Cocktail Sauce, the seafood staple, is the most recent condiment to fall under the Saucy Mama spell.  As an Oregon-based company, we know a thing or two (or three or more) about seafood, and how to bring out its best flavors. In that spirit, we have created a new signature Saucy Mama Zesty Cocktail Sauce, loaded with the rich, deep spice of both horseradish and jalapenos.

Order your Saucy Mama Zesty Cocktail Sauce today through the Barhyte web site, and try this creation that we crafted just to celebrate this latest addition:

For Spread:
8 oz. package cream cheese
1-1/2 Tablespoons drained minced capers
1 Tablespoon Willamette Valley Aioli Garlic Mustard
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1-1/2 Tablespoon Saucy Mama Cocktail Sauce or more to taste
4 Drops Pepper Sauce

Beat all ingredients together and set aside

Peanut or Canola Oil for cooking
1/2 Cup yellow corn meal
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pound large shrimp deveined and tails removed
16 slices bacon cooked
2 tomatoes thinly sliced
Butter Lettuce washed and dried
4 French Rolls sliced in half lengthwise

In a large heavy pot pour enough oil to reach the depth of 2 inches.  Heat to 375 degrees F.  In a large bowl mix cornmeal salt and cayenne pepper.  Toss the shrimp into the bowl and coat with the cornmeal mixture.  Place small batches of the shrimp into the hot oil.  Do not over crowd the pot.  Deep-fry until the shrimp is golden brown and opaque in the middle.  Remove the shrimp from the pot with a large slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Spread the cream cheese mixture on the inside of each french roll half.  Place shrimp and bacon on the bottom half of the roll.  On the top half place the lettuce and tomato.  Put the two halves together and slice the sandwich into two pieces.  ENJOY!

Thanksgiving came and went so fast!  Actually planning was pretty darn easy now that Irene and Chris have it at their house in Tualatin.  I love of having adult children.  Irene is wonderful; she is a just great at putting a party together while handling being a Mom with ease.  Actually Irene and Chris are a great team and it is fun watching them work together.  All I had to bring was an opening act cocktail, along with an appetizer.  For the main course I made Cranberry Whiskey Mustard Sauce to go along with Irene’s turkey.  For desert I made Grandma Winkie’s Pumpkin Pies.  Grandma Winkie is Jan’s mother and got that name when the boys were very small and she read them a favorite children’s book whose main character just happened to be Grandma Winkie.   The name stuck.

I have a new favorite Whiskey “Snake River Stampede.”  It comes from the folks at Indio Spirits in Cottage Grove, Oregon.   www.indiospirits.com .  The taste is very smooth with notes of caramel.  I also have a favorite author of cocktail books and that is A.J. Rathbun.  A.J. has a new book out “Dark Spirits” and I decided to use a recipe from that book for a cocktail called WOW made from whiskey, orange juice and water.  It was perfect for our Thanksgiving, and I’m sure it’s going to be fantastic for Christmas.  Before I give you the recipe for WOW I want to highly recommend A.J.’s books, the cocktail recipes are terrific and the books are just plain fun to read.  A.J is a very entertaining fellow.  If you want to check out his blog it is www.ajrathbun.com .  You can order A.J.’s books from our website.

WOW

2 ounces Snake River Stampede Whiskey

1 ½ ounces freshly squeezed orange juice

1 ounce simple syrup (recipe follows)

2 ½ ounces hot water

Orange twist for garnish

Add the whiskey, orange juice and simple syrup to a large mug

Heat the water to almost boiling (this is where an instahot really comes in handy

Pour water into mug, and stir briefly.  Twist the orange twist over the top and drop it in.  As A.J. says, “WOW indeed.”

A variation for the young ones and non-imbibers in the group:  Take the whiskey out of the equation; up the orange juice by 1 ounce; the simple syrup by ½ ounce and the water by1/2 ounce; and add ¼ teaspoon ground cloves to the mug.

I am going to make a pitcher of the orange juice, whiskey, simple syrup mixture and have another insulated pitcher of hot water so that the guests can make their own drinks.

I am going to stop by my local grocery store deli for my appetizer.  Anyone who has read this blog knows that when in a rush the olive bar and cheese counter are my best friend.  I’ll pick up a nice crusty baguette, cut it into thin slices, arrange it on a platter with sliced hard salami and wedges of cheese, put out bowls of olives and marinated vegetables and I’m done.  Of course I will put out Saucy Mama Mustard to compliment everything.

I’ll make the cranberry sauce a couple of days before Thanksgiving and bring it to Portland with me.

Whiskey Mustard Cranberry Sauce

¾ cup Snake River Stampede Whiskey

¼ Harlequin Orange Liqueur (or whatever orange liqueur you happen to have laying around)

1 cup sugar

1 – 12 ounce package fresh cranberries

¼ cup Willamette Valley Sweet Hot Stone Ground Mustard

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

Bring whiskey, orange liqueur, and sugar to a boil in a heavy medium sized saucepan stirring to dissolve sugar.  Add cranberries and mustard, return to a boil.  Reduce heat and boil gently for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and stir in orange peel. Allow to cool to room temperature.  If not using immediately refrigerate until ready to use.  Makes about 2 ½ cups.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

This was exciting stuff … We didn’t expect bonus write-ups about our Cocktail Onions.  But we’re so grateful to A.J. Rathbun, who shared this wonderful review of our cocktail onions on his blog.

Oh - and speaking of exciting stuff, we have to send a special thanks to those of you who left us a comment on our blog last week.  So we’re going to extend our thanks by sending a six-pack of treats to ALL of you who left us comments.  (Look in your email for a note from us!) Please make sure to stay tuned, because we’re going to host other giveaways soon and often!

Yesterday, Mark from our office, said that he had gotten and e-mail from one of the trucking companies we deal with for a great sounding sandwich using our Aviator Brown Ale Mustard.  I am always up for a good sandwich, so I had Mark forward the e-mail. It was from Annette Morris at YRC Trucking’s Yakima Office and wow it did sound really good. She calls it Morris’s ABC Sandwich.
The ABC in the sandwich were apple, bacon and Cheddar.   I made the sandwich just as Annette instructed and it was delicious, but I am never able to just leave a recipe alone so I decided to do the whole thing as a panini.  Man, that gooey melted cheese with the cool, crisp apple and sweet, smokey bacon was dynamite!  Thank you Annette.

And don’t forget, I’m still giving away THREE 6-bottle condiment packages to three random posters who leave me a comment on my blog this week!  Tell me about your favorite condiment flavor right now, and on Friday I’ll select three people at random who will receive a hearty collection of my Saucy Mama condiments!

Morris’ ABC Sandwich

1/2 Sweet Crisp Apple (The Fuji Apples looked great at the store so that’s what I used)
2 slices sharp cheddar cheese (I used Tillamook Extra-sharp and it was
terrific)
2 slices bacon (crisp cooked)
Aviator Brown Ale Mustard

Spread a thin layer of mustard on both slices of bread.  Layer in cheese, bacon and apple slices.  Enjoy.

My variation….Assemble the sandwich leaving out the apple layer. Butter the outside of the bread.  Place the sandwich in a heated panini press or in a heated skillet and weight the top (I use another heavy skillet).  Cook until golden brown on both sides and the cheese is melted.  Open the sandwich and put in the apple layer.

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.

This is a hugely exciting week for us, because our first major contest is live and underway.  A little less than a month ago, we posted a few Tweets and sent out a few emails asking food bloggers to enter our contest - to test out our new Saucy Mama collection, and to post their recipes online.  Well, the packages went out and most of our 25 fabulous contestants are now working furiously to showcase their cooking skills.

At stake: an Amazon Kindle, Amazon gift cards, some AudioVox under-counter DVD players, plus bragging rights with the winning recipe to appear on Saucy Mama packages!

Make sure to follow our blog, as we’ll be linking to many of these great recipes.  Such as THIS one, from Andrea at www.BellaEats.com …

Don’t forget - if you like the recipes you see and want to re-create them for yourself, Saucy Mama products can be purchased directly through the Barhyte Specialty Foods web site anytime!

Stay tuned (or better yet, sign up for our FeedBurner delivery, so you don’t miss one great recipe) and we’ll share more with you as the contest rolls on!

Happy Days!!

Are you a food blogger looking for bragging rights or who just wants to win some great prizes?  Then you’re in the right place!   In celebration of launching our new Saucy Mama line of premium dressings, marinades, and mustards, we’re giving away some incredible prizes, including an Amazon Kindle, a $150 gift card to Amazon, plus three runners-up will receive an Audiovox Ultra-Slim 7” LCD Drop-Down Under-Count TV/DVD Player.

As for the bragging rights:  the winning recipe will be featured on Saucy Mama labels in stores nationwide!

Oh -  but there is a bit of a catch …

The first 25 food bloggers who register online at www.barhyte.com/contest will receive a case of our new Saucy Mama treats.  It’s our hope that once you receive these tasty condiments, you’ll start crafting a bounty of original, quick and easy meal recipes featuring Saucy Mama condiments – all of which are just begging to be shared with the world.

We’re looking for quick and easy meal solutions here; the kind of fare that any family can make in about 30 minutes, using basic ingredients found in a pantry, farmer’s market, or grocery store. As for flavor … well, that should be anything BUT basic!  Let your creativity soar as you and Saucy Mama add a hint of charm to your chicken; a little panache to your pork; or some triumph to your tofu.

We’ve already received a number of applications … Space is going fast.  So register today!!

Need something quick and pretty for an appetizer?  Try these quick and easy roll ups…  I took them to a party the other night and they were devoured right away.

I was thinking how good the roll-ups were while I was watering my basil this morning  and decided I wanted to try a roll-up made with the basil and sun-dried tomatoes.  As soon as I got to work I set to putting the roll-up together.  I used both spinach and sun-dried tomato tortillas, because they are pretty arranged together on a serving platter.  I put fresh mozzarella on some of the roll-ups and those were the big hit when I invited our crew up to my test kitchen for lunch.

Basil and Sun-Dried Tomato Roll-ups

2 - 8 oz. Cream Cheese
2 Tablespoons Saucy Mama Hot Wing Sauce
1 Tablespoon Pesto
1/3 Cup grated Parmesan Cheese
4 Green Onions coarsely chopped
1/2 - .4 oz package Ranch Dressing mix
10 large sun-dried tomato or spinach tortillas (or both)
5 Cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves, washed and dried
2 - 8.5 oz jars Julienne Cut Sun Dried Tomatoes
1 lb fresh mozzarella

Place cream cheese, wing sauce, pesto, parmesan, onions and ranch dressing mix in a food processor.  Process until well mixed.

With a spatula spread the cream cheese mixture onto each tortilla.  Arrange
1/2 cup basil and a few sun-dried tomato pieces on top of cream cheese mixture.

Roll each tortilla tightly and place on a large plate.  When all the tortillas are rolled up, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for a least 1 hour.

With a sharp knife cut the rolled tortillas into 1/2 inch thick rounds.

Arrange on a serving platter.

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!

So sorry for the delay in announcing winners, folks!  We had some “technical difficulties” on our blog over the weekend (as many of you may have experienced).  Now that we have the problem resolved, we wanted to announce our comment contest winners.  

So congratulations to:

PERI:

OMG, two of my favorite things - pizza and Buffalo wings - combined into one. Sheer genius!

From Tailgater’s Delight: Hot Wing PIZZA!, 2009/09/08 at 7:03 PM

AND …

JEANEEN

I’ll be back to buy some WVU sauce. My son is a sophomore there!

From Tailgater’s Delight: Hot Wing PIZZA!, 2009/09/03 at 5:42 PM

Send us an email with your shipping information to SaucyMamaCafe@yahoo.com, and we’ll get your Saucy treats out to you right away!

Stay tuned, friends … More recipes coming very soon from our talented contestants.  And make sure to sign up to recieve our newsletter in the upper-right hand block right here.  We’ll send you links to these and MANY more delicious recipes!