Excellent on tiny meatballs, better on smoked ribs.

I’m a member — well, the vice president, actually — of the North Central Washington Beekeepers’ Association. We meet twice a month: once for a formal “business and education meeting” and once for a “bee chat” at a restaurant.

President Steve encourages members to bring honey-based snacks to the business meeting. He usually tries to assign the snack to someone and the person who is supposed to bring it usually doesn’t. So after missing two meetings due to my two-month trip to California, I decided to make up for my absence by bringing a snack. I’d whip up a batch of honey barbecue sauce and slather it over tiny meatballs. Quick and easy to make, especially since I cheated and used frozen “Swedish style” meatballs from Fred Meyer.

They were well-received at the beekeeper meeting. (Of course, someone else brought two kinds of cake and honey-sweetened tea, too!)

Here’s the ingredients and instructions for the sauce. I’ve also had it over smoked ribs and it’s delicious!

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c. honey
• 1/2 c. ketchup
• 1/4 c. butter (1/2 stick)
• 1 tbsp. vinegar
• 2 tsp. Dijon style mustard
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1 clove garlic, pressed

Instructions:

1. Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Bring to a boil and simmer gently for 5 minutes.
3. Remove from stove and cool.

Yields:

About 1-1/2 cups sauce.