BBQ 101 - Sauces

This is a topic I have been avoiding. It is very personal and can be very divisive as we have seen in NC. The state is split into two camps, Eastern Carolina Sauce and Western Carolina Sauce, and woe be unto you if you choose either or neither when asked. I will be trying to avoid choosing one over the other but just sharing the differences of our great country's sauces with you.

I know we can get into specifics for each region on flavors and profiles, thickness and consistency but I'm going to write using broad strokes to help those who are just starting out or want to find out about the general differences in sauces around the country are. There are many and I like many of them for various reasons. But for this post I will focus on the five main categories.

Recipe: Onion Jam? What the...?

Yesterday I decided to grill some burgers but wanted something a little different to go on them. I was looking through one of my grilling cookbooks and came across Onion Jam. I had also made some grilled tomatoes a while back with cheese on them. They didn't turn out like I had planned so I tried again but changed it up with better results.
It sounded good so I decided to give it a try.

Recipe: Grilled Bruschetta

My family loves Italian food and snacks. We love to try new things at home and one of our favorite appetizers is bruschetta. I was watching the Food Network and one of the chefs made grilled bruschetta. It looked good and I thought I can make that and make it better. So I did.

Chicken and Noodles

Something that I have always wanted to make is pasta. Why? I don't know I just think it would be cool to make my own pasta. So I finally took the plunge and tried it out. I made grilled chicken which I served over my pasta with a simple tomato sauce. For a first try it turned out ok.

I used a simple pasta recipe consisting of, 2 cups of flour, 3 eggs, 1tbls olive oil, a pinch of salt and 1 tsp of garlic powder. Mixing the dough was simple but the next parts took some doing. I don't have a pasta maker. I hand rolled the dough and cut it with a pizza slicer.