White Barbecue Sauce

Welcome back to No Free Lunch! It's been a while, but hopefully I can get back in the saddle during what has turned out to be one of the most stressful years since I started the blog. On the food front in the last six months, we continued to adapt to life without dairy and soy. Luckily, we have been able to slowly reintroduce foods and getting soy sauce back was a huge relief. We haven't fully gotten back to normal, and one of the items still forbidden is ranch dressing. Like a lot of people in the Midwest, we once used it as a dip for many things, but it contains buttermilk and had to go. We tried a few different vegan ranches but none of them were very good. Enter Alabama-style white barbecue sauce. It's not vegan (if you care about such things), but it is dairy free and hits those creamy, tangy notes excellently. Since I first made it a couple months ago, it quickly became a staple that we put on everything. I only wish I'd thought to try it sooner!

Alabama white sauce is one of the many regional barbecue sauces, traditionally served with smoked chicken. We most often have it with grilled chicken, but it's incredibly versatile. It also works well as a salad dressing, topping for gyro or kebab sandwiches (as pictured; these are from Costco), or sauce for fish tacos. There are a lot of recipes out there, that differ quite a bit. The commonalities are a mayonnaise base with some kind of vinegar and seasonings, usually quite heavy on black pepper. Mine is most closely inspired by one from Southern Living. Different mayo brands will give different results and will affect the best ratios of other seasonings. Duke's (apparently a popular choice in the south) is a common recommendation, but I've balanced my recipe around homemade mayo using Kenji's recipe. Soybean oil is cheap and very neutral, which is ideal for the base of the mayo. For the vinegar, I've found the best results from plain old distilled white vinegar. I've also had good results with Filipino cane vinegar (Datu Puti). Many recipes suggest apple cider vinegar, which I've yet to experiment with myself. For the rest of the seasonings, I don't usually measure and just taste and adjust. Try it yourself and make it your own! 

Birthday Special 2024

No Free Lunch is back to celebrate Ariel's birthday and look back on completing year 12 of the blog's existence. It's hard to believe we were both just 23 when I started this thing. It continues to be a great creative outlet and a source for inspiration when I can't think of anything to make. I recently even surprised myself with a tip I wrote a decade ago to throw some eggs in the already hot water from boiling potatoes. I have no recollection of writing that, but I'm pleased to report it worked like a charm.

On Ariel's request, we went for a classic Japanese meal for the birthday dinner. The menu consisted of chicken katsu, rice, and Japanese potato salad. The no-soy rule eliminated our usual Kikkoman katsu sauce, so we made our own using the recipe from Just One Cookbook. I increased both the Worcestershire and oyster sauce content to suit our taste. Shayna was able to gnaw on a strip of katsu and loved the potato salad. 

This year's cake sadly broke my 10 year streak of homemade birthday cakes. Unable to use dairy, we determined a box cake with a tub of frosting was the right call this year. It did take a lot of stress of my shoulders and gave me the energy to produce a great dinner. 

Unfortunately, 2023 was the leanest year to date for the blog, but having Shayna in our lives has been a truly worthy tradeoff. Of course, the dairy and soy issue has done a number on my cooking options, while at the same time I'm cooking more because we can't go out very much. As such, I have explored some new flavor profiles, and one that really clicked was my braised spare ribs with pasta. I've made variations of that dish several times this year. I was also very happy to have finally published an update to chicken cassoulet, better known as "beans" in our house). It's also easy to make it dairy free by omitting the butter I used to toss in at the end. It's a dish that's near and dear to my heart and has never left our dinner rotation in the last ten years. So, while I haven't been able to blog too often, I'm still quite happy with what I did manage to post. While I don't know if I'll end up posting more this year, I'm sure it will still be an exciting time as Shayna explores food for herself.