Thursday, July 29, 2010

I Should Bottle This Shit And Sell It!

So yeah, here we are again, it's been how long since my last post? Quite a while me thinks, so this is seriously overdue. Thanks Miguel for the reminder, team Grizzlecorn works in magical ways....

Oh summer, beautiful warm hot sunny summer. I love it, it makes me feel strong and whole, being outside in the nature, sitting in clean, crisp creeks surrounded by happy children, great friends and ice cold beer. It really doesn't get much better - Life.Is.Good. Our provincial motto is "The Most Beautiful Place on Earth", totally corny but absolutely true. We are so blessed to live here, I really do thank my Dad every day for driving me so crazy as a teenager that I needed to leave Saskatchewan and get as far away from him as humanly possible....Love you Daddy! Full of teenage angst, anger, and bitchiness, I packed up my belongings and with all the drama of a 15 year old, stormed off in a huff to have a"better" life. HA! Was I in for a surprise!! I have done a lot of struggling to survive over the last 20 years, but have learned so many mountainously ( real word?) powerful lessons about strength, character, friendship, family and love that it has all been worth it, and I truly do thank you Dad for letting me go, as hard as I know it was, to make my own way. And to my Mom for all the lessons she has given me about the strength of one's soul and determination, and for letting me make my own choices and decisions and supporting the outcome of the more unfortunate ones. And now, as I sit here writing this as the mother of an almost 15 year old extremely dramatic teenage girl full of angst and defiance, I see that it is mixed with strength and confidence. I realize that if it hadn't been for the long tough journey I've been on, she would not be the amazingly powerful young person she is today and will continue to grow into. I am so excited for her future I could almost puke. Really, it give me butterflies and stuff. Now to work on the Izbot....sigh...oh my dear sweet unicorn child :)

I suppose you're thinking, given the title, what, does she think she can bottle this happiness shit for a rainy day? Nope, not that cliche...it is actually an indirect quote from my daughter, yes the 15 year old Minellynator, who COMPLIMENTED me on how good the last batch of BBQ sauce turned out. I guess we really do love each other and shit. I originally started to blog about the best barbeque sauce on the planet -mine, and got to thinking...there is a disclaimer on the top of the page, not my fault if you failed to read the part about rambling.
So now dear blog readers, I am going to give this gift to you, and since I only know of about 10 people (half of them family of some sort) who bother to read this thing, I assume the recipe is fairly safe and in good hands. Enjoy with your burger, chicken, ribs, any kind of dead creature will do...rabbit...porcupine...squirrel...hey I'm from Mission, this place is riddled with dirty hippy rednecks.

So you will need, in approximate measures....
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 small onion, about 2-3 tbs minced
***you can skip the fresh and use 1 tbs garlic powder and 1 tbs onion powder, it actually keeps better. But use fresh if you're making a small batch
- 2 cups Ketchup
- 1/2 cup cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 - 1/2 cups water
- 2 tbsp cumin
- 1 tbsp coriander
- 1 tsp cardamom
- 2 tbsp chili power
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- 1 tbsp dried mustard
- fresh ground pepper
- about 3- 4 shakes liquid smoke
- about 5-6 Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp tamarind or soy sauce
- 2 tbsp honey or maple syrup
- 2 bay leaves

1. Saute the onion and garlic in a tbsp of oil till soft, just a minute or two.
2. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and stir it all up...duh, what else would you do?
3. Add to pot and simmer for about 15-20 minutes or so, adding water if it's too thick. Remove the bay leaves before you use it or you could choke to death on them....if you were to drink it. Anyways you can add delete whatever you like to this recipe, I'm sure I've forgotten something. Basically I just grab my spice basket and start dumping shit in and it turns out awesome...cuz I'm cool like that....and I've been doing this cooking thing for a ling time. I will re-post if I've forgotten something important.