Everyone knows that when it comes to football, the tailgating is just as important as the watching. So, let’s make the part that we CAN control a real winner this season… Okay, coach?
This football season, just say no to sh*tty tailgate food. You can’t fix your team, but you can fix the food you’re eating on Saturday and Sundays.
And, we’ve got just what you need to win the Heisman of tailgating this year.
Basically, we’ve taken four of our best spice blends for tailgating and put ’em in one convenient place for you. Let’s break it down. Inside you’ll find…
A tailgate box exclusive! It may not feel like it’s time yet, but fall will be here before you know it. Nothing says, “I want to feed a crowd, but I don’t want to do a ton of dishes,” like chili. You’ve got this one in the bag, no matter how many beers you have on board. One pot, one spice blend. Use this to replace the spices in your favorite chili recipe.
Mango Chipotle Rub
Great on wings, grilled fruit, fish tacos and more, Mango Chipotle is for the folks who like to kick their tailgate game up a notch. If you like to switch up your weekend tailgating menu as much as Tennessee likes to swap coaches, this is the blend for you.
Want to add a little heat to the party? Sprinkle Sriracha Pow on anything that needs a kick in the pants. Terrific on tacos. Fantastic on fries. Stupendous on steak. I think we’re done here.
We also threw in another tailgate box exclusive — a dime bag of our nacho cheese blend (!!) You know, in case of emergencies. It’s for when your team’s really letting you down. Great on chips, popcorn, nachos, sauces and straight with your hands. (Just kidding… sort of.)
Like football season, this box won’t be here for long. Whether you’re the Saban of hosting tailgates or the mooch that owes the host a thank-you gift, there’s someone in your life that needs the tailgate box. Grab yours here.
Hot weather is ahead, and that means one thing — barbecue season.
Because everyone loved our cook chicken like a champ post, we decided to ring in the most wonderful time of the year (no offense, Christmas) with a post on how to cook pork like a pro. Starting with ribs, because, well… RIBS. You know?
But, if you like this porky post, we’ll keep rolling through different parts of the pig in the upcoming weeks, so let us know.
To learn about prepping pork, we consulted with our friends Tony Roberts and Dan Casey over at Proud Souls Barbecue. Not only do they cook amazing ‘cue, the also offer deals on specialty barbecue supplies, cooking classes, catering and more in their shop. You can check out their store for cookers, seasonings & supplies — including a custom blend we worked on together called Soul Swine. They’re located at 2485 N Federal Blvd., Denver. Click here to learn more.
How to Cook Pork Like a Pro — Ribs 101 with Proud Souls BBQ
1. Consider the Cut
“In the store, we prefer to cook spare ribs, preferably St. Louis cut,” Tony and Dan explained. “That’s because there is a higher fat content in spare ribs versus baby back ribs because that cut is closer to the belly of the pig. With more fat content, the ribs have a bigger window of time to be cooked successfully — basically, it’s less likely that you dry them out. Spare ribs are like bacon on a stick.”
Bacon on a stick? That’s poetry right there.
A rack of St. Louis cut spare ribs will typically have 10-12 bones, Tony and Dan estimate having 2-3 bones per person for a party where other items will be served. While you’re in the store, you’ll also need to grab apple juice, aluminum foil, butter and make sure you have your Spice Guy seasonings waiting for you at home.
2. Prep Properly
Once you’re home, unwrap the ribs, pat them dry and grab a knife.
“On the back of every rack is a membrane,” they explained. “We like to peel that off the bone-side because it helps the seasoning penetrate the meat itself. It also yields a better texture at the end. The finished product will be a lot more tender.”
After that, Tony and Dan said there are a lot of directions you can date. You can do a wet marinade (they like apple juice or peach nectar), but to keep things simple and delicious, they suggest going for a dry rub.
If you can’t head over to Proud Souls and buy your own container of Soul Swine, you can DIY it at home with brown sugar, smoked paprika, kosher salt, dark chili powder, ground mustard and cilantro flakes. Apply it liberally to both sides and pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour.
“It’s important not to leave it in there too long,” they said. “That amount of time helps the ribs ‘sweat’ and absorb the spices, but you don’t want this to go on for too long. It’s important to keep most of the moisture in that meat since it will be cooking for a long time.”
3. Smoke or Bake
Now, while the ribs are marinating in the fridge, prep your oven or smoker. If you don’t have a smoker – the oven works wonderfully! Just preheat that baby to 275 degrees.
Once the oven and ribs are ready, pop them in there uncovered for 2 hours.
When that time is up, remove the ribs from the oven, and take out a big piece of aluminum foil. Curve the foil and add one cup of liquid and a quarter stick of butter. add the ribs on top and wrap in the foil completely. Add it back into the oven for an hour and a half.
“This helps tenderize the meat,” they explained. “You can get really creative with that cup of liquid, though. We like apple juice, but you could use Coca-cola, a beer, peach nectar — anything, really.”
After that time has passed, remove the ribs from the foil and add them to a cookie sheet. If you’re going to add a wet sauce, do it now to the meat-side of the ribs. Or, add another layer of the dry rub. Then, put them back in the oven for 10 minutes to let that set.
Remove from the oven, let rest for five minutes and serve!
Are you going to give this rib recipe a go? If you do, tag us on social media @thespiceguyco — we want to see it!
Clearly, we’re biased on this one, but we started The Spice Guy because we realized that the way that grocery stores handle spices is a little f*cked up.
Hear us out on why you should skip over that aisle next time you’re shopping around.
“Spices vary consequentially in both quality and cost. The conundrum for us, the consumers, is that there are no formal guidelines set, nothing offered publicly, that allows us to decipher what’s what. We have no way to tangibly consider, much less assess, the strength, color, vitality, or overall quality versus the price.” – The Kitchn
Here are the four biggest reasons to stop picking up your spices at the grocery store.
Ingredients Can Be Questionable
Have you ever read the back of some spice blends? Oftentimes, many are filled with ingredients we can’t pronounce. Typically, when you’re sprinkling these babies on your food, you’re getting some anti-caking agents, preservatives or hidden sugars mixed in. Last time we checked, no one’s at the dinner table shouting, “Oh, tricalcium phosphate, disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate! My favorites!”
And, look at the taco seasoning (above left). Who doesn’t love the little send-off note at the bottom, below the laundry list of ingredients? “Partially produced with genetic engineering.” Oh, wow. Gotta love tacos made with the loving touch of a chemical engineer.
They’re Way More Expensive
Okay, Spice Guy blog reader, come on down! It’s time to play The Price is Right. We went to the grocery store to price compare their products with our own to show you what we really mean by “the grocery store is RIPPING YOU OFF.”
For example, take the oregano pictured above. The ticket price at the bottom says the price of that oregano is $8.28 per ounce. Our Mediterranean-cut oregano, on the other hand, is $6.50 for four ounces — coming to just $1.62 per ounce.
This becomes even more upsetting when you look at blends. Basically, our affordable blends are like the Showcase Showdown. We broke down what it would cost you to buy all of the ingredients from the grocery store to make two of our most popular blends at home. Here’s how it went:
So, that means if you want to make our Italian Blend at home, you can pay $29.44 instead of $4.25. You’d have to order a pound of the blend from us to hit $30. That’s what restaurants do.
And, finally, our Blackened Red Fish Magic Blend? That’ll run you $41.41 at the grocery instead of $8.25. You would have to order almost three pounds to meet the grocery store numbers.
They Aren’t Always Fresh
More often than not, spices at the grocery are out of date before you even buy them.
“Products on the shelves of your average grocery chain my have been there for a year or more, and they probably sat in a warehouse up to a year before that.” – Simple Bites
We tell our customers to use their spices within a year, and at the grocery, sometimes you’re buying them after that year is already up. Freshness matters, and we promise you’ll taste a difference. There’s a reason more than 400 restaurants order from us — we keep our quality standards high and our inventory tight.
We’ll let them tell you themselves. Check out some of our chefs explaining why they choose us here, here, here, here and here.
“The supply chain that brings spices to the store is quite long — beginning with grower and harvester and moving to initial processor, through local traders to large processors, and then to food wholesalers, retailers, and finally, to you… The turnaround time from picking to shelf is often 12 to 18 months or more. The fresher the spice, the more vital, flavorful, and fragrant… Different companies ask for different shelf-life standards, making it hard for us to know how old a spice really is.” – The Kitchn
Sourcing is Unclear
More than ever, people want to know where their food is coming from and who is selling it to them. We can answer both for you on every ingredient we sell.
“The most important thing to me is supporting local businesses with organic products. He just does the right thing. He’s the best source for restaurants when you need something that’s hard to find. Lots of suppliers only offer what they have, but Zach is happy to go out and look for things.” – Dana Rodriguez, Chef & Owner, Work & Class
Unfortunately, the spice industry is one that just isn’t as regulated as other food industries. Cheryl Deen, director of the American Spice Traders Association, explained it best to The Kitchn — “There are no regulatory rankings… Quality is an issue that is up to individual companies.”
If you want to support a small, local business while also receiving total sourcing transparency, this is the place for you. If you ever have any questions about any product we sell, we’ll shoot it to you straight. Just contact us.
“The Spice Guy is everything we look for when we’re sourcing — small, local, independent, and they have a great product.” – Justin Brunson, Chef & Owner, Old Major
While we love selling spices online to home chefs, we will never forget where we started — in person, with restaurants. What began as a few wholesale spice orders to restaurants in the Rocky Mountains has grown to more than 400 restaurant partners across the country. We’re inspired by these chefs every day, so we figured it’s only fair to share them with you so you can be inspired in your own kitchen too.
Nate Singer, Head Butcher — Blackbelly
If you love meat and haven’t been to Blackbelly in Boulder, what are you waiting for? In addition to a kick-ass restaurant and catering company, Blackbelly also has a whole animal butcher shop where they cure and sell their own meat. Today, we caught up with Nate Singer, Head Butcher and Salumiere of the entire operation. He has been with Hosea Rosenberg and Blackbelly for almost seven years, when it was just a catering company. Bottom line — you haven’t lived until you’ve watched Nate break down a whole animal.
Why do you choose to work with The Spice Guy?
I’ve worked with Zach since we met through mutual friends, really since the beginning. He’s able to offer that quality assurance that we’re always looking for. We trust his ingredients and transparency because he respects where food comes from. And quality meat and quality spices go hand-in-hand.
What TSG products do you incorporate into your dishes? Do you have a favorite?
It’s another reason I love working with you guys. When I had an idea for something, Zach and the team was excited to try it out and see if we could make it work. I came to him with this idea, and instead of turning me away, he was like, “Let’s do this.”
I love the charcoal blend because it helps bring in the smoke flavor in the winter and fall time without pulling 12 hours of smoke on a meat. Anything we want that carbon mark on to emulate a long smoke time at Blackbelly, we’re using it. Mostly on beef, though.
What do you wish more people knew about using herbs and spices?
People are definitely too cautious with it… put more on there, you know? And, there’s a whole realm of spices that you can’t explore without letting them bloom in some water, oil and fat. All of the aromatic spices, like in Indian dishes, really come alive after that.
What are you most excited about right now?
Well, a few things. At Blackbelly, we’ve got a lot of summer events going on, and it’s the best time of year for catering.
Carter Country Meats will start selling meat online August 1st, and we’re really excited about that. AND, I’m about to go on tour with COCHON555 to do cooking demos exclusively with Carter Country Meats and the Buffalo Bills Black Gold.
BBBG adds the smoky grill flavor without having to light one up. But, if you do have one to use, it just doubles the fun for those taste buds.
For a simple summer recipe, we smother chicken in the BBBG blend, grill it and add it to a grilled romaine salad and summer produce for a mouthful of summer. Try this one out, and we promise you’ll never look at romaine lettuce the same way again.
2 cups of small potatoes, softened (we used purple)
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Salad dressing of your choice (we used blue cheese)
Instructions
Prep all veggies. Slice onion into long strips, wash and halve cherry tomatoes, wash and halve romaine lettuce lengthwise, scrub potatoes.
Trim and pat chicken breast dry. Cover in Buffalo Bill’s Black Gold seasoning, set aside.
Preheat grill or grill pan — see recipe notes below.
Preheat large skillet to medium heat on the stove.
Add olive oil or butter to skillet and caramelize onions for 20-40 minutes, stirring every few minutes, but allowing onions to char. The longer the better.
While onions are cooking, prepare potatoes using your preferred method — you can roast, boil or microwave. We boiled, cut in half and added to onions for the last 10 minutes to crisp.
Add seasoned chicken to grill and grill for 10 to 15 minutes per side, or until no longer pink and juices run clear. Set aside.
Brush cut side of romaine halves with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and grill until charred, for 2-4 minutes, checking often. They burn fast!
Assemble salad and serve.
Notes
If you don’t have a grill, the chicken is great in a skillet too. The Buffalo Bill’s Black Gold will give you the charred, grill taste regardless.
Make the recipe your own — switch up the vegetables, try different dressing, try a different protein, add fruit (grilled peaches, anyone?), etc.
I'm Zach. In 2013, I started selling spices to restaurants in Colorado. Today, THE SPICE GUY is growing faster than I could have imagined. This blog is where our team shares recipes, tips, interviews with influential food folks and more.
