Winter BBQ Sauce

After making Chuck's BBQ Sauce a couple of times, I was emboldened to make my own with tasty, winter holiday ingredients. This sauce is sweet, spicy, tangy and absolutely delicious. It goes GREAT on ribs, but will probably be amazing on chicken and anything else. This sauce takes time, patience and a blender.

Ingredients:
1 large onion, sliced thin
10 or so fresh cranberries
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3/4 cup ketchup
1/2 cup apple cider
3 chipotles in adobo sauce, chopped (or less if you don't like it spicy, but you definitely want to add some for the smokiness)
1 tb maple syrup
1 tb soy sauce
1 tb white vinegar
1 tsp ground mustard
1 tb bacon grease, or vegetable oil

Makes roughly 1.5 cups

Let's do it!

1. Add bacon grease to a saucepan and heat on medium-low. Add onions and fry until very very soft and caramelized. They'll be a soft, light brown mess. This may take about 20 minutes. Make sure to stir and don't let them burn!
2. Add garlic and cranberries and stir until the cranberries split open.
3. Add everything else and simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes until it all melds together.
4. Taste it. You'll want it to be a nice, full, balanced flavour. If it seems bland, add more soy sauce. If you'd like it to be a bit more sour, add more vinegar. Not sweet enough? More syrup. Make sure to add these a teaspoon at a time, and pour it in the teaspoon over a bowl or something, and not over the sauce. That's the easiest way to ruin your hard work.
5. Take it off the stove and let it cool down a bit.
6. Put it all in a blender and liquify it. If it's still warm, loosen the top plastic thing (the one you can take out to add stuff in while blending) and put a clean rag over it before blending. Otherwise, it might explode into a literal hot mess.
7. Use to marinate food before and after cooking, put it on the table when eating, and/or store in a mason jar up to a week or so.

Split pea soup with bacon, if you're into that sort of thing

Even though it's unseasonably warm for December (low of -1ºC on December 15? Really?) I'm already craving soup like crazy. This is something I threw together with a bunch of ingredients from my house.

Ingredients

1 cup dried split peas, rinsed very well

Water

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp dry mustard powder

1 medium onion (peeled)

1 medium carrot (washed and peeled)

1 medium potato (washed, unpeeled)

4 cloves garlic (peeled)

dash of summer savoury

salt to taste

dash of balsamic vinegar

Optional: 1/2 cup chopped up raw peameal bacon (Canadian bacon, for you non-Canadians)

Let's do it!

After rinsing the peas VERY WELL (otherwise they'll be bitter), throw them in a soup pot with a well fitting lid with enough water to cover it, plus an inch. Add the bay leaf and mustard. I didn't measure the water because you will keep adding it as needed throughout the cooking process. Bring to a boil then simmer on low for 20 minutes, slightly covered, stirring every few minutes or so.

While that's going, prepare your veggies and chop them coarsely. Put them in a food processor and chop as finely as possible. If you don't have a food processor, buy one. Or chop them finely by hand. Or grate them on a cheese grater. Put a little oil in a pan and fry up the bacon, then add the veggies and fry that up for a few minutes. You don't need to cook it through, just enough to deepen the flavour. Or something. Hey, maybe this whole process is unnecessary. I don't know.

Put the veggie and bacon mix into the simmering soup, add a dash of summer savoury (maybe 1/3 tsp?) add enough water to cover everything plus a bit more, then cover and let it simmer for an hour or so. Make sure you check every once in a while to stir it and add water if it gets too thick.  

Season with salt and a bit of balsamic.

Lunch it up!

The husband is not a fan of soup, so I have this stuff all to myself! Mwahahah!!

After letting this cool in the fridge overnight, I separated it into three containers, containing about 2 servings each. Two of the containers are meant for the freezer, and one is meant for lunch. In the freezer ones, I put cling wrap tightly on the surface of the soup and pushed out any air bubbles. This will help it keep from being freezer burnt. Then I wrote in dry-erase marker* what it was and the date. If you're lucky enough to have access to a freezer at work, these are great to have in a pinch. If you're unlucky enough to have coworkers who steal food, maybe write "special diabetic meal" or something on it. Either way, ready to eat soup in the freezer can be a real godsend.

I know this says "ham", they're close enough for this purpose, nerds.

The soup would go well with some toasty bread or a salad. Or nothing. It's really good on its own.

*If you have wet-erase markers, use those, as the dry erase rubs off too easily.