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This is my favorite barbecue sauce recipe. It comes from the cookbook for the old River Run restaurant in Plainfield, Vermont.

15 oz. ketchup (1 1/2 c.)
4.0 oz. cider vinegar (1/2 c.)
0.64 oz. Worcestershire sauce (2 tbsp.)
0.25 oz. dry mustard or ground mustard seed (2 tsp.)
0.10 oz. freshly ground black pepper (1 tsp.)
0.06 oz. cayenne pepper (1/2 tsp.)
0.06 oz. chili powder (1/2 tsp.)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
small amount of medium onion, minced (2 tbsp.)
3.0 oz. water
2.6 oz. light brown sugar (3/8 of a cup)


I make the sauce in a small saucepan. The best way to measure out the ketchup, vinegar, water and brown sugar is to just put the saucepan on the scale:


The minced garlic and onion:



Cook for 10 minutes over medium heat stirring frequently. Reduce the heat and simmer for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally (every 15 minutes or so).

My stove is incapable of making low heat, so I use my induction hot plate which works great for simmering sauces.


The sauce should only be kept for a week or two in the refrigerator but it can be frozen. I put 2.0 oz. in these tiny 4 oz. freezer-safe jelly jars and freeze them so I can just grab a jar out of the freezer when I need some barbecue sauce.


The recipe is scaled from the excellent River Run Cookbook by Jimmy and Maya Kennedy and Marialisa Calta, pp. 195 - 196. I added additional cayenne and chili powder to make it a little spicier.

This recipe makes about 1 cup of an excellent dry rub for barbecue.

1.300 oz. granulated sugar (3 tbsp.)
0.380 oz. brown sugar (1 tbsp.)
0.600 oz. kosher salt (2 tbsp.)
0.350 oz. cumin (2 tbsp.)
0.558 oz. coarsely ground pepper (2 tbsp.)
0.446 oz. chili powder (2 tbsp.)
1.000 oz. paprika (4 tbsp.)
0.052 oz. cayenne pepper (1/2 tsp.)

Combine all of the ingredients well. Store in a covered container in a cool, dry place.

The recipe is scaled from the excellent River Run Cookbook by Jimmy and Maya Kennedy and Marialisa Calta, pp. 195 - 196.

While I like to make a nice pan gravy from the pan dripping and so forth, my cooking of extremely small pieces of meat and the use of the sous vide often makes this impossible. This is my gravy shortcut.

This is a batch of gravy to go with my roasted turkey breast. There are some pan drippings for this dish, and some liquid from the sous vide bag, but this way is convenient and delicious. Technically it's chicken gravy, but no one will ever notice.

Using the More Than Gourmet beef and veal stock also works great for making gravy for beef, veal or lamb.

Boil 16 oz. of water in a large pan.

Add 0.8 oz. More Than Gourmet chicken concentrate. This is a gelled chicken stock that keeps forever in the refrigerator, and is actual chicken stock with no fillers or and little added salt.

Bring to a boil to dissolve the concentrate, then reduce the heat.

In a separate container, add 12 oz. cold water. Then add 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, stirring constantly.

Add the flour and water slurry to the pot on the stove, stirring constantly. Increase the heat to high.

Just before the gravy boils, reduce the heat to medium and cook for 3 to 5 minutes to cook out the flour taste.

Add soy sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

I usually plan for 6 to 8 fl. oz. of gravy per serving, so this recipe for about 24 fl. oz. of gravy is perfect for my 3 servings of 5.0 oz. of sliced turkey breast with gravy.

I vacuum seal my gravy. This pretty much requires a chamber vacuum sealer because the FoodSaver and such will just suck the gravy out of the pouch, which isn't very productive. Also, even with a chamber vacuum sealer, chill the gravy before sealing otherwise it will boil in the bag when the pressure drops and make a gigantic mess. Trust me on that one.

To reheat gravy, cook it in a saucepan. Microwaving gravy pretty much always ends badly.

I had a half an avocado left over from my sushi plate and I couldn't let it go to waste, despite the rather large number of calories in this snack. It's also kind of labor-intensive, but very delicious!

This amount serves 1, multiply as necessary.

½ small onion
1 jalapeño, minced
½ small tomato
1 clove garlic
cilantro, chopped

1/2 avocado, mashed
salt
a little freshly squeezed lime juice

1 oz. tortilla chips

Finely chop the first group of five ingredients and combine. I like mine spicy so I just stem the jalapeño and mince the seeds and ribs which are the spicy part. Here's what it looked like. Actually, if you look closely you'll notice that there's no onion, which I completely forgot to add. It was still good without it.


Add the avocado and mash with a fork. Add a little salt and lime juice.

Avocados turn brown when exposed to air, though vacuum sealing them in the skin, with the pit, can keep them pretty pretty well for a day in the refrigerator. Here's my almost day-old avocado:



So the bad news is that it's 338 calories with 1.0 oz. tortilla chips (198 for just the guacamole). Here are the Nutrition Facts from caloriecount.about.com:

This is a great spicy, and also slightly sweet and slightly salty stir-fry sauce!

I used this recipe, with a few modifications. It makes ½ cup of sauce, which I think should be enough for two servings. I refrigerated the other serving of sauce for a future recipe.

2 tbsp. rice vinegar
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. dark soy sauce
1 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tsp. rice wine, sake, mirin, etc.
1 tbsp. chili sauce
½ tsp. hot pepper sesame oil

1 ½ tsp. cornstarch
1 tbsp. water

1 tbsp. peanut oil
4 cloves garlic

I dramatically increased the chili sauce from ¼ tsp. to 1 tbsp.. I used Lee Kum Kee chili garlic sauce, so there's extra garlic flavor, too. I also used hot pepper sesame oil instead of regular sesame oil and increased the amount.

I didn't have Chinese dark soy sauce, so I just used 2 tbsp. regular soy sauce.

Combine the first group of ingredients (through sesame oil) in a small bowl.

In another small bowl combine the cornstarch and the water to dissolve the cornstarch.

Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook until aromatic, about a minute, making sure it doesn't burn.

Add the vinegar, sugar, soy sauce, etc. mixture and stir. Increase the heat and bring to a boil.

Add the cornstarch mixture and stir until thickened to the desired consistency.


This should make about ½ cup of sauce (2 servings). I got a little less than that; this is a quarter cup measure:

Nutrition information for one serving, approximately 1/4 cup. 172 calories per serving, but it's very, very delicious.


The sauce should be vegetarian, vegan, and dairy-free, at least with the Lee Kum Kee chili garlic sauce.

It contains wheat gluten, unless you use gluten-free soy sauce.

It will contain tree nuts if you use peanut oil but you can substitute canola.

I've made this sauce before, and it's excellent! It's from Bon Appétit, December 2009, via epicurious.com. It works really well with roasted duck but it would be good on chicken, as well.

This recipe is basically unchanged from the original.

1/3 cup sugar
½ cup water
2 cups pomegranate juice
2 cups low salt chicken broth
4 large dried California chiles (I used Anaheim)
1 ½ tsp. adobo sauce from canned chipotle chiles in adobo
1 ½ tsp. balsamic vinegar
1/8 tsp. ground cumin (not toasted)
kosher salt
freshly ground back pepper.

Stir sugar and 1/2 cup water in heavy large saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves.

Increase heat; boil until syrup is deep amber color, swirling pan occasionally, about 8 minutes.

The original recipe recommends refrigerated pomegranate such as Pom, but since I didn't have that I substituted 100 % pomegranate from Lakewood and it was fine.

I also substituted Anaheim chiles for California, though I think the sauce could be spicier so I might throw in something a little hotter next time.

Also I used 0.8 oz. More than Gourmet chicken stock concentrate and 16 oz. water. More than Gourmet is also low in sodium but it's more flavorful and the concentrate lasts forever in the refrigerator.

Add juice, broth, and California chiles. Boil until sauce is reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 25 minutes. Watch out as the sauce may want to boil over if you use too small of a pot.



Remove from heat; cool. Puree in tightly covered blender until smooth, about 2 minutes. Transfer to bowl. Whisk in adobo sauce, vinegar, and cumin. Season to taste with generous amount of coarse salt and pepper.

I don't think I sufficiently blended the sauce so I ended up straining it, as well. But this made it thinner and not as as spicy, so really thorough blending is a much better plan.

Can be made 1 week ahead. Cover and chill. Rewarm over low heat before using.

I also have successfully vacuum sealed and frozen the sauce.

So I just assumed this sauce would be high in calories, but it's really not that bad. For a reasonable serving size of 1.25 oz. (one-eighth of the recipe above), it's 71 calories according to caloriecount.about.com. Bring on the sauce!

I made a small batch of this for use in my vegan 'cream' of broccoli soup and it's quite good. Not that you could make whipped topping or put it in your coffee, but in an otherwise flavorful vegetable soup it does thicken it up and make a creamy sort of soup with significantly less fat and calories than actual cream.

A cup of cream substitute is 247 calories. A cup of actual heavy whipping cream is 820 calories and also very high in saturated fat. Even if you're not a vegan, you may want to try this cream substitute as a way to cut calories and saturated fats from recipes that use cream.

It's a pain to make a small amount of roux so now I make an entire container of milk-replacement, 32 oz., at a time. I'm going to try freezing it; I don't see an obvious reason why it won't work, but we'll see.

1.0 oz. olive oil (4 tbsp.)
1.7 oz. flour (6 tbsp. or 3/8 cup)
32 oz. unsweetened, unflavored almond milk (or other milk substitute)


Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the olive oil then the flour and mix so all of the oil is absorbed into the flour.

Cook for 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes. You will probably need to lower the heat as the cooking progresses to prevent it from burning, but you want to make sure the floury taste gets cooked out.


Add the milk substitute a little at a time, whisking constantly to get the flour to incorporate. Increase the heat and bring to a boil.

Once partially combined you can speed up the process by using a stick blender.

Once boiling, reduce the heat and continue to cook until it becomes thick and smooth.


Remove from the heat and let cool a little. Strain into a suitable container; I like to use a large Pyrex measuring cup since it makes pouring it out and measuring it much easier. You should have about 20 oz. to 24 oz. of cream substitute.

I vacuum sealed it, but that's not really necessary.

Estimated nutrition information for 8 oz. of cream substitute from caloriecount.about.com:

The fat, however, is from olive oil, so it's healthy, mono-unsaturated fat. And it's surprisingly high in protein!

8 fluid oz. of cream substitute weighs 8.5 oz.

This recipe is vegan, and therefore also vegetarian and dairy-free.

This recipe makes about 1 cup of an excellent dry rub for barbecue.

1.300 oz. granulated sugar (3 tbsp.)
0.380 oz. brown sugar (1 tbsp.)
0.600 oz. kosher salt (2 tbsp.)
0.350 oz. cumin (2 tbsp.)
0.558 oz. coarsely ground pepper (2 tbsp.)
0.556 oz. chili powder (2 ½ tbsp.)
1.000 oz. paprika (4 tbsp.)
0.104 oz. cayenne pepper (1 tsp.)

Combine all of the ingredients well. Store in a covered container in a cool, dry place.

The dry rub recipe is scaled from the excellent River Run Cookbook by Jimmy and Maya Kennedy and Marialisa Calta, pp. 195 - 196. I increased the amount of chili powder and cayenne to make it a little spicier.

I made a small batch of green chutney - also known as coriander or hari chutney - as the dipping sauce for my vegetable pakora. Watch out, it can be spicy! Serves at least 2.

½ tsp. cumin seds
½ tsp. mustard seeds

cilantro, large stems removed (cilantro is leaves of coriander)
½ small onion, chopped
a piece of ginger, minced
1 jalapeño, stemmed then minced
1 lemon, juiced
1 clove garlic, minced
salt

Not pictured: the onion

Toast the cumin and mustard seeds in a sauté pan over medium heat until lightly toasted but be careful not to burn them. Swirling them around in the pan frequently will help. Grind in a spice grinder.

Combine the rest of the ingredients in food processor to make a smooth sauce. Add water if necessary to adjust the consistency. Add salt to taste.

If you like your chutney hot, add the seeds and ribs from the jalapeño. Or you can use other hot green peppers, like a serrano.

The recipe above is basically the same as this recipe.

I saw fresh tomatillos in the market so I decided salsa verde was the thing to make.

8 oz. fresh tomatillos (or one 13 oz. can)
2 jalapeños
a handful of cilantro
half a medium yellow onion
1 clove garlic

If using the fresh tomatillos, boil for 12 minutes then drain. If using canned, just drain the can and use as-is.

Add the whole tomatillos to the food processor.

Stem the jalapeño and chop it whole. If you don't like your salsa verde spicy hot, remove and discard the seeds and ribs before chopping. Also chop the cilantro, onion, and garlic and add to the food processor.

Purée the ingredients until smooth. It should only take less than 10 seconds, and never more than 20 seconds.

Unlike salsa fresca, salsa verde will keep up to 4 days in the refrigerator.

I just served this is a dipping sauce for chips as an alternative to regular salsa, but it can be prepared in many different ways, including a condiment or the sauce for green enchilladas.

This recipe is based on the salsa verde recipe in Rick Bayless' Authentic Mexican (20th anniversary edition), p. 43, but I didn't do the second cooking step.