Sunday, September 23, 2007

Moo's Best Barbecue Sauce

I love this barbecue sauce. Everyone in my family loves this sauce. I guess you could call it a family-wide palate pleaser. I hope you love it too. And when I want to do something a little more on the edge, I add some Maker's Mark whisky.

½ cup vinegar
2 T prepared mustard
¼ cup water
1 t. freshly ground pepper
4 T sugar
1 T salt
2 slices lemon
½ cup butter
1 cup catsup
4 T Worcestershire sauce

Mix and simmer for 5 minutes. If you want to kick it up a notch, add ½ t. cayenne pepper.

Dovell's Tomato Dumplings

This is real comfort food. It's also something my grandmother used to make for my father. She gave the recipe to Moo and when Moo wanted to please us with something special, she'd make tomato dumplings. As an aside, Moo used to can her own tomatoes, which made for very flavorful tomatoes all year long. This is best served as a winter dish, so good canned tomatoes made this a real palate pleaser.

Dumplings:
2/3 cup flour
¼ t. baking powder
1 egg
Water

Tomatoes:
1 quart tomatoes
½ cup sugar
1 heaping T butter
Salt & pepper to taste

Mix dumpling ingredients to make a batter. Set aside. In a pot or large saucepan, mix tomatoes, sugar, butter, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. To make dumplings, drop batter in boiling tomatoes one teaspoon full at a time. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

Asian Mashed Potatoes

Here's something a little out of the ordinary. Give your mashed potatoes a little Asian zing for a real palate pleaser.
1 lb. potatoes
1 t. salt
2 T rice vinegar
2 t. oil
3 T cilantro, chopped
3 T green onions, chopped
1 T toasted sesame seeds

Peel potatoes and quarter if particularly large. Boil in salted (1 t.) water until soft and ready for mashing. Pour off most of the water, reserving some for adding moisture as you begin the mashing. Note that is no milk added to these potatoes so reserve enough of your potato water. Begin mashing, add rice vinegar and oil first so you can judge your use of the reserve potato water as you go along. Shortly before potatoes reach the right consistency, add cilantro, green onions and sesame seeds. Enjoy.