paleo and bbq

[Cliff Miller]

i have been crossfitting since january. love it. have cleaned up my eating tons from 8 months ago but due to my life style and involvement with the community i live in i am bbqing brisket, pork butt or ribs at least 2 or 4 times a month from april to october. along with all the other traditional bbq stuff potatoe salad, baked beans, corn bread all made from scratch. i tend to stay away from these things more often than not. but hey ya gotta try what you make.

i understand the concept of cutting out sugars and processed stuff and have no problem with that day to day but does anyone have a suggestion for how to make paleo brines, bbq sauces or slathers as they are quite important to bbq. i have always made my own from scratch but they have either sugar, honey, maple syrup, katchup or yellow mustard and the like.

should i even worry about paleo brines, bbq sauces or slathers and just call these things my cheat things?

i live on the west coast of canada and real bbq is kinda a novilty here and unfortunatly (?) i have gotten quite good at so i seem to cook a lot of it for my community.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Katherine Derbyshire]

Are you getting the results you want? If not, then it's time to look at whatever cheats you're including. If you are, don't worry about it.

There are BBQ sauces and marinades with more vinegar and oil and less sugar. Whether you like the way they taste is another issue, of course.

Katherine

[Mark E. Wallace]

My suggestion is to just use dry rubs on your BBQ, leaving sauce off to the side where you can use it sparingly. IMHO, good BBQ shouldn't need sauce anyhow. An excellent rub will impart plenty of flavor.

An excellent Texas BBQ book, if you're interested. Link is wfs.

- Mark

[Tony Sutton]

Marinades from Mark's Daily Apple,

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-marinate-meat/

Making your own condiments from the same site.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/alter...iment-recipes/

The bbq sauce is awesome! Enjoy trying the others.

[adam adkins]

Originally Posted by Cliff Miller

i have been crossfitting since january. love it. have cleaned up my eating tons from 8 months ago but due to my life style and involvement with the community i live in i am bbqing brisket, pork butt or ribs at least 2 or 4 times a month from april to october. along with all the other traditional bbq stuff potatoe salad, baked beans, corn bread all made from scratch. i tend to stay away from these things more often than not. but hey ya gotta try what you make.

i understand the concept of cutting out sugars and processed stuff and have no problem with that day to day but does anyone have a suggestion for how to make paleo brines, bbq sauces or slathers as they are quite important to bbq. i have always made my own from scratch but they have either sugar, honey, maple syrup, katchup or yellow mustard and the like.

should i even worry about paleo brines, bbq sauces or slathers and just call these things my cheat things?

i live on the west coast of canada and real bbq is kinda a novilty here and unfortunatly (?) i have gotten quite good at so i seem to cook a lot of it for my community.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

For the Pork cut the sugar from the dry rub and try a "North Carolina" style vinegar based sauce with no sugar added. It is basically your sugar -free rub and vinegar.

For the brisket you can do a more Kansas City style tomomato based sauce but use real tomatoes - canned or fresh - and cook down to the consistency you want. I find canned tomatoes cooked down with chipotle and rub makes a great sauce for brisket.

You can add hot links to the menu too. Get a good local pork sausage and toss it one the smoker a couple/few hours at around 225-250 and you have a delicious paleo meal.

The sides are more difficult. If I am doing a full smokefest like you are talking about I normally do a sweet slaw (cabbage, vinegar, tons of sugar), a cornbread salad (cornbread, a fresh made ranch style dressing, with all the fixings - Chris Lily recipe I would highly recommend), Baked Beans with apple pie filling (another unique recipe), and some other non-paleo stuff. None of this is remotely paleo or even considered health by anyone's standards. If I am just doing BBQ for my wife and kids I'll do a slaw with a mustard dressing that is paleo friendly. But I have no idea how you make traditional sides healthy.

[Meghan Reid]

Originally Posted by adam adkins

For the Pork cut the sugar from the dry rub and try a "North Carolina" style vinegar based sauce with no sugar added. It is basically your sugar -free rub and vinegar.

For the brisket you can do a more Kansas City style tomomato based sauce but use real tomatoes - canned or fresh - and cook down to the consistency you want. I find canned tomatoes cooked down with chipotle and rub makes a great sauce for brisket.

You can add hot links to the menu too. Get a good local pork sausage and toss it one the smoker a couple/few hours at around 225-250 and you have a delicious paleo meal.

The sides are more difficult. If I am doing a full smokefest like you are talking about I normally do a sweet slaw (cabbage, vinegar, tons of sugar), a cornbread salad (cornbread, a fresh made ranch style dressing, with all the fixings - Chris Lily recipe I would highly recommend), Baked Beans with apple pie filling (another unique recipe), and some other non-paleo stuff. None of this is remotely paleo or even considered health by anyone's standards. If I am just doing BBQ for my wife and kids I'll do a slaw with a mustard dressing that is paleo friendly. But I have no idea how you make traditional sides healthy.

Honestly, I don't think you should. I guess the OP said something about doing BBQ often, but if you're doing a few BBQs over the course of the summer, just eat the damn homemade cornbread and enjoy the hell out of it. IMO, a TRADITIONAL cornbread recipe is a quasi-traditional food, and no one got fat in the past off eating a piece of cornbread at a barbecue twice a year. It's when you get it with fried chicken and a giant Coca Cola at Jack In The Box every single night on the way home from work, and it's made with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup that problems arise.

[adam adkins]

Originally Posted by Meghan Waldeck

Honestly, I don't think you should. I guess the OP said something about doing BBQ often, but if you're doing a few BBQs over the course of the summer, just eat the damn homemade cornbread and enjoy the hell out of it. IMO, a TRADITIONAL cornbread recipe is a quasi-traditional food, and no one got fat in the past off eating a piece of cornbread at a barbecue twice a year. It's when you get it with fried chicken and a giant Coca Cola at Jack In The Box every single night on the way home from work, and it's made with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup that problems arise.

All that is completely true and exaclty what I do every 4th of july. But he said he was doing it virtually every weekend for a 7 month time period. That is a bit much. Obviously he can't change the menu for everyone because the guests aren't looking for a paleo friendly BBQ. So if I were him I would cut the sugar on a few racks of baby backs, do some hot links, and have a paleo friendly salad option (mustard based slaw) and maybe a paleo friendly sauce and hammer the secretly paleo versions with the all the other people enjoying the BBQ.

[Meghan Reid]

Originally Posted by adam adkins

All that is completely true and exaclty what I do every 4th of july. But he said he was doing it virtually every weekend for a 7 month time period. That is a bit much. Obviously he can't change the menu for everyone because the guests aren't looking for a paleo friendly BBQ. So if I were him I would cut the sugar on a few racks of baby backs, do some hot links, and have a paleo friendly salad option (mustard based slaw) and maybe a paleo friendly sauce and hammer the secretly paleo versions with the all the other people enjoying the BBQ.

Totally agree in the context of the amount of it he's eating.

[David Churchill]

Originally Posted by Meghan Waldeck

Honestly, I don't think you should. I guess the OP said something about doing BBQ often, but if you're doing a few BBQs over the course of the summer, just eat the damn homemade cornbread and enjoy the hell out of it. IMO, a TRADITIONAL cornbread recipe is a quasi-traditional food, and no one got fat in the past off eating a piece of cornbread at a barbecue twice a year. It's when you get it with fried chicken and a giant Coca Cola at Jack In The Box every single night on the way home from work, and it's made with hydrogenated oil and corn syrup that problems arise.

I have to concur. I'm about to move out of a two bedroom apartment into a 3 bedroom house with a yard (I'm super excited seeing as how I grew up on a farm and HATE apartments!), and plan on increasing my outdoor activity level i.e. gardening, housework, yardwork, and also possibly a home business. On top of that, my wife and I are looking at trying an experiment with cooking along the lines of what/how they would have cooked back in the 1800's minus the woodcookstove in the kitchen lol. Call it an experiment in self-sufficiency. I'm wanting to test my theory of better, home cooked food with lots of activity vs food out of a box. I think it's going to be interesting.

[Cliff Miller]

great ideas. thanks.

for this weekend i will be smoking 4 brisket and 4 pork butt. they have been covered with a rub for 4 days now and will be going onto the smoker tonite.

i will finish the pork in a carolina vinager sauce and will attempt the bbq sauce for the brisket with changes to tomatoes from katchup.

will also have baked beans which have slow cooked for 24 hours just because.