Can U Can It: It's Hot in Hot'Lanta. It's time to get into the S...

Can U Can It: It's Hot in Hot'Lanta. It's time to get into the S...:
I know I said that I was going back to Grandma's kitchen this blog, but I just had this pop into my mind (there is so little in there that...Let's get cooking!

It's Hot in Hot'Lanta. It's time to get into the Sauce.

I know I said that I was going back to Grandma's kitchen this blog, but I just had this pop into my mind (there is so little in there that it rattled around and wanted out).Grandma will be in the next one, I promise. Also if some of you received a blog with a similar name. It was a mistake. I hit the publish button instead of the save button. Writing in the middle of the night can cause things like that to happen. Just discard my wrong blog.
Sorry!
With that out-of-the-way, let's get busy.

Bar-B-Que spelled Pig

Summer time is the big time for Bar-B-Que. I know that in many parts of the country that means brisket or beef short ribs. But in Georgia, we spell Bar-B-Que PIG! Nothing like ribs or pulled pork or maybe tender loin. I can eat my weight in them. For those of you that know me, that would be a lot of both. Being a lifelong Southerner, I have tried brisket and found it tasty, but my taste still runs with pork. I love a big platter of ribs , or pulled pork. I don't think they make pulled brisket, I see it served in slices. Some places thick and others razor thin. I will just stick to Pig.

Another thing that is big is Hot Wings. Everybody has their own preference when it comes to wings. Some like them so hot that you can hardly stand it. Other like them milder and easier on the taste buds. Personally, I run along the line of hot, but I don't like to burn so bad that I sweat big time. I like my wings hot with a flavor. I will cover wings a little later on.
 
I want to tell from the start that our Sauces have won many Blue Ribbons and other awards at local, regional and national level. With all that covered, it is time to get cooking!

I will start with our basic Bar-B-Que sauce. One of the things that made our sauce so very different from others is the base. Our base to start building on is apple butter. You heard me, apple butter. It still is a Tomato Bar-B-Q sauce, but the big difference is the apple butter. Mary Lynn went thru several tries at other base flavors and the big winner was our basic apple butter. I have done a blog on the making of apple butter. As a manner of fact, it was my first blog. Very different from my blogs now. I am not nervous talking to all of you.
Here is the link my first try in the blog world: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3943855710986618045#editor/target=post;postID=8835029455096342479 .

Check it out then come back, we have much more to do. Just one more thing to add: Mary Lynn did not want me giving out the recipe that she worked to develop. She tried for months to get it just right. So, I have had the final word because I am the writer. I also want you to know that I am in the doghouse for the next 6 months.

Apple Butter Bar-B- Que Sauce  6 cups tomato purée. One  6 ounce bottle Pickapeppa Sauce ( a flavoring sauce found on the condiment section of your grocers).  2/3 cups bell peppers, chopped. 1 quart cider vinegar. 1 tablespoon granulated garlic. 1/2 tablespoon onion powder.  1 tablespoon dry mustard. 1 tablespoons dried red pepper flakes. 1 tablespoons cumin. 1 tablespoons chili powder. 1/4 tablespoons ground allspice. 1 tablespoons ground cinnamon. 1 tablespoons lemon juice. 4 cups Apple Butter (hopefully not store-bought).

Combine all ingredients in very large pot. Bring to boil, simmer 10-15 minutes stirring constantly to keep from sticking. If you turn your back on this you will be sorry. It will stick in a heart beat. Put into 16 ounce prepared canning jars (you can use smaller jars if you don't use much sauce). Process in water bath 20 minutes. Make sure that there is 2 inches of water over the top of the jars. Store in a cool dry cabinet. After opening, store unused part in the refrigerator.

With our Bar-B-Que sauce, don't use till meat has cooked completely. For ribs cook then use a basting brush to apply sauce. For pulled pork serve that sauce as a side. Let everyone add as much as he or she likes. Mary Lynn and I hate to go to a restaurant that drowns their cooking in heavy sauces. We even ask for our salad dressing to be on the side.

Jalapeno' Peppers

To kick up the heat and flavor on this sauce we like to use Jalapeno peppers. We take fresh peppers that have been seeded and trimmed of the white membrane on the inside. I like to do that because that membrane has a bitter taste. I don't want anything messing with my pepper flavor. Put the peppers in a blender with a little vinegar. Puree' the peppers. Add 1/4 cup to the recipe above. Not enough heat, just add 1/4 cup more. Next time start with 1/2 cup. Heat the sauce just a little and add the peppers, stir and let cool. You are the Boss in your kitchen, you can make it hot or not if you want. You know your families likes and dislikes.

Habanero Peppers

If you are a "Hot Head" like me and love the flavor that Habanero Peppers bring to the dance. Prepare the peppers the same way as Jalapeno peppers. Do not purée in a closed room, when I did this at our store I ran and extension cord out side and worked outdoors. The pepper fumes did not bother me as much. The fumes will choke you, so take care. But before you start doing anything with real hot peppers, put on disposable gloves. All it takes is one try not using gloves and you will never try it again. The juice of the pepper will burn your skin big time, and if you should touch anywhere around your eyes it is so bad. Habanero peppers are many times hotter that Jalapeno and thousands of times hotter that mild peppers. Add to your sauce, simmer until the flavor of the pepper is well blended. Not sure about the level of Hot that you want? Add 1 tablespoon of your pepper puree, stir, then taste. You can always add more, but it is impossible to take the peppers out after you have added them. Use care with this pepper: it is hotter than you think. At one time the Habanero pepper was the hottest pepper in the world. Now I have heard that a pepper in China is the hottest. Not sure of that so check before quoting me. I have not tried any of those because I found my heat limit with Habanero peppers.

Chipolte Peppers

Another pepper that we liked very much was the Chipolte pepper. Many do not really know what kind of pepper that is. It is a dried, smoked Jalapeno pepper. Surprised? I was too when I first found these peppers at our state farmers market. They were in a zip lock bad to keep them dry. I opened the bag and was hooked. When you use these peppers in this recipe break off the top off the pepper. Shake the seeds out. Use hot water in place of vinegar.  Just chop and put into the blender. Pulse the blender a couple of times and let it sit on the counter top for several minutes. This gives the peppers a chance hydrate (absorb some of the water). Continue to pulse til the peppers are pureed. Add just like other peppers.

We found that we liked this one best with a pork tenderloin. Mary Lynn put the tenderloin in a zip bag in the refrigerator and covered it with the Chipolte B-B-Que sauce over night. She then put it in a crock-pot along with the sauce from the bag, added more sauce to make sure that it covered the meat. She slow cooked it and the smell just about made us crazy. When it was done cooking, she took the tenderloin and put it on a plate. We stood there and ate the whole thing with nothing else but a fork. We laugh about that now, but at the time it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Next sauce on the menu is Hot Wing Sauce. This is the basic sauce that I made all the other varieties we sold from. I left out some steps because they took too long. We sold 8 kinds of Hot Wing Sauce. I even used a little of this sauce in a sauce that I called Not So Hot Wing Sauce. I called it that because it was not hot, maybe just a little warm. The only people who said it was hot can't eat ketchup because it is too hot. So here it is:

Hot Wing Sauce   As my base for fast wings sauce I use Texas Pete Hot Sauce. I use Texas Pete instead of Tabasco Sauce because the later has salt as one of its ingredients Texas Pete doesn't. Salt changes the taste and you really don't need but a pinch salt in my wings sauce.

1 cup Texas Pete Hot Sauce  2 teaspoons cumin. 2 teaspoons chili powder.2 teaspoons cayenne powder. 1 teaspoon garlic powder. 1 cup sugar. A pinch of salt. 1/4 cup vinegar. Mix all ingredients (except sugar) with sauce, stirring til all until mixed. Bring to a boil, add sugar, bring back to a full rolling boil. Put in canning jars. You do not have to process this sauce, just keep in the refrigerator with the lid closed tight. You can process if you want to store your sauce. Follow your processing basic instructions.

Drip-less Hot Wings

Use this sauce anyway that you normally use your sauces. I like to fry my wings, drain them. Then pour them in a big bowl, add the sauce and mix til all wings are covered. If we are serving wings at a party with other foods, I like to have drip-less wings.
I make them by taking the wings from my mixing bowl and put them on a cookie sheet. Place them in the oven at about 250 degrees. Leave them in till the sauce starts to bubble. Take them out and keep warm to serve. No drips to spoil your friends' clothes.

Garlic, one of my favorite things

I am going to give your one more recipe for wings.


It is Garlic Hot Wing Sauce. To the sauce above add 2 teaspoons garlic paste. Also add 1/4 cup minced garlic. Simmer the sauce and you will not believe the flavor. It is awesome. I love garlic and I love wings, so this is just a combination of two of my favorite things. Don't think Mary Poppins listed them in her list, but they are on mine. Garlic taste great and it keeps Vampires away. Don't have any Vampires in your area. Well just use it for taste. We have a couple of TV shows that film in our area. One is Walking Dead, about Zombies and the other show is Vampire Diaries. Don't think garlic works for Zombies. I have a personal interest in Vampire Diaries, Mary Lynn worked as a extra on the show for the first two years. We watched to see her on TV. It was so much fun. She has worked in extra parts for 4 movies and 2 TV shows. She is quite a celebrity. Well back to cooking....

I mentioned Not So Hot Wing Sauce, I am going to give you a recipe, please taste it to make sure that whoever gets this is not going to be mad because they thought it to be hot.

Not So Hot Wing Sauce:1 tablespoon, 1/8 tablespoons cumin, 1/4 tablespoons chili powder (Make sure it is not hot, some varieties are hot), 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder,
1/2 cups sugar, 1 pinch canning salt, 1/4 cups apple juice, 1/2 cups corm syrup.
Mix all ingredients (except sugar), stirring til all mix. Bring to a boil, add sugar, bring back to a full rolling boil. Put into canning jars and process. If you are going to use soon, just pour into a large enough container to hold this. Store in refrigerator till needed.

It is time to close because the rules of how you do a successful blog says I have written enough for 2 blogs.  Just as I getting on a roll. The next will probably be more along the Grandma line, you are going to have to check back and find out just what is under the big white hat.

Don’t forget…. let me know what you would like to make or any ideas you have for the next blog.  

Just drop me a note at   jellymanga@gmail.com.    I have had several readers e-mail me and ask for recipes. I love sending them back. They try them and sometimes even send photos back with there cooking things. Makes my day when I get those kind of e-mails. Also the comments people make about the blogs really make me feel good. Want to post one, just look for the thing that says comment and click.

My last blog was suggested by a reader, Maybe my next one will be your idea.

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Don’t forget, if someone asks you if you can you can it?  

Say YES I can can it.

Just like the Jellyman.