In our small town of Pendleton there are so many get-togethers where everyone pitches in with food and even decorating, so  a great time can be had without host and/or hostess stress.  It also makes getting ready for a party as much fun as the party.  I have to bring an appetizer to one of those parties and leave for out of town early the next morning.  I am thinking really easy to make, really tasty, and really appetizing to look at.  Savory Smoked Salmon Spread fits the bill and I will still have lots of time to pack.

Savory Smoked Salmon Spread

2 - 8 ounce packages cream cheese
8 ounces smoked salmon, flaked (reserve about 2 tablespoons for garnish)
1-1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon Saucy Mama Horseradish
2 tablespoon minced chives (reserve 1 tablespoon for garnish)
1 teaspoon Saucy Mama Hot Wing Sauce

Beat cream cheese until smooth.  Add remaining ingredients except for garnish and blend thoroughly.  At this point you can place the spread in a serving bowl or form into ball and wrap with plastic wrap.  Either way chill for at least 1 hour up to 1 day.  Place on serving platter topped with the reserved flaked salmon and minced chives, and surrounded with a sliced baguette or crackers.

I love to have this left over smeared on my morning whole wheat bagel and topped with thinly sliced sweet onion.

We just celebrated Mike’s birthday.  His three sons Luke, 8 years, Ian, 6 years and Ben, 3 years, got to plan the party.  I got to be the driver, for shopping, and assistant in the kitchen.  The boys decided what their Dad liked doing best was playing games with them, so the perfect gift was SORRY! Sliders.  I do believe from Dad’s reaction that they made a good choice.
Dinner couldn’t have been easier.  We had rib steaks, that I had marinated for about 6 hours in Saucy Mama Cracked Pepper Marinade and then barbecued and topped with blue cheese.  Along with the steaks we had roasted carrots, and French fries.  I did all the prep before I went to pick up the boys after school, so we could spend lots of time browsing the store, picking out the perfect gift and birthday cards.  My Waring Pro Deep Fryer really helps the easy factor on meals like this.  It heats a gallon of canola oil to 325 in under 10 minutes and doesn’t drop a great deal in temperature when the potatoes are added for perfect crispy fries.

DAD’S CRACKED PEPPER STEAKS

4-1 inch thick rib steaks
Saucy Mama Cracked Pepper Marinade
Crumbled Blue Cheese

Place 2 steaks each in 1 gallon zip lock bags along with enough marinade to thoroughly coat.  Marinate for at least 1 hour up to 24 hours.  Allow steaks to sit at room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes before grilling.

Place steaks over medium-high heat for a minute or two, you just want to get good grill marks.  Turn steaks and repeat on other side.  If using a gas grill reduce temperature to medium, if over coals move the steaks away from hottest part of grill and cook for about 7 minutes more for medium rare.

Remove steaks from grill, top with crumbled blue cheese and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving.

ROASTED CARROTS

2 pounds carrots cut into 3 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch strips Food and Wine Three Herb Spice Marinade

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Place carrots on a rimmed baking sheet toss with enough marinade to coat.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes until tender and golden.
Keep warm in oven until ready to serve.

FRENCH FRIES

4 Russet Potatoes into 1/4 inch sticks
Vegetable oil
Kosher salt to taste

Rinse potato sticks in cold water until the water runs clear.  Place potatoes in large bowl of ice water and let stand at least 1 hour.  This can be done a day ahead and kept in the refrigerator.

If not using a deep fat fryer pour 3 inches of oil into a deep, heavy cast iron skillet.  If using a deep fat fryer follow fryer instructions.

Bring oil to a temperature of 325 degrees

While oil is heating drain potatoes and thoroughly dry.  I keep a large bath towel that is only used in the kitchen for this purpose.

Fry potatoes in small batches.  Cook for about 3 minutes,  remove and drain on layers of paper towels.

When all of the potatoes have gone through their first cooking increase temperature of the oil to 375 degrees.

In small batches, again, fry the potatoes to a golden brown, about 4 minutes.

Drain on paper towels and season with kosher salt.

The kids did help with this recipe, but I did keep myself between the deep fat fryer and them.  You also have to be careful that they don’t sneak all the fries off the serving plate before they get to the table.  Those little guys are really good at stealthily opening the warming drawer.

If there is a time pinch you can fry the potatoes only once.  Bring the temperature of the oil to 365 degrees and cook the potatoes until golden, about 7 minutes.

Yippee!!  ‘Beyond the Bull’ The Round-Up Centennial Cookbook is finally finished and hot off the presses.  We got the books just in time for Round-up, our annual rodeo here in Pendleton www.pendletonroundup.com and the sales are going great.  We were even able to get Reba McEntire to do our forward.  I and my good friends and fellow cookbook planners Mary Alice and Raphael were able to present Reba with a cookbook at the Oregon State Fair.
We had so much fun meeting her.  She is very charming and just plain gorgeous in person.  If anyone out there would like to order a cookbook they can contact me and I will make sure they get one.  I do believe we really captured the flavor and personality of The Pendleton Round-up.  The price is
$28.95 plus $6.05 shipping and handling.  All the proceeds go to renovating the plaza and entrance to our historic rodeo in time for it’s 100th year.

We are almost jittery with excitement from the absolutely overwhelming creativity we’ve discovered, thanks to our first (and most definitely NOT our last) recipe contest.   We have been honored by the 25 fabulous bloggers who participated in this event, and are blown away by the beautiful, accessible, and obviously delicious recipes that have emerged from their kitchens.

The contest itself wraps up today; however, the next two weeks we’ll be in the enviable (yet challenging) position of testing, tasting, and selecting the winners.  While we’re at it, though, we’ll load up our blog with samples of these incredible recipes, and the talented chefs who submitted them.

Please let us know if you try out any of these Saucy Mama recipes, and let us know what you think! If you’re looking to buy some of your own Saucy Mama condiments, make sure to visit our website at www.barhyte.com, or look for us in specialty food and gourmet stores near you.

Make every meal extraordinary!

Summery Chicken Tostadas

submitted by:   Bella Eats (www.bellaeats.com)

serves 4 for a light dinner

Ingredients:

• 3 medium-sized boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• Saucy Mama Lime Chipotle Marinade, to marinate chicken in and also to drizzle on top of tostadas
• 1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
• 1 poblano pepper, seeds removed and sliced into strips
• 1 medium onion, sliced into strips
• 2 ears of fresh corn, corn removed from husk
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• salt + pepper
• 4 oz chevre (goat cheese), crumbled
• 4 whole wheat pitas (8″), brushed with olive oil and toasted in oven

Method:

1. First, turn your oven on to 350*.  Coat chicken breasts with marinade and let sit in small glass dish for 10 minutes.
2. As the oven preheats and the chicken marinates, chop up your veggies and toss in a 9×13 glass dish.  Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.  Place in oven and set timer to 30 minutes.
3. When oven timer has 20 minutes remaining, pour excess marinade out of chicken dish.  Bake chicken for remaining 20 minutes at 350*.
4. Pull chicken from oven and bump oven temperature up to 400*.  Stir veggies and let roast for an additional 5 minutes, while chicken cools slightly.  Place pitas directly on rack to toast, turning halfway through 5 minutes.
5. After 5 minutes, shred chicken with a fork.  Pull pitas and veggies from oven.  Place one pita on each plate and top with shredded chicken, roasted veggies and crumbles of chevre.  Drizzle Lime Chipotle Marinade over top of tostada, to taste.

My good friend Jo Simpson had our monthly Bunco night at her house out in the country last night. Cheryl Doyle, another very good friend and I were co-hostesses.  Jo ordered a Mediterranean Chicken light crust pizza from our local Papa Murphy’s www.papamurphys.com so she could just slip it into the oven after we all arrived.  I made an asparagus salad using Saucy Mama Sesame Ginger Salad Dressing.  For dessert Cheryl brought raspberry sherbet and butter cookies.  It all made for a very tasty very easy meal with no stress and lots of fun.  It was great to sit out on her deck watching the evening colors change on our beautiful Blue Mountains, catching up on each others lives and doing a whole bunch of laughing.

This salad is easy to make and travels well.

Asparagus Orange Salad with Glazed Almonds

Serves 8

1/2 cup whole almonds
3 tablespoons Saucy Mama Sesame Ginger Dressing
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce

4 bunches asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 to 2 inch pieces
2 large oranges
1/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 large avocado cubed
1/3 cup Saucy Mama Sesame Ginger Dressing
2/3 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Place almonds in a heavy skillet set over medium heat.  I use my trusty old cast iron skillet.  Stir until almonds are lightly toasted, about 5 minutes.
Increase heat to medium high and add dressing and soy sauce.  Stir until the liquid has evaporated and the almonds are coated.  About 1 minute.  Transfer the almonds to a cutting board and coarsely chop as soon as they are cool enough to handle.

Cook asparagus in a large pot of rapidly boiling water for about 2 minutes until bright green and just tender.  Immediately plunge the asparagus into ice water to stop the cooking.  Drain well.

Use a sharp knife to remove the peel and pith from the oranges and divide the orange sections removing the membrane.

Toss the asparagus, oranges, onions, avocado and dressing together.

Place into a pretty serving dish and top with cilantro and almonds.

Last spring I got a call from my fabulous daughter-in-law, Irene, saying she wanted to sell me in an auction for Bridgeport Elementary School in Tualatin. Turns out she wasn’t planning on getting rid of me, but on having a Martini and appetizer party at her house. Well, last Thursday was the day. What a good time we had!

I started the evening with a cheese platter out and a Martini bar set up. I had recipes for the different martinis alongside the needed ingredients. I made the first few martinis and then let the guests prepare their own. This freed me up to make the appetizers, and Chris and Irene to mingle with everyone. My first appetizer was a baked brie with apricot pepper jelly, sweet ‘n hot stone ground mustard and Oregon hazelnuts. That was followed by blanched snow peas and asparagus with herb dip. I then made shrimp with our cracked pepper marinade. Everyone ate like crazy, which I love.

I used a little trick to prepare the brie … I found this HUGE wheel of L’Edel de Claron (still in its stapled wood container) and froze it for about two hours.  This gave it just enough firmness for me to cut and then scrape away the top rind with the edge of my knife, leaving the round beautifully prepared for its toppings.

The apricot jelly I used for the brie came from Rose City Pepperheads www.rosecitypepperheads.com . (It’s an Apricot with an Attitude, and I think it is terrific.)  I spread a thick layer of the jelly over the top of the brie, then finished it with a rough-cut cup of Oregon Hazlenuts.

Next, I popped it in the oven (IN its wooden container!) at 350 degrees for about an hour (it was a BIG round, mind you; you’d probably cut the time in half for a smaller round).

I served this with simple sliced baguettes - and when we ran out of that, I added a load of crackers in a basket and watched those disappear at record pace as well!  I thought for sure I’d have leftover brie for a month. How wrong I was!  That appetizer was by far the big hit of the party, and we were left with only the wooden box in which it came.  Yum!

Since we have been eating so much asparagus lately I decided to make Jan his favorite asparagus preparation. Deep fried of course. I have to admit that I love it this way too. I have so many chives in my garden right now that I figured my favorite herb sauce would be great for asparagus dipping. I usually make this sauce to serve with salmon or halibut, but it makes a terrific vegetable dip. Truth be told I love this with almost anything. If you don’t want to use horseradish in the sauce replace the 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar with 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1 teaspoons of grated lemon peel.

Beer-Battered Asparagus

1-cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 TBL finely grated lemon peel
¼ tsp black pepper
1 cup beer (a lager works best, but I have done it with a pale ale).  Make sure when measuring to pour the    beer slowly and don’t measure the foam.
About 4 cups vegetable oil
1 pound medium asparagus trimmed (make sure asparagus is thoroughly dry before dipping into beer batter).

Whisk together flour, salt, zest and pepper in a bowl until combined, add the beer, whisking until smooth.  Do not over beat batter.

Heat oil to 375 degrees in a deep-fat fryer or a 3 to 4 quart dutch oven.  If using a dutch oven use about 3 inches of oil in the pan.

Dip asparagus into batter to coat.  Working in batches of 10 spears, drag 1 at a time gently against rim of bowl to remove excess batter.  Drop spears 1 at a time in the hot oil.  Make sure not to do more than 10 sprears at a time as it will overcrowd the pan.  Stir gently to keep spears from sticking to each other.  Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until golden brown.  With a slotted spoon transfer fried spears to a paper-towel lined baking sheet.  Keep the asparagus warm in a 200 degree oven while cooking all the spears.

Horseradish and Herb Sauce download Return, The

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1-cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup fresh basil (chopped) plus whole leaves for garnish
½ cup fresh chives (chopped)
¼ cup fresh tarragon (chopped)
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons Saucy Mama Creamy Horseradish

Combine all ingredients and top with fresh basil leaves. Serve chilled.

Finally a warm weekend in Eastern Oregon. It felt so good. I am getting my herb garden planted. The sage and a couple of different thymes survived our winter, but everything else has to be replaced. I love planting herbs; my hands smell so good after handling the plants.

Our asparagus is ripe and can be found at our local Farmer’s Market held on Main Street on Friday night, or any of the fruit and vegetable stands scattered around the area. Asparagus is great for that I-need-a-party-snack-now-and-I-want-it-to-look-and-taste-great moment. Just blanch it in a large pot of rapidly boiling salted water for a couple of minutes and then plunge it into an ice water bath. I use my pasta pot with an insert so I can immediately pull all the asparagus out of the boiling water and put in the ice water. I keep a bath towel that is only used in the kitchen to dry the asparagus after it has cooled in the ice water. Once the asparagus is dry I quite often wrap it in thinly sliced prosciutto, pile it on a pretty platter and off I go.

Are you ready for some football?  If you’ve read the Saucy Mama blog, then you know I am!  My Oregon State Beavers kick off their season this weekend, so it seems the perfect time to spotlight this delicious recipe that came to us from Melissa of FromLapToptoStoveTop.com.   This Buffalo Wing Chicken Pizza was one of Melissa’s creative submissions to our Saucy Mama’s Extraordinary Condiment Contest - and just check out her inspired use of our new Saucy Mama Hot Wing Sauce!  I can’t wait to make this myself this weekend …

By the way, if you are indeed a football fan, make sure to check out our branded line of collegiate mustards and hot wing sauces, emblazoned with your school’s logo!

Go Beavs!

UPDATE: Leave a comment for us below, and we’ll select two people at random to receive a couple of bottles of our delicious Saucy Mama Hot Wing Sauce  - and we may just throw in an extra treat for fun.  We’ll announce winners next Tuesday!

Saucy Mama Cafe Buffalo Wing Chicken Pizza порно беспатный

1/2 cup Saucy Mama Cafe Buffalo Wing Sauce
1 refrigerated pizza Crust
2-3 cloved garlic, chopped
1 cup caramelized onions
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup blue cheese, crumbled (optional)
2 cups cooked chicken, rotisserie works best
Sprinkle of thyme

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Press out pizza crust on cookie sheet. Drizzle on the Saucy Mama Cafe Buffalo Wing Sauce. Sprinkle the garlic and top with the carmelized onions. Then sprinkle mozzerella cheese and the blue cheese crumbles (optional). Follow with the cooked chicken on the cheese. Add a sprinkle of dried thyme. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese are melted.

The whole family gathered at Black Butte Ranch in Central Oregon for Easter. Chris and Irene have a house there and it has become our Easter place. This year everyone is brought snow clothes because who knows what the weather would bring, and if it was not snowing at the ranch we knew we could always head up to Mount Bachelor for a day of playing in the snow. Well, tradition has it that Jan and I sit in the lodge by the fire and watch everyone else playing in the snow.

I made a layered potato salad to take with me because it tastes great, looks pretty and travels well. I stopped by the deli and get good quality meats, breads and cheeses and we were all set for the chaos when everyone started arriving. Truth be known, I love all the noise that occurs when the cousins first get together and the adults are all talking at once.

We are certainly not a quiet family.

Happy Spring, Everyone!

Suzie’s Layered Potato Salad

5 lbs small red potatoes ( pick out potatoes all close to the same size so that they cook evenly)
2 cups sour cream
2 cups mayonnaise
2 heaping tablespoons Barhyte Select Horseradish
2 teaspoon whole celery seed
1 teaspoon salt
2 med. Red onions (minced)
2 bunches of parsley (minced)

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place the red potatoes in the rapidly boiling water. Boil for about 20 minutes until a fork easily pierces a potato. Allow to cool until the potatoes are room temperature. Slice into 1/6 to ¼ inch slices. Mix sour cream, mayonnaise, horseradish, celery seed, and salt. Place a layer of sour cream mixture in bottom of bowl. Top with layer of potato slices, then sprinkle with a layer each of onions and parsley. Then start with a layer of potatoes, layer of sour cream mixture, then onions and parsley. Repeat until ingredients are used ending with onions and parsley.

This makes a large salad that easily serves 12 to 15 people. It can be halved. This is a very pretty salad when layered in a clear glass bowl with fairly straight sides.