Honey BBQ Sauce

Something I've always enjoyed since I was a little boy was the sweet, tangy, and utterly delectable flavor of rich honey BBQ sauce. You can put it on chicken, wings, burgers, ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, French fries...it is utterly amazing on just about anything. Since then I've always come back to this recipe for my "can't go wrong with it" BBQ sauce. Best thing about making this yourself is that you can make it with no High Fructose Corn Syrup. Here are the things you'll need for this recipe.

1 cup ketchup (high fructose free ketchup that is)
1/2 cup yellow mustard
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp molasses

2 Tbsp chilli powder
2 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp Cayenne pepper

3 Tbsp honey (I prefer orange blossom or honeysuckle)

Combine the top ingredients into a small sauce pot and stir until mustard is completely mixed. Next add the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly again and simmer on medium low heat for 5 minutes. Add the honey and stir again, cover the pot and let simmer for another 20 minutes. Let it stand for about 10 minutes to cool down. What comes out is a thick, tangy, and rich sauce that his the front of your palette with the sweetness of the molasses and honey and it finished with the spicy kick off the Cayenne and black pepper. An absolutely amazing sauce for anyone wanting a really great BBQ sauce for just about anything. It's sticky, thick, sweet, and delightful. Use this one as you wish. It's easy and yields about a pint of sauce. Just remember that cooking is really not that hard to do. Have fun in the kitchen everyone.

Buffalo Honey Mustard Sauce.

I like to experiment with making dipping sauces that go with finger foods. One of the best ones I made recently was a spicy and cool concoction that is a combo of buffalo wing sauce and honey mustard. I just mixed up my buffalo sauce which is nothing more than melted butter, hot sauce, Worcestershire, and garlic powder. You mix that with good old honey mustard. Here it is in pure form and your ingredients in order.

3/4 stick of butter (melted)
5 oz hot Sauce
1 oz Worcestershire
1 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup yellow mustard
2 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt

Melt the butter in the microwave in a glass bowl. Mix two sauces separately and allow the buffalo sauce to cool to room temperature so you don't curdle the mayonnaise in the honey mustard. Mix the two together and you're done. This takes about 10 minutes to make and there really isn't that much to it. Works great on fries, pretzels, shrimp, chicken fingers, and even try it on wings. Don't worry about thinking it's spicy. It really isn't. Tangy for sure, but on the spice scale being 1 for not at all to 10 being rock your face off hot, it's about a 2 or 3. Always try combining different sauces that you like. You come up with things that'll make your tongue do some backflips.

Chicken Fingers

One of my go to guilty pleasures are always chicken tenders and I've come up with a delicious breading and a darn good bevy of sauces to put on them. The breading is quite simple. Here are the things you will need.

2 lbs chicken tenderloins or outfit boneless skinless breasts.

4 eggs
1 Tbsp Hot Sauce
1/4 cup Milk

3 cups of Flour
1 cup of Corn Meal
2 Tbsp Old Bay Seasoning
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp Cayenne pepper

Place dry ingredients in a paper bag and shake gently to mix them up. in a bowl, crack open the eggs and whisk in the hot sauce and milk. Dip the tenders in the wet batter, then place them in the bag with the breading mix. Shake thoroughly and make sure the tenders are completely covered. Place in a Pam with 350º Vegetable or Canola Oil for 10 minutes and turn them to cook for another 5-7 minutes until golden. Once the tenders cool, they will have a slightly crispy, somewhat spicy chicken tender, with a sweet finish. Very easy recipe to do and it takes less than 30 minutes for the first batch to finish. I'll start writing up some more of my sauce recipes so you can experiment with different dipping flavors. Keep on playing around in the kitchen though. It's fun and you can always beat the flavor of a restaurant with homemade chicken fingers.

The Island Burger

As everyone knows by now, I love a good burger. This was an idea that I worked up with Laura. We hadn't really enjoyed a good Turkey in a while and we came up with this. We both love Polynesian flavors which mix Teriyaki with bright fruit like pineapple and mango. How about I take a turkey burger and dip it in my homemade honey Teriyaki and top it with Swiss Cheese and sauteed pineapple and mango. So like Picard on the Next Generation I made it so. Here are the things you'll need:

1 lb Ground Turkey
1/2 Onion (Diced very fine or Grated)
1 cup Bread Crumbs
1 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tbsp Thai Hot Sauce (Sirachi)
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Red Pepper Flake

Cajun seasoning
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/2 cup cubed mango
1/2 cup cubed pineapple

1 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup of white sugar
2 tbsp Molasses
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp ginger

Add ingredients of the bottom list in a small sauce pot, stir, cover, and cook over medium low heat for 30 minutes and this will be the honey teriyaki sauce.

Heat up a large oiled skillet and heat it to medium heat. In a mixing bowl, add mixture from top list and mix thoroughly. Form into four burgers and place on a plate. Dust one side of each burger in cajun seasoning and place dusted side down in skillet and heat for 8 minutes. Dust again and flip. Cook for another 7 minutes, flip again and cost each burger in teriyaki sauce then cover with cheese and place in broiler for 2 minutes to melt cheese. Place Burgers on buns and add pineapple and mango into teriyaki and sautee on medium high heat for about 3 minutes. soon fruit on the top of the burgers and vote down. Burgers are easy to make and ground turkey soaks up so much flavor. They taste absolutely insane. Another idea for turkey burgers is the Thanksgiving burger. You just put some cornbread dressing and cranberry sauce on those suckers and they're good to go. If anyone has any other Turkey burger recipes, let me know and I'll try them. Thank you for reading and I hope you like this joy of a recipe.

Laura's Sausage and Corn Casserole

Laura made a new, go to casserole tonight that was seriously yummy and was rather easy and inexpensive to put together. The result was something I know that most of you would like. Here are the things you'll need:

1lb package of Smoked Sausage
1/2 onion (diced)
2 eggs
1 box of Corn muffin mix
1 can of cream corn
1 can corn nibblets
1/2 cup bread crumbs
2 cup package of shredded cheddar cheese.
1 cup sour cream

First off, sautee the diced onion in a lightly oiled skillet. When the onions begin to become slightly transparent, add in the diced smoked sausage. Slightly brown the sausage until onions are completely transparent and sausage is slightly browned. Mix muffin mix into casserole dish with 2 eggs and blend together. Add both cans of corn and the sour cream followed by sausage and onion mixture and mix well. Stir in 1/2 bag of cheese in with casserole and top with bread crumbs and top that with remaining cheese. Season with salt and pepper and bake at 375ºF for 40 minutes. What comes of this is a wonderful cornbread concoction with bits of gooey cheese, sausage, sweet onion, and just a mouthful of yummy. Try making different spins on this as surely, I will. Remember to have fun and experiment with different ideas in the kitchen.

Bleu Cheese Stuffed Burgers

Well let me put put this lightly when I say that I love stuffed burgers. From the infamous Juicy Lucy, to the Big Bad Butter Burger, to the Salsa Stuffed, and easily one of the most insanely wonderful combos ever put together Bleu Cheese and Bacon. The concept is quite easy, stuff anything inside of a burger you might think tastes good, pop it on a hot grill and let it work. Here are the things you will need:
Makes 2- 1/2 lb burgers
1 lb 80/20 Ground Chuck (fat = flavor)
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup Panko Bread Crumbs
1 packet Carolina Country marinade (used it to save time: dried lemon, coriander, celery, paprika, brown sugar, ginger)
1 package of Bleu Cheese Crumbles
1/2 pound of bacon
6-7 baby Portabella mushrooms
BbQ Sauce

For the Bleu Cheese stuffed Burger, I wanted to season the burger meat a little sweeter than normal to overcome some of the bitterness of the bleu cheese. So, I used a packet of Carolina Country Marinade and mixed it with 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce. Added in about a quarter cup of Panko bread crumbs as a binder. Mixed the meat together and let the flavors marry for an hour covered in the fridge. I prefer these burgers grilled rather than griddled so get out the grill and show your prowess. Split meat into 4 portion burgers that are rather flat in shape and make a well in two of them with your fist. Fill the well with bleu cheese and lay the other two burgers on top of the burgers that have the cheese on them. Now, here comes the tricky part, you have to get touchy felt or else you are going to have a giant mess on your hands and the burgers will split on the grill. Pinch the sides of the patties down and pay them back to a round shape. Make sure there aren't any split edges and the bleu cheese is completely encased inside the beef. What you should have are 2 patties that are about a 2 inch radius and almost an inch thick before cooking. Season both sides of the burger in salt, pepper, and granulated garlic powder. Place a well in the top of both with your fingers so that when the burgers swell they won't split on the sides and shrink to the size of hockey pucks. I cook my stuffed burgers to about medium well so that the cheese melts right, which on a 400º grill is about 5-6 minutes a side on a covered grill (open grill add 2 minutes a side). Fry up your bacon and then cook your mushrooms in the rendered bacon grease. Place bbq sauce on both sides of the bun and start building with the burger first, then bacon, then mushrooms. Trust me, taking a bite of one of these monsters is almost a religious experience. Just don't partake in its majesty too often our you will probably have some major health issues. This is one of my sinful, gluttonous creations and if it kills you, I'm sure it will be a happy departure.