I make my own barbecue sauce and it is never the same. But this time I remembered what I did. I find that BBQ sauce is basically a tomato base with a “hot” added plus some vinegar of some kind. I saw once a “recipe” that was three ingredients of ketchup, sriracha, and Worcestershire. I don’t usually cook with ketchup; I save that for cheeseburgers. Although I do plan to make my own ketchup later this spring. I have seen a recipe for making it in the slow-cooker. I like that idea.

I love barbecued ribs! So we bought a rack of baby-backs at our discount grocery store. So I don’t know if this is the best of my homemade sauces or if it was the best rib rack we bought or the two of them combined, oven-baked smothered with sauce.

Not wanting to use ketchup I use tomato sauce. And not having Worcestershire, I use apple cider vinegar. Most of the amounts are approximations and can be adjusted to taste.

• 8 ounce can tomato sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sriracha sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried minced onions
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon espresso powder (at hubby’s insistence)

Just mix this all up together. I suspect hubby also put in some ground coffee. He has been telling me this is an essential ingredient in barbecue sauce. Anyone ever hear of that?

We poured the sauce over a rack of ribs (cut into individual ribs) turning them to coat each one in sauce, covered the roasting pan with foil and baked this for 45 minutes at 325 F. Then removed the foil, baked for about 10 more minutes, and then broiled for maybe 5 minutes. We then poured the sauce over the ribs. These were delicious! I may never let hubby grill ribs again!

I also made coleslaw and toasted some anadama bread slices on the griddle. I make a dill-buttermilk coleslaw dressing adapted from my cookbook The Basic Gourmet by Morgan, Taggart, Taggert, and Vareldzis (1995 Chronicle Books). I buy the coleslaw mix in the produce section because a head of cabbage makes too much slaw.

• 1/4-1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise or plain yogurt
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons dried dill weed; I used snippings of fresh dill because I had some!
• 2 teaspoons mustard, any kind
• 1 dash hot pepper sauce (sometimes I forget to add this)
• 1/4 teaspoon sugar (I usually leave this out)
• salt and pepper to taste

Whisk the ingredients together and pour over the coleslaw vegetables and stir to coat.

This was good eating!