Redd Ranches Famous BBQ Sauce

If you've never heard of the Redd Ranches Bull Sale, you are truly missing out. This is an annual event, I believe it was started by Number One's grandpa & grandma, Charlie & Annaley. The tradition has carried on, and the Bull Sale is now hosted by Redd Ranches (Uncle Paul & Aunt Diane's family). The sale is kicked off every year by the most delicious lunch ever, served to several hundred people.

Roast beef sandwiches with barbecue sauce, Grandma Annaley's Prairie Fire Beans, Cole Slaw, Cowboy Beans, Brownies, Lemonade. The whole family pitches in to make lunch, from Uncle Brian and crew getting the beef on the BBQ around 4AM, to all the cousins serving up the meal. The Bull Sale is known far and wide for its lunch, in addition to the quality of its bulls, and hundreds of people travel from all corners for the event.

After lunch, is the actual Bull Sale, a real live auction. It's simply a great time, and sort of like a family reunion all rolled into one day. Later, we usually stop at the old Ranch House and eat leftovers for dinner, play cards and visit with aunts, uncles and cousins.

For some pictures and more about the Bull Sale, read Left After The Cattleguard.

Here is the recipe for our favorite barbecue sauce. We are going to serve it up on BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwiches next week on branding day. I found these cool squeeze bottles, which will be handy for serving it in the corral. I bought two and told Number One he could have one squeeze bottle all to himself!

Barbecue Sauce

REDD RANCHES

makes 2 quarts

3 cups brown sugar

60 oz. catsup

1 1/2 cups vinegar

9 dashes Worcestershire sauce

2 TBL dry mustard

6 TBL chili powder

6 TBL celery seed

3 dashes tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper

3 dashes salt

6 cloves garlic, minced

3 TBL minced onion

Simmer 2 hours.

That's just how I got the recipe from Aunt Becky and Aunt Diane. Obviously you stir up the ingredients, simmer on low heat for those two hours, stirring occasionally. What I found out is that simmering barbecue sauce is sort of bubbly and messy, so if you have one of those wire mesh pot cover things, you might want to pull it out.

They say the sauce keeps well in jars in the fridge for several months (although it usually doesn't last that long!) You can and probably will eat it on anything, from beef to beans to bbq pizza.

Let us know how you use your BBQ sauce, and of course what you think of this one!

And now, I have a confession to make. I'm not sure exactly how this happened, but my first batch of bbq sauce was WAY TOO SPICY. I used the same measurement of chile powder, I really didn't think I used more than the recommended dashes of tabasco. The only thing that I can think of: I get my chile powder from the Mexican section of the grocery store, so it's REAL. Maybe Too Real. Number One tasted the sauce and said, "It tastes exactly the same, just spicier." Hmmm. So in an attempt to rectify this embarrassing situation (thank god I wasn't making this for the bull sale!), I bought another 30 ounces of ketchup and some more celery seed. I made another half batch as above, but I left out both the chile powder and the tabasco. I finished this mild sauce, then combined it with the spicy sauce. Now we got a lotta sauce! I'm going to wait until Number One gets home to give me his opinion, him being the Expert Sauce Taster that he is. I think it's pretty good, I'm just debating making yet ANOTHER half batch of mild sauce to tone it down even more. Too much? I guess we'll see.

That would give us 4 quarts of the stuff, in which case it may be a BBQ Thanksgiving AND guess what everyone is getting for Christmas! So. That's it. My name is Min, and I'm a spice-aholic.