1.5 past my 11 hour cook time.

This was my reward.

This tasted awesome!  The meat was tender and full of that barbecue flavor I've been missing.