Homemade BBQ Sauce

Have you ever been really driven to do/make something and found it insanely difficult to find an easy way to do it? That's the problem I came across when wanting to make a BBQ sauce to go with our pulled pork tonight!! Should it be this hard to find a recipe for a sauce that was actually from scratch? There are hundreds of recipes on the internet for BBQ sauces that contain Worcestershire sauce and pre-made tomato sauce/ketchup, but I struggled so much to find one that didn't contain either one or both of those two ingredients, which themselves contain lots of ingredients, and when store bought contain many additives and extra's that I go to great pains to avoid in our daily cooking!!! I decided to do what I have done quite a number of times and simply read the ingredients on the back of a bottle of BBQ sauce and then use the key ingredients to make at home! Added bonus... it turned out quite a bit simpler than I thought it would be!! I will store the rest in the fridge, as this made around 500 mls and use during the week on other meals!

Homemade BBQ Sauce

Ingredients

Can of diced tomatoes

50g of tomato paste

1 medium sized chilli chopped roughly

1 onion chopped roughly

1 garlic clove chopped roughly

4 tablespoons of brown sugar (you could substitute with Rice Malt Syrup for a fructose free version)

1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon of Smoked Paprika

1 teaspoon of mustard seeds

pinch (and I do mean a small pinch of crushed cloves (or 1 clove)

Method

Put all ingredients in a saucepan

Bring to the boil then reduce to a simmer until the sauce has reduced to a thick consistency.

As with most of my recipes, make sure you taste as it is simmering and add any extra's of the ingredients as required to taste!

Whiz it up in a blender so its nice and smooth and wallah!! Your very own homemade BBQ Sauce ready to pop on... anything!!!

Hope you enjoy this recipe!! If you would like to request me to cook something you have struggled to find a recipe for simply respond below and I shall see what I can do!!

Till next time, Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Beef Stroganoff!

I was sitting here thinking about food (nothing new) and realised that unlike other food bloggers I never really have a clever little back story to go with my recipes, nothing that really details why I decided to cook a certain dish that day, how it tasted, what the weather was doing that day, what colour underpants we all had on (Annie the Poodle included)…

Truth is, there generally isn’t a rosy cheeked sunny day kind of story to accompany a dish like Beef Stroganoff. I saw a jar of strog sauce in the supermarket and decided to try and cook it from scratch. That’s the end of that exciting story! It reminds me of my childhood, but it was never my favourite dish so I don’t get all warm and fuzzy like I would thinking about Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings. 

I think about food from the minute I wake up till the minute I go to bed, throwing some sporadic thoughts about work in there and occasionally day dreaming about how many cosmetic products I could buy if I was a millionaire (too damn many that’s how many!!) but that's about as interesting as it gets... I know, not that interesting haha!

However my food thinking is now fairly focused on what other classic home style dishes that really don’t take much longer to cook with fresh whole ingredients rather than packet seasoning or a jar of anaemic looking sauce… I need suggestions!! I am going to cook a Steak and Mushroom Shepherds pie hybrid tonight which I cannot WAIT to put into my mouth! (note: I ended up making two, plus had SOOO much meat left over so now have at least 6 meals out of one batch of meat! I bought a 1.2 kilo blade roast which was $9 a kilo and cooked for around 1.5 hours with seasonings etc on the stovetop, but it would be great in the slow cooker! The meat was SOOOO tender!)

OK so here it is, what you have read through all that nonsense to get to... *drum roll please* Introducing Beef Stroganoff recipe which I based on the same by Julie Goodwin who wont the first Australian Masterchef! I just made changes to the type of steak and made it gluten free by using cornflour instead of plain flour! This ended up being one of our absolute favourite "from scratch" meals I have made... I was positively delicious!!

Beef Stroganoff

Ingredients

1 kg steak, trimmed and sliced very thinly 

(I used the heart smart steak from Woolworths as it was on special)

1/3 cup corn flour

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground white pepper

2 teaspoons smoked sweet paprika

¼ cup coconut oil

300g button mushrooms, sliced

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup tomato paste

½ cup beef stock 

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

300ml sour cream

Method

ombine the flour, salt, pepper and paprika in a bowl.  Toss the beef strips through the mixture so they are well coated.

In a large, non-stick fyring pan, heat ¼ of the oil over high heat.  Place 1/3 of the beef mixture into the pan and cook, tossing and stiring for 2 minutes until it is golden brown. Repeat this process with remaining oil and beef mixture. Removing the cooked beef before putting a new lot in.

Remove the last of the beef from the frying pan and sit aside.

Reduce the heat to medium high.  

Place the last of the oil in the pan and cook the mushrooms and garlic until softened. 

 Add tomato paste and stir for a further minute.  

Add stock, Worcestershire sauce and sour cream to the pan.  

Return the beef and stir for a minute or two until well combined and warmed through.

We served with mashed potato as I had some potatoes that needed to be used, but would also be fantastic served with pasta!

Steam some greens and serve on top. This is sure to be a family favourite, especially in the darkest depths of winter!

Share your photos with me if you make this, I would love to see them!

Happy Cooking (from scratch!)

Erica xx

Super Quick and Easy Poached Chicken!

How to poach chicken for salad, pizza etc... In under 20 minutes?! EASY!

This recipe is for ONE chicken breast which will easily feed two people possibly three depending on the dish you are preparing the chicken for. It last us two meals. so really it fed four, but we don't eat large amounts of meat, on the occasions we do eat it :) I would simply increase the cooking and resting times if you are poaching a larger amount. I am yet to poach a whole chicken, I will give it a go soon and let you know how long to do it for!

Super Quick and East Poached Chicken

Ingredients

1 large chicken breast

2 cloves of garlic

Few slices of lemon

2-3 Bay leaves (optional)

Method

Pop all ingredients in a pot of water and bring to the boil

Simmer for 10 minutes on medium heat with the lid on

Remove from heat and leave sitting in the pot with the lid on for a minimum of 10 minutes

Your poached chicken is done! Told you it was easy!!

I made a roast vegetable salad and topped with chicken, but have also used the chicken for sandwiches and on pizza!

Roast Vegetable Salad