Barbeque + Spaghetti

= Delicious! Now, before you go right to the recipe, I want to explain something. You don't actually barbeque the spaghetti in this dish. That would be messy. No, actually, this dish is a pasta dish made exclusively on the stove. Think spaghetti but instead of tomato sauce, you use barbeque sauce? Sound weird? The Neelys don't think so.

For those of you that watch Food Network, the Neelys have a show and they make a lot of barbeque and down-home, comfort type foods. I was browsing the Food Network website and ran across this. It sounded intriguing to me. Knowing how much I LOVE pasta, I had to try it. My husband isn't a huge fan of tomato sauces, so I thought he might prefer this one a little better (he did, but that's later in the post).

My house smelled amazing while the barbeque sauce was cooking. After reading the reviews on the Food Network website, I had heard that the sauce was a little too sweet. So I omitted the white sugar. The result was perfect: Tangy, slighty spicy barbeque sauce. Imagine having to smell it cooking for over an hour! It was almost torture!

If you don't want to make the barbeque sauce that accompanies this recipe, you could always use a good quality bottled sauce. However, the results of the homemade sauce are well worth it! The Neelys certainly know what they are doing.

Once you get past the fact that you are eating pasta with barbeque sauce, you will highly enjoy it. Jason, my husband loved it! He isn't a huge fan of barbeque sauce on meats but he opened his mind and really liked this one. Oh, and by the way, the recipe says it makes four servings. NO WAY! Not unless you can eat that much pasta in one sitting. I say it makes more like six huge servings. We will be eating leftovers for days which is perfectly fine with me!

It's a pretty filling meal (pasta, meat, some veggies), so really the only thing you need to make alongside this is possibly a salad. I ate a tossed salad, and you can tell by the picture, I also had some spinach. I am trying to eat more veggies.

I am definitely going to have to try more of the Neely's recipes. They had one for macaroni and cheese that was made with chorizo and tomatoes. Yummmm!

BBQ Spaghetti
from: The Neelys

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon garlic salt
3.5 cups Neely's BBQ sauce, recipe follows
1 pound pork, beef or chicken, cooked and chopped into bite-sized pieces
1 pound spaghetti

1. In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Saute the peper and onion until softened, 1 to 2 minutes. Stir in the garlic salt. Add the BBQ sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and add the chopped meat.

2. Meanwhile, fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Season liberally with salt and add spaghetti. Cook until al dente, and drain. Toss spaghetti with sauce.

Neely's BBQ Sauce

2 cups ketchup (I used organic because I didn't want anything with high fructose corn syrup in it)
1 cup water
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
5 tablespoons light brown sugar
5 tablespoons white sugar (if you prefer a non-sweet sauce, don't add this)
1/2 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon ground mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

* In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat to simmer. Cook, uncovered, stirring frequently, for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Yield: 3.5 cup