Hot sauce on popcorn may taste too-good-to-be-true, but this zesty-crunchy snack has real roots on the streets of Mexico in the form of palomitas con salsa.
Bland and buttery no more — here’s the trick to putting hot sauce on popcorn for the most flavorful results.
Another fall favorite of mine…football! I love lazy Sunday’s of eating, drinking, and yelling at the T.V. as I inevitably lose money on some whim bet made with a friend (you know who you are). Yet, over the years, I’ve become increasingly dissatisfied with typical ‘football’ food. It’s pretty boring and excessively caloric; this loser combination motivated me to seek meals that could morph into a tradition of healthier football food.
I needed a little help with this project, so I asked our friend Paul DiBello (a.k.a. Captain Spongefoot), if he could share some of his recipes for football Sundays. Paul’s sauces, commonly thought of as some of the best wing sauces, are also the perfect building block for incredible meals!
To start, we need a refreshing drink. A drink that offers some nutritional value and fewer calories than microbrews: Paul suggested a Bloody Mary!
Here is a well-balanced Bloody Mary made with Captain Spongefoot Original Wing Sauce and Captain Spongefoot Steak Wash:
Coleen Busch’s Captain Spongefoot Spicy Bloody Mary
(Winner of the 2011 Captain Spongefoot Recipe Contest)
1 or 2 oz Vodka
12 oz tomato juice
2 teaspoons Captain Spongefoot Original Wing Sauce (a traditional wing style featuring sharp vinegar undertones)
1 Tablespoon Captain Spongefoot Steak Wash (brings out new depths of flavor in steak)
squeeze of fresh lime juice
1 pinch salt
1 dash black pepper
1 dash celery salt
Mix together, add ice, and garnish with 1 stalk celery or Spicy Pickled Green Bean
Ahhh…that is good. Now with a refreshing drink in hand, I’m ready to cook. For our main dish, Paul suggests chicken breasts; a welcome change from those little chicken wings I’ve been eating every Sunday. And as a side, Paul recommends an easy Penne Pasta Salad.
My mouth is already watering….here we go:
Grilled Chicken Breast with Captain Spongefoot’s Cranberry Chipotle Sauce
4 boneless chicken breasts, skin-on or skinless
Salt & pepper to taste
½ cup Captain Spongefoot Cranberry Chipotle Sauce (sweet cranberry with just a touch of chipotle heat)
Sprinkle chicken breasts with salt & pepper and arrange skin side down on a grill rack over medium coals. Grill on the first side for about 6 minutes, then turn and grill for an additional 4 minutes. Brush Cranberry Chipotle over the chicken breasts and grill an additional 2-3 minutes until firm to the touch.
Note: Be careful when grilling skin-on chicken breasts as flare-ups may occur due to the fat content. Move the chicken breasts to other areas of the grill as flare ups occur.
Penne Pasta Salad with Captain Spongefoot Z Sauce
Place in a large bowl while still warm:
8 oz of penne pasta (traditional or gluten-free)
cooked al dente
Toss with:
3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 Tablespoon Captain Spongefoot Z Sauce (Waves of Asian flavors featuring the Sriracha pepper, ginger, and a touch of wasabi)
Salt & black pepper to taste
Let cool to room temperature
Stir in:
24 grape or cherry tomatoes
½ cup finely diced red onion
12 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
8 oz mozzarella fresca-diced
¼ cup minced basil 2 Tablespoons minced mint
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
So, there you have it: an easy way to impress your friends and family this football season! Stock up on Captain Spongefoot sauces before you start cooking, as these sauces really make dishes exceptional. Wanna read more? Search our blog for other recipes featuring Captain Spongefoot.
I am ready for some football now…how about YOU?
At Fooducopia, our mission is simple — we connect food entrepreneurs and local farmers to customers across the country. If you’d like todiscover delicious artisan foods filled with the heart and soul of the people who made them, Fooducopia is a place we think you’ll love.
Local winter squash are just starting to come to market, and I’m pretty excited about having them around. For one thing, they’re easy to
store. I can leave on sitting on the counter for a week or two without worrying about it. And since I learned a little cooking trick, I cook it much more often.
The cooking trick? The microwave. Yep. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s clean. Sometimes I cook squash in the oven, but it takes a long time, so if there’s nothing else in there, it seems like a waste of oven space. Quite often I’ll finish the squash in the oven, but cooking it most of the way through in the microwave save a lot of time. Microwaving also works well when you’re looking for mashed or pureed squash.
Cranberry Chipotle Squash
1 small winter squash (I used butternut)
Olive oil
Salt
Captain Spongefoot Cranberry-Chipotle Table Sauce
Cut the squash in half and remove the seeds. Put it, cut-side down, in a microwave-safe dish. Add about 1/4 inch of water to the dish.
Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high until the squash is just done – 12-25 minutes, depending on the size and shape of your squash. You should be able to stab the flesh easily with a fork, but it shouldn’t be mushy.
Remove the squash from the oven and carefully remove the plastic wrap. Allow the squash until it is cool enough to handle easily. Or, if you prefer, you can refrigerate it until it is completely chilled, at which point it will be much easier to handle.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and drizzle about a tablespoon of olive oil on a baking sheet.
Remove the peel from the squash and cut the flesh into somewhat even cubes. Since the squash is round, you’re not going to get completely equal pieces, but keep them as uniform as possible.
Place the squash on the baking sheet, sprinkle with a little salt, and bake until the squash begins to brown just a little bit – about 10 minutes. Remove the squash from the oven, stir them around a bit, and drizzle with some of the cranberry chipotle sauce. Return the squash to the oven for another 5 minutes.
Remove the squash from the oven, stir then around a bit to distribute the sauce, and taste. Add more table sauce, if you like, toss again, and serve. Pass more table sauce for those who want more spice.
If you’ve overcooked the squash and it’s a little too soft, this is also great mashed.
Donna Currie is a Colorado-based food writer who operates the blog Cookistry.
Captain Spongefoot Cranberry Chipotle Sauce is a sweet cranberry sauce with just the right amount of chipotle heat. It’s great for dipping and glazing, as well as the champion of award-winning chicken wing sauces.
“Our sauces excite the palate; they don’t burn it,” says Paul DiBello, the one-and-only Captain Spongefoot. “We don’t play the hot, hotter, hottest game. We’re about flavor, flavor, flavor!”
Captain Spongefoot Fast Facts
“In Pepper We Trust”
Selling Since: 2005
Home Base: Granby, CO
Claim-to-Fame: Original Wing Sauce
Captain Spongefoot sauces come in three varieties: Award-winning Original Recipe Buffalo Wing Sauce featuring just the right amount of heat and an outstanding and complex flavor profile; the very versatile Chipotle Sauce with a perfect blend of chipotle peppers and chili de Arbol in a cayenne base; and the Asian spicy Z Sauce highlighting Sriracha peppers with a hint of Wasabi.
The Captain Spongefoot philosophy is “flavor first, then heat” so each sauce has a unique and highly robust flavor profile designed to complement rather than overwhelm food with just the right amount of heat. The sauces are produced from fresh, natural ingredients including carefully selected peppers and exotic spices and never include powdered pepper concentrates, artificial flavors, or colors.
Captain Spongefoot Trading Company walked away with three trophies from the 2004 National Buffalo Wing Festival, winning first prize for the Best Medium Traditional Wing Sauce in the “out of town category” for their Original Sauce; their Chipotle Sauce placed second in the “Creative Spicy” division; and they received third prize for their Chipotle Sauce in the “Creative BBQ” division. These titles were earned by out-tasting the fierce competition of more than 100 entrants.
The Chronicles of Captain Spongefoot
After suffering from severe frostbite on an ice climbing expedition in 1974, Paul’s two feet and two fingers were amputated. Early prosthetic feet were made out of a spongy material that make a squishing sound when wet. So, when his feet were constantly water-soaked while working around boats at his sailing business on Lake Granby, Paul was given the nickname “Captain Spongefoot.”
Never one to let obstacles get in his way, Paul founded the National Sports Center for the Disabled Competition Program at the Winter Park Ski Resort. The program has provided training for hundreds of disabled skiers from around the world. Paul himself is a three-time world disabled ski champion and a world-renowned coach of champion disabled racers. In 1985, Paul DiBello was honored by Esquire magazine as one of the 120 “America’s New Leadership Class: Top People Under 40 Who Are Changing the Nation.”
Throughout his 20 years at Winter Park, Paul prided himself on making some of the finest wing sauces this side of the Mississippi. At his own football parties, family and friends would forever compliment him on his tasty treats. When he decided to retire from the Winter Park program in 2005, he began to pursue his passion for wings full-time. These days you can regularly find Paul cooking and bottling his sauce, eating his fair share of wings, and loving every minute of his new life. • Profile courtesy of Captain Spongefoot.
Our mission is simple — we connect food entrepreneurs and local farmers to customers across the country. If you’d like to discover more artisan foods filled with the heart and soul of people like Paul DiBello, Fooducopia is a place we think you’ll love.
Hi, my name’s Donna, and I’m a mushroom-aholic.
When I was a kid, I loved mushrooms, whether they were canned or fresh. Yes, I was the weird kid who loved all sort of vegetables.
Later, When I was off on my own, I found a mushroom farm not to far from where I lived. I’d go there just about every week and pick up three or four pounds of mushrooms. Every week.
I’ve cut back on that a bit. In fact, I don’t buy mushrooms every week. But although I’ve cut back in volume, I’ve increased the diversity of the mushrooms that I use. Back when I had the four-pound-a-week habit, it was mostly white mushrooms, and sometimes there would also be some brown ones. But no exotic varieties.
Now, there’s a stand at the farmer’s market that sells a pretty interesting variety of mushrooms. And of course I have my stash of dried mushrooms.
But even though I’ve expanded my mushroom horizons, I still like standard white or brown mushrooms for many things. The top of a pizza for example. Cream of mushroom soup.
Or for pickling. Particularly for pickling. If you’re going to pickle a mushroom, you’re going to add a LOT of flavor from the pickling liquid, so there’s no sense in using an exotic (and expensive) variety.
When it comes to pickled mushrooms, you can opt to slice your mushrooms, leave them whole, or cut them in halves or quarters. It depends, in part, on how big the mushrooms are. Slices will pickle faster than whole mushrooms, so if you need them soon, slicing or quartering makes sense. It also depends on what you plan on using them for. If they’re destined for a tray of nibbles, the whole ones make sense. But if you’re using them as a condiment, slices might make more sense.
These pickled mushrooms have a nice kick to them and a slightly smoky flavor. They make a great topping for sandwiches, burgers or tacos. You can also add them to a stir-fry, scrambled eggs, or cook them briefly along with your fajita ingredients.
Quick-Pickled No-Fuss Spicy Mushrooms
Slice, halve or quarter the mushrooms, if desired. Combine all the ingredients in a nonreactive container. Stir to coat the mushrooms. Refrigerate at least a couple hours, or up to several days. It’s a good idea to give the container a little shake once in a while, or open it up and stir things around, to make sure all the mushrooms are getting equal time in the marinating mixture.
If you prefer, you can put the mixture into a plastic bag and squeeze out as much air as possible. Then put the bag in a bowl (because if you don’t the bag will leak. If it’s in the bowl to catch drips, chances are you won’t lose a drop.)
Serve cold, room temperature, or warm them up, if you prefer.
Do you love eating real food as much as we do? Then you should have a copy of our free cookbook!
It’s filled with recipes inspired by some of the country’s most creative food artisans.
Donna Currie is a Colorado-based food writer who operates the blog Cookistry.
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