Fathers Day: Homemade BBQ Sauce!

Today I held a yard sale that was quite successful. Immediately after packing up the leftovers, I hightailed it to Walmart to buy a new pair of sunglasses (a planned purchase because mine were getting very scratched). While browsing the jewellery department I happened to spy this little guy:

Naturally, he came home with me.

Now, onto today's post: Father's Day.

Let me tell you a little something about Father’s Day. At a pretty young age, my mom left my family, and I grew up with my dad and two older brothers. My dad is a ROCK STAR DAD!! My dad taught me about all sorts of things that a mother normally teaches a daughter, like menstruation cycles, how to shave my legs, how to deal with overly dramatic girly emotions, how to deal with boys... Ya, he made a pretty awesome Dad/Mom growing up (and still is awesome today). Because of this, Father’s Day is a pretty big deal to me (I give my dad a gift on Mother’s Day too, actually).

Since becoming a teacher, I have been giving my dad the same Father’s Day gift that I get my kids to make in my program. It ensures that I’m actually coming up with a good gift for my kids, because if it’s not good enough for my dad, it’s not good enough for theirs.

This year: homemade BBQ sauce! Inspired by Inner Child Fun.

 

I made the BBQ sauce at home, following this recipe on foodnetwork.com, with some variation. First of all, I quadrupled the recipe, because I was making it for 25 people. I also cut back the sugar by about 1/3, added garlic powder, and added liquid hickory smoke. And I cooked it for longer because a bigger batch calls for longer cooking time.

The jars are spice jars from Dollarama (3/$1). They're actually glass, so I thought that gave it all a nice touch of class.

The basting brushes are plain-old paint brushes from Walmart for $1 each (the cheapest ones I could find). I taped off the metal and bristles, so the kids didn’t get paint on those parts.

 We used acrylic paints in a multitude of colours.

The kids got to work. Here are some of their creations.

I sent home a label with each bottle that said what it was, what the brush was for, and that the brush was hand decorated by their child. I also included a list of ingredients.

I must say, the dads were pleased.

And my dad? Well, he got a different jar, because I had a super smart afternoon and left all of the extra jars of BBQ sauce in the fridge at school. Luckily I had extra sauce at home, and just needed to find a new jar for it. He loved it! And he said he would give me my mason jar back when it’s empty as long as I gave him one of the correct (full) jars. Good deal, Dad.

Father’s Day win!!