farmer's market tomatoes - bbq sauce

Farmer's markets truly are the best places to get inspiration on what to cook. Just recently, Johnson's Backyard Garden had a bulk sale on tomatoes, 50% off orders of 10 pound boxes to be exact. In fact, they're still having the sale on their plum tomatoes so if you want some, get them now since they go fast. I went ahead and got 10 pounds of their San Marzano tomatoes, which are really good tomatoes for sauces since there are less seeds and they have a thicker skin, providing even more tomato flavor.

OK, so now I have 10 pounds of tomatoes, what do I do with them? Meggie and I went to the Barton Creek Farmer's Market to pick up the tomatoes and anything else we could find. Well this is what we found.

Red Pepper

Cucumbers

Onions, serranos and jalepenos

San Marzano tomatoes

With all of these ingredients, I decided to make not one, not two, but three different things. Fresh salsa, slow roasted tomato BBQ sauce, and gazpacho. For this post, I'll focus on the BBQ sauce.

I looked in my pantry to make sure I had my favorite ingredients for a homemade BBQ sauce.

What you will need for a batch of homemade BBQ sauce is:

 - 2 to 3 lbs of tomatoes
 - Onion
 - Chicken stock
 - Tomato paste
 - Apple cider vinegar
 - Brown sugar
 - Honey
 - Worcestershire sauce
 - Molasses
 - Paprika
 - Chile powder
 - Cayenne pepper

Since we're slow roasting the tomatoes for this sauce, set the oven to 250 degrees.
Cut the tomatoes in half and set them on a baking sheet, skin side up.
Add olive oil, salt and pepper
The tomatoes will take around 2.5 hours, and should look like this when taken out of the oven

At this point, the tomatoes are still hot so let them cool before taking the skin off.
While the tomatoes are cooling, dice up one small onion.
Add the diced onions to some oil in a pot and cook over medium heat until soft and translucent.

This is a good time to start taking the skin off the tomatoes.
Since we slow roasted them, the skin should come off easily.
If you happen to be making a homemade stock or sauce by means of reduction, place skins in the liquid to add an extra layer of flavor, then you're not wasting anything. Otherwise, just discard skins.
Place tomatoes in the pot with the onions. Make sure to add the leftover liquid on the baking sheet.
Add all other ingredients to the pot with the tomatoes and onions.
Everything is to taste. I like my BBQ sauce sweet and spicy, so I add a lot of brown sugar, molasses, honey, and cayenne pepper.
Add a little chicken stock for reduction purposes.
Add a couple tablespoons of tomato paste for thickening purposes.
Add a tablespoon or so of the paprika and chile powder.
Add a few dashes of the Worcestershire sauce.
Stir everything together and over medium-low heat and simmer the sauce for up to three hours.
After three hours, the sauce should look something like this.

At this point, use a hand blender or add small batches of the liquid to a blender and blend the sauce to a smooth consistency.

This BBQ sauce is great on anything. Chicken, brisket, grilled veggies, napkins, socks, etc.... Also, as you can see, it's very easy to make.

If you don't have time for all of this, you can still make a quick BBQ sauce. Just forgo the slow roasting and only simmer the sauce for 30 minutes. You won't get the depth of flavor you get from slow roasting and simmering, but you'll still have a damn good homemade BBQ sauce on your hands.

I hope you enjoy!