Chopped Challenge #5, Part 3: Maple Bourbon Barbecue Sauce

I have to say, I really like this barbecue sauce. I'd never made homemade barbecue sauce before, and now I'm not really sure why. You just toss a bunch of stuff in a pot and let it cook down, stirring it occasionally. It's really easy, and you can make it taste like whatever you want really. I'm definitely going to make barbecue sauce more often now.

This sauce in particular is really sweet. I'm serious. There are 5 ingredients in there that have the main purpose of adding sweetness. A couple more add sweetness as well as other qualities. I also don't like my barbecue sauce to have a lot of spice to it, so if you're into that sort of thing, you might want to up the amount of cayenne you add or add in some other spicy ingredients.

Ricotta Pasta Salad

I have to admit, I'm not as obsessed with Pinterest as everyone else seems to be. For quite a while there, I just didn't get the appeal at all. I've come around a bit though and used it to find inspiration for some DIY art projects for our master bathroom as well as some recipes. I don't spend hours and hours on the site, but I can see the usefulness of it now. (If you, on the other hand, are all about Pinterest, you can also access all of my recipes from the Cake & Coke Pinterest board. Feel free to re-pin and share your favorite recipes with friends!)

I happened across a photo of this recipe, but my attention was really captured by the caption which said that this pasta salad was made with ricotta instead of mayo. First of all, I love ricotta cheese. I can just eat it straight from the container. Second of all, I love creamy pasta salads but would like to be able to make them lighter (aside from just using light mayo). Justin, however, isn't a big fan of the texture of ricotta unless it's mixed into something like lasagna where he won't really notice it. This recipe, though, mixes in some pasta water to make the ricotta into a creamy sauce rather, which I thought would be a perfect way to hide the texture a bit. We adjusted the veggies to what we thought would be tasty and gave it a try. I think if we made this again I would maybe add a packet of ranch seasoning or something similar to the sauce to make it more flavorful--it was a little on the bland side--but otherwise I definitely liked this idea for a different take on pasta salad.

Salsa

Justin's major weakness is chips and salsa. If he has them, he will eat them. Quickly. He gets sad when we come home with a brand new jar of salsa and he has to wait for it to get cold before he can eat it. I'm not kidding.

I had always wanted to try making homemade salsa. However, chopping up all those tomatoes and what not seemed like a lot of work. I convinced myself to give it a try once, and the flavor was super weak. I don't know if I just had a bad recipe or bad tomatoes or what, but I thought that homemade salsa would just forever be out of my reach. Then came Pioneer Woman to the rescue. Although everything she makes looks fantastic, I try to avoid making a lot of it because of the ridiculous amount of butter and heavy cream that goes into everything she makes. Oh, the calories. How bad could salsa be though? There's no butter or cream anywhere in sight, so it should be okay.

Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad

There aren't too many things that I crave that Justin doesn't eat and vice versa, but sometimes we just have to have a fend-for-yourself night where we each get to eat whatever it is that individually makes us happy. It's summer, and it's been a pretty hot one at that, and so I just want to eat cold things. Caprese salad is one of those things that just hits the spot. Yes, technically caprese salad is usually more of an appetizer than a full dinner, but it's cold and delicious and everything that's good about summer.

I actually didn't really eat tomatoes until fairly recently. I always ate tomato sauce and spaghetti and whatnot, but I never ate actual tomatoes. I didn't like them for whatever reason. Since I've grown up and started eating a wider variety of foods, I've discovered that I do like them after all, and since I started eating tomatoes, I discovered the delight of caprese salad. Fresh basil? Love it! Fresh mozzarella? Can't get enough of it! Put that on a perfectly ripe tomato with a drizzle of balsamic reduction, and you've nearly got perfection. (If only there was a good way to work in some bacon there. Hmmmm. I might need to work on that.)

Fruit-free Chicken Salad

It has taken me a long time to find a chicken salad I'll actually eat. I've told you before about my distaste for those indiscriminate "salads" they serve in deli cases and such, so I don't really jump at the chance to eat chicken salad in the first place. When I find some place that makes fresh chicken salad, it almost always contains fruit, and I am not a fan of fruit in savory meals. I can go the opposite direction and eat bacon in dessert all day long, but I do not want cherries, cranberries, apples, grapes, or raisins in my chicken salad. Maybe it's because of the mayonnaise; I'm not really sure. Either way, I just can't do it.

Carnitas

Justin and I both love burritos. When his boss asked where he wanted to go for lunch for his birthday, he picked a burrito bar a few miles from the university. Qdoba might be my biggest fast food weakness, especially their breakfast burritos. Ask them to grill it a little bit after they've wrapped it up in foil, and it makes it even better. The outside gets a tad crispy like a quesadilla, and the cheese starts to melt. Mmmm... It'll change your life.

The beauty of burritos is that you can pack pretty much whatever you want in to them. Don't like beans? Leave them out. Want more cheese? Add it in. As long as it's in a tortilla, it's still technically a burrito, and the burrito police won't stop you. In my opinion, putting just about anything in a tortilla makes it infinitely better. That being said, pork is probably my favorite burrito filling. (Justin, on the other hand, would argue for chorizo.)

Cilantro-Lime Rice

Cilantro is an herb that divides people. There are people who love it and can't live without it. Then there are people who think it tastes like soap. I fall somewhere between those two camps, I guess; I like cilantro in moderation. I enjoy the fresh flavor that a small bit lends to Mexican food, but too much of it makes me feel like I've swallowed a mouthful of Dawn. This cilantro-lime rice was made with that in mind, so the lime is intentionally a more prominent flavor than the cilantro. If you love cilantro, by all means add more.