Barbecue Sauce for Pulled Beef or Pork

Photo: The Heritage Cook

Recently I bought a 2½ pound, bottom round, roast beef. I wanted to try my hand at making barbecue beef sandwiches. Pork shoulder can easily be substituted for the meat,­ if you like, and a beef chuck roast would work too. So look for a supermarket sale.

The challenge is coming up with a healthy, homemade barbecue sauce. As my neighbor, who acted as my taster, can tell you sometimes there is no difference between a cook and a mad scientist! Here is my recipe:

Homemade BBQ Sauce

Ingredients:

1 28 oz can tomatoes, crushed (or whole tomatoes, thrown into a blender)

1 small onion

6 cloves garlic

Start with ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper (or ½ teaspoon of red pepper flakes. Taste the sauce and add more cayenne or red pepper until you get the desired heat.)

1 teaspoon dried mustard

1 teaspoon sea salt

12 turns of the black pepper mill

1 teaspoon dried celery

dash of nutmeg

dash of parsley

dash of basil

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

½ cup cider vinegar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Optional: 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke (or smoked paprika). The liquid smoke with make it seem like you made BBQ over an open pit, but I never stock it, so I use a teaspoon of smoked paprika, which I always have in my cupboard.

1. Cook your meat at 350 F degrees (a medium heat) ­in the oven, or a crock pot until it is tender. Salt and pepper and add a lot of water, or broth. It will take 2 - 4 hours, depending on the size of your roast. Test the tenderness with a fork.

2. When the meat is so tender, it falls apart, remove the roast from the oven and allow to cool (while you make the BBQ sauce), then shred the meat into bite-size pieces using two forks. Set aside.

The Barbecue Sauce --

Directions:

3. I didn't have crushed tomatoes, so I threw a can of whole tomatoes into a blender.

4. Out of laziness, I tossed the whole onion and garlic cloves into the blender also. (Usually I dice and sauté them first, but I didn't want to mess with it this time, and the sauce was tasty despite the lack of effort.)

5. Pour the tomato mixture into a sauce pan, then add the rest of the spices/ingredients in order.

6. Bring the sauce to a boil and simmer on low for about 20 minutes.

7. Turn off the flame, and combine the meat and BBQ sauce.

Make sure you have lots of spicy sauce! Double or triple the sauce if you use more than 2½ pounds of meat. (You can pour extra sauce into a canning jar for future BBQ chicken or pork dinners.) Serve the BBQ beef on crusty, whole grain bread.

Once you get in the habit of cooking from scratch, you develop a taste for fresh, healthy, unprocessed food. Saving a few bucks is a nice bonus too!

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