It’s time for another Sunday Family Dinner! This month we decided it would be fun to do our dinner Memorial Day weekend. It ended up being a beautiful, sunny day which made it even better for our backyard BBQ. Mom did a wonderful job decorating the table and deck with a red, white and blue theme. And as you can see, the dogs love to be outside as much as they can!
At the end of the summer last year, my parents and I found this lawn checkers on clearance at Home Depot and just had to buy it! Sunday was the first time we finally busted it out. We really only got one game played and didn’t even get to finish it but I will say this, my dad was killing me so I wasn’t terribly disappointed we couldn’t finish! We definitely want to buy the giant lawn Jenga next. We’ll just have to make sure the dogs are inside because they kept running across the checkers board.
For our drinking pleasure, we made this sangria to fill our glasses as we pleased.
Okay now let’s get down to the good part: food! We went with pretty traditional BBQ food. First up Natasha made a watermelon-jicama salsa to mimic one her and Steve loved on their cruise a couple weeks ago. We served the salsa with tortilla chips from Whole Foods, which were pretty delicious and not overly salty. I personally am not a fan of tomatoes so I was all about this salsa. It was very refreshing and had a great flavor.
Sunday morning I brined chicken breasts for about 3 hours in a mixture of water, brown sugar, kosher salt and beer. After the brining time, Steve stuck the chicken in our smoker for a few hours. We ended up pulling the chicken to put on Hawaiian Rolls for pulled chicken sliders. For those, I came up with a couple BBQ sauce recipes that I’ll put at the end of this post. They ended up being a hit with the family! I also made a simple coleslaw to put on the sliders for a little crunch and extra flavor. As a side dish, we made a Strawberry Mozzarella Pasta Salad that Natasha made up a few years ago. Just so I don’t make this post crazy long, I’ll post that recipe in another post.
And my favorite part of any meal, dessert. Mom made this cute little flag with raspberries, blueberries and mini marshmallows on skewers. I also made these mini mixed berry pies that we served with vanilla bean ice cream. The recipe for these adorable little pies will be my next post. I loved these pies because they were really easy to make and were delicious!
Hope you enjoyed this peek into our family tradition and that you love these BBQ sauces as much as we did!
Jack Daniel’s Honey BBQ Sauce
- 1/8 cup vegetable oil (or any you choose)
- 1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 small-medium onion)
- 1 1/4 cup ketchup, I use Hunts 100% Natural – No preservatives or high fructose corn syrup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tsp. liquid smoke
- 3 Tbsp. honey
- 1 Tbsp. worchestire sauce
- 2 1/2 tsp. ground mustard
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- kosher salt & pepper to taste
- Optional: 1-2 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with a little cold water
- Heat oil in large saucepan over low heat, add onions and cook for 10-15 minutes, until translucent but not browned.
- Add all other ingredients, except cornstarch mixture, to the pot. Bring to a boil and reduce heat then simmer for 5 minutes or until all is combined.
- Optional: For thicker sauce, add cornstarch mixture and simmer until you get your desired thickness. It does thicken quickly so make sure you keep an eye on it.
- Serve or cover and store in the fridge.
Chipotle-Pineapple BBQ Sauce
- 1 1/4 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup pineapple chunks from the can (or already crushed pineapple, I just had the chunks in the pantry)
- 1/2 cup pineapple juice from the can above
- 1/4 cup water
- 1-2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce plus 1-2 Tbsp. of the adobo sauce
- 3 Tbsp. molasses
- 1 Tbsp. worchestire sauce
- 2 tsp. smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- kosher salt & pepper to taste
- Optional: 1-2 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with a little cold water
- In a food processor (I used a mini one), process the pineapple chunks to get crushed pineapple if you don’t have already crushed pineapple. Set aside.
- Rinse the processor then add the 1-2 chipotle peppers and the 1-2 Tbsp. adobo sauce and process. I used 1 pepper and 2 Tbsp. of the sauce for mine. Set aside.
- In a large saucepan, combine all ingredients, except cornstarch mixture. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes or until all is combined.
- Optional: For thicker sauce, add cornstarch mixture and simmer until you get your desired thickness. It does thicken quickly so make sure you keep an eye on it.
- Serve or cover and store in the fridge.