Look Ma, No Added Sugar: Mild Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce

This Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce is good on anything. Really.

Until recently, the house pulled pork wasn’t traditional BBQ. It was really a delicious pork shoulder, braised in BBQ sauce until it fell apart. Good, but in my book, not the real thing. I had made quite a few in my BBQ pit prior to marrying Chuck. But a smoky shoulder, unadorned, wasn't his favorite.  So I just stuck to my briskets, turkey breasts, bacon, ribs and chickens and left the pork shoulder with Chuck, in the house, in the oven, simmering away under a blanket of BBQ sauce. I prefer the long-smoked kind because it features the smoked pork as the main flavor, with the BBQ sauce as a condiment. With the braised kind, it depends totally on how good the sauce is; the pork itself is only secondary.

So, imagine my surprise, when he says he wants to make a pork shoulder in the Big Green Egg. I was so happy I’d have run to the store, barefoot, to buy one. It’s been cooking all day, at a nice solid 250ºF. Not one refill of charcoal needed, in the Egg, either. Totally amazing. I’d have been practically chained to the old pit for a long cook like this to keep it steadily fueled. 

Today I ran  errands, did some pickling, and even made a really good, naturally sugar-free BBQ sauce to have with our real pulled pork sandwiches tonight. 
BBQ sauce is a condiment;  but when you use a lot of it, it becomes for some people, a food group, like vegetables. That’s all well and good, if, like ketchup, it wasn’t full of sugar, or worse, high fructose corn syrup. Plus, they are usually so darn syrupy sweet. I've fixed all that in this recipe though. While I made this intending it to be used on a BBQ'd pulled pork sandwich, its perfect as the braising sauce for pork, too. 

Mild Chile-Lime is a spunky sauce. Not so much heat, though as spunk; kids like it too. There is enough here to braise a pork shoulder (or chops, chicken, etc.)This one isn’t loaded with chiles, but it has a little spice, and a decent punch of lime. It also has natural erythritol and stevia as the sweetener, and a single tablespoon of blackstrap molasses in it for the deep, rich, brown sugar flavor. It’s lower in carbs, diabetic friendly, as a condiment and if you use an anchovy-free Worcestershire sauce, it’ll be vegetarian, too. This recipe makes a lot, about 3-1/2 cups, enough to serve with a whole pulled BBQ pork shoulder. I can, and have eaten this Mild Chile-Lime BBQ sauce with a spoon. It’s that good.

Note: You can substitute 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons of Spoonable Truvia or Z-Sweet for the erythritol and stevia. Add the optional jalapeño, if you like a serious tingle in you BBQ sauce.

Mild Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce (No Added Sugar)

Ingredients:

1 29 oz. can tomato puree
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1T blackstrap molasses
1/2 cup granular erythritol
1/8 tsp. powdered stevia extract
1 tsp. garlic powder
3T minced dried onions
2 T prepared yellow mustard
1T Worcestershire sauce
2T mild chili powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
2 tsp. Cholula chile sauce
1 tsp. ancho chile powder
1 lime, halved
Optional: 1 small red jalapeño, left whole

Instructions:

In a large saucepan, whisk everything through the ancho chile powder together until well blended.  Squeeze in the lime juice, and drop in the two halves. Add the jalapeño, if using. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and then lower to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon, about  20 minutes. Cover and turn the heat to the lowest possible temperature and let set on the heat for another 15 minutes. remove and discard the lime halves and jalapeño before serving. Makes a scant quart.

If Your Mama Likes it Hot: Chile-Baked Portabella Mushrooms with Eggs & Cheese

But where's my Mother's Day Margarita?
Oh, wait, it's not actually Mother's Day yet...

Old school Mother’s Day food is always such a yawner. Dainty stuff.  Little fruity pancakes or cute little muffins with flowers in a basket. Oh, PULEEZE. I just saw a Mother’s Day spread in a blog that had more flowers in it than the last funeral I went to. Give your mother REAL FOOD. After all, real work requires real food, and being a mom is real work.

Now, my idea of a Mother’s Day breakfast or brunch will involve some good food, and even a Margarita, or a hard cider. I filled a couple of big portabella mushrooms with a chile sauce, cheddar cheese and eggs.  A solid meal if you serve a nice bit of cornbread on the side and even a few slices of good, double smoked bacon. Ate it myself. Oh, mama!

These portabellas can really pack a wallop, depending how hot that chile sauce is under the innocuous looking eggs and cheese. The homemade hot pepper sauce I use in mine is medium hot; it’s derived from a recipe of Heidi’s over at the blog 101 Cookbooks called “A Tasty Frittata Recipe” that my friend Kasha and I have been making for a few years. Depending on the kind of peppers you use, and how many, the heat will vary. Make it hotter if your Mom can take the heat. Also, don’t expect the eggs to stay neatly in the mushrooms. They won’t, some will ooze into the bottom of the pan. It’s OK, this isn’t a beauty contest, and the fresh salsa can hide a lot of sins.

Minus any grain or meat side dishes, this will be a perfect choice for either a grain free, gluten free or vegetarian Mom.

Note: the sauce makes about a cup, and it keeps beautifully in the fridge for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long. Freezes well, too. I eat this stuff on just about everything.

Chile-Baked Portabella Mushrooms with Eggs & Cheese

Serves one, easy to double, triple or quadruple.

For the Green Chile Sauce:

1 small bunch of cilantro, washed, dried

3 garlic cloves, peeled

2 large, green jalapenos, whole with top cap cut off

Big pinch of salt

Juice of a lime

½ teaspoon of smoked paprika

½ cup safflower oil or olive oil

Whirl everything in your blender or food processor, except the oil until finely minced and then drizzle in the oil. You may need a bit more oil to achieve the consistency you like.

Oiled and ready to pop in the oven.

The actual recipe part:

2 portabella mushrooms, about 4” diameter

Oil for pan and rubbing the mushrooms

4 heaping Tblsp of the green chile sauce above

3 oz. thin sliced very sharp cheddar cheese

2 eggs

1 cup fresh salsa, homemade or bought

Preheat the oven to 425°F.  Oil a shallow table-to oven baking dish that can hold the two caps side by side comfortably (we always want our mushrooms comfy). Cut the stem out of the mushroom, and scrape out the gills. Wipe the mushrooms clean with a damp paper towel. If you can, carve a little more out of the mushroom where the stem was to make the well big enough to hold the goodies. Just don’t cut through the cap. Oil the mushrooms inside and out and place dome up in the baking dish and cook for 8-10 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and lower the heat to 400°F.

Easy on the inside cheese, you need to leave room for the egg.
You can top it up with as much cheese as you want!

Carefully flip the mushrooms cupped side up and put 2 T of the Green Chile Sauce into each one, then a thin slice of cheese. Carefully crack a egg into each one, and don’t worry if some of the egg white slides into the baking dish. Evenly distribute the remaining cheese over the eggs, leaving some of the yolk showing. Replace in the oven and bake 8- 10 minutes until the egg is done as you like and the cheese has melted. Remove, top with the fresh salsa and serve to Mom, with love.