Barbecue sauce can be made by girls.

My dad makes great BBQ sauce, it's truly amazing. It's sweet, tangy and tastes like Jack Daniels. He makes a good sauce for finishing, and really that's what we in the northwest like, finishing BBQ sauce. We like to brush it on our chicken and burgers and dip crap in it like meat nuggets.

Every time the subject of BBQ comes up around women I get this sad pit in my stomach. They seem to hold the opinion that girls don't like fire, can't start a fire and that women are crappy at BBQing (oh, I leave that to my husband, I just don't know how it works). How do you not know how that works? It's a stove and oven together! Think of it as a big stoven! My husband usually does start the fire, but I can and often do, start fires. I like fire too. I like to get out my stick and poke at things. I like to burn things to see them turn to ash. Women also like fire. And women can barbecue if they want, but you have to have three things: a good fire, a good sauce, and patience.

Tomorrow I'm going to smoke a brisket. MMMmmmm brisket. I will be preparing a rub and a mop today and I am making a BBQ sauce for dipping or slooshing or just eating.

I looked at a bunch of recipes, and none of them seemed very good. The one major flaw I noticed was that they all took under 30 minutes. My dad cooks his sauce forever, and it gets better after it sits for a month or so. Also many of them seemed like ketchup that's been flavored. Gross out, you might as well go get a bottle of HFCS infested Kraft Krap. I know many good recipes come from ketchup, but it's not the true way, it's the cheater's way, and if my dad's a cheater, well he's a real good one then.

I made this the way I make everything, I looked at a bunch of recipes, poked through the fridge and pantry, formulated a vague plan and went in and did what I want, tasting as I go along.

Here is a little note about me. I don't buy brown sugar, it's a scam. Brown sugar is made from white sugar and has the molasses mixed back into it. It comes in the lamest packages (boxes? really?) and dries into a hard brick before you can use it all. Do what I do, I buy molasses and use a mixture of molasses and sugar accordingly. Even when I make cookies, I just measure out all in white sugar and add a few tbs of molasses. So if it seems like a lot of molasses that's because a lot of the recipes called for brown sugar and molasses.

I will tell you what I did, but I want you to use your noggin here. When I go to a Thai restaurant I ask for all the stars. When someone says that they have a seven alarm burn your tongue off wing sauce, I sneer and eat it and it's really not that hot. I eat whole pickled jalapenos. I use habaneros without discretion, and I don't devein them or remove the seeds. Keep that in mind.

Ingredients:

1/2 large Mayan sweet onion well chopped
3-5 cloves of garlic, depending on size- minced
1 diced jalapeno
1/2 C. organic, unfiltered, unpasteurized apple cider vinegar
1/2 C. organic molasses
1/2 C. organic sugar
1 can organic tomato paste
1 C. organic chicken stock
1 pinch coarse sea salt
1 tsp. cayenne powder
several dashes of organic Worcestershire sauce
grape seed oil

Method:

In a sauce pan heat a small amount of oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook slowly, without browning until they are almost translucent. Add the jalapenos and garlic and cook until the onions are transparent and the jalapenos are bright green. Add the tomato paste and chicken stock to the pan and stir until thick.

Add the rest of the ingredients and lower the heat. Taste and adjust the sweetness or sourness with vinegar as needed. Cook over a low heat for a couple hours until the sauce is good and thick.

Store in clean jars in the fridge.