Day 310 - 313. All Natural BBQ Smoky Sweet (With Just the Right Amount of Kick)

David likes BBQ.  David likes pork.  These two things are not normally my favorites (with the exception of bacon, which is a pork product that I adore so much that I dressed like it for Halloween).  So for this review, David cooked a pork loin in the crock pot with this BBQ sauce for around 6 hours.

Here's the bottle.

As for me, I liked this better than I like most BBQ sauce.  Normally I only like spicy BBQ sauces.  This is not spicy.  I didn’t expect to like it.  I didn’t want to tell David I didn’t want to have it, because he doesn’t get BBQ very often since I am not a big fan, so I took one for the team.  But I was surprised at how “not bad” it was.  I even dipped some Trader Joe’s tots in it ( review here) and it was pretty good.

See - served with TOTS!  And green peas.

Here are David’s musings on this sauce:  “This is a little sweeter than I like… A little more tomatoe-y than I would like.  I probably would like a little bit more vinegar-y-ness and tart 'smack ya in the faceness' about it.  The flavors do not “stick out” as much as I would like.  It’s a little bit 'smushie'."

We used to live in Kansas City, a place where people go nuts for BBQ.  I think in any city where they “do BBQ” they claim theirs is the be all, end all.  I never really got on the BBQ bandwagon I guess.

Here is our BBQ lover, who ended up being "alright" with this sauce but not over the moon about it.

In this TJ’s sauce, the first ingredient listed is TOMATO PUREE, so David’s opinion of it tasting too “tomato-y” makes sense.   But really, all in all, we agree that this is not a bad BBQ. 

And there you have it.

Price – $2.49

Rating – 3.5

Day 272 - Beef Sirloin Tri-Tip Kansas City BBQ Flavored Recipe

Here they are in the store, just waiting to be selected to go home with someone

David cooked this for us – we usually split cooking duties with him in charge of meat (if we have it) and me doing the vegetables and salad. 

Here he is while still at TJ's, saying "MEEEEEAAATTTT!"

For me, this beef was nice and tender, and the taste was good, but there was sooo much F-A-T.   I got globs of fat with almost every bite.  Perhaps we were supposed to be smart enough to shave that off before plating it, but it seems like if we HAD cut it off we would have had one tiny chunk of meat left for dinner…   Maybe the fact that it had so much FAT is what made it nice and tender.   (As you might surmise here, I am not the meat expert in our house.  I could do fine on a vegetarian diet but my fun partner likes red meat once in a while.)

As for the BBQ sauce on it, it was okay but a little sweet for me.  I preferred the bites that were not drenched in that sauce.

The meat master slicing this up

For David – he was disappointed in the lack of sauce.  (See, sometimes we have opposite opinions on stuff.)  He thought the sauce was too “on just the outside of the beef” and not enough sauce in general.  He felt the meat was not “juicy and succulent” but not too tough.  He thought if he cut off the fat before serving, it might have been “less unpleasant”.

Wait til it is on the PLATES please, David...

This beef cannot hold a candle to the filet mignon roast we served months ago for the Trader Joe’s dinner party, that’s for damn sure.  filet mignon roast here   I don’t feel the need to buy this Tri-Tip KC BBQ recipe again. 

David gives this one a 3.5 and I concur.

Price – $7.99 lb

Rating – 3.5