This meal wasn't the prettiest thing I've ever made but I felt it was interesting enough to post here. I suggested a while ago to my Mom that she try a blueberry barbecue sauce (she was already using my recipe for the lemon marinade) because I thought it would be fun and that the flavors of lemon and blueberry go together well. Well, I don't think she even considered the idea because the thought of blueberries in barbecue sauce repulsed her. I thought it sounded good because barbecue sauce from the bottle is filled with sweeteners anyway (like nasty high-fructose corn syrup--look on the back of your barbecue sauce bottle and it's probably the main ingredient). So why not use blueberries to sweeten the sauce instead? The blueberries also have a lot of natural pectin in them, which is a thickening agent. So I set out to make the blueberry barbecue sauce myself!! And it was good, well I thought. People that don't like sweet barbecue sauce in the first place won't like it, but if you do, it's really nice tasting and very pretty. And it's a whole lot more like regular barbecue sauce than you'd think.
Anyway, if you'd like to try it out, you mix a package of blueberries (around 2 cups), 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 3 tbsp. honey, 3tbsp. ketchup, a teaspoon of fresh sliced ginger, and two cloves of fresh sliced garlic. Then you boil it until all the ingredients come together (about ten minutes) and process it in a food processor after it's had time to cool off a bit.
I liked the sauce with the country style ribs--they are one of the cheapest pieces of meat ever and I felt like the sauce added a touch of class. I marinated the ribs all day in powdered lemonade, minced ginger and garlic, lemon zest, malt vinegar, and soy sauce. I dried them off and dredged them in flour, browned them, and then baked them in the oven for an hour or so. I added the barbecue sauce at the end because I wasn't sure I'd like it or not and I didn't want it to go all over the place in the oven.
Also in the oven were some green beans roasting away with some anise seeds and coarse salt sprinkled on top. If you've never tried green beans this way I'd recommend it. Anise is licorice-tasting and it's just really good with the green beans. Plus the little seeds add a lot of texture. I also like to add the seeds to biscotti.
Finally, the spaetzle. Spaetzle are German egg noodles. You can make them yourself or get them in a package at the store. They are usually boiled and then browned up in some fat. In this case, I just dumped them in the skillet that I browned the ribs in with a little extra bacon and some garlic. The little spaetzles get nice and brown.
Not a healthy meal, but a fun and exotic one.
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