Half Moon Bay Trading Company - Garlapeño Sauce

     So this past weekend I tried Half Moon Bay Trading Company's Garlapeño sauce on some chicken tenders. I just heated them up in the oven, put them in a mixing bowl and tossed with some of the sauce.

     It was so good, just the right amount of heat from the jalapeños and I love the cilantro in it as well. The sweet from the cane sugar does a great job of sweetening up the whole thing but you still get a nice acidic flavor from the vinegar and the lime juice. I also truly enjoy the nice strong garlic flavor that you can taste throughout, but also never overpowers the other flavors in the sauce.

     I think cilantro is an underplayed flavor in a lot of cooking today, specifically tex-mex style, and was thrilled to see it in this sauce and to be able to taste it as well!

So far, there has not been a sauce in their Pirates Blend line that I don't like.

I can't wait to try this on some wings this weekend!

Half Moon Bay Trading Company - CocoMango Sauce

This week I will review Half Moon Bay Trading Company's CocoMango sauce.

   Let me start by saying that I do not like mango nor coconut, I know, it's weird but it's the way I am. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed this sauce!

   They blended together mango, coconut, cayenne pepper, spices, and orange juice for a fantastic sauce. You can taste the mango and the coconut (as there are pieces of coconut meat in the sauce), but at the same time, you get that nice tang from the orange juice and the little bit of heat from the cayenne pepper.

   Overall, the sauce is quite tasty and hits on a little of every taste bud with everything blended together beautifully.

   Now, how I used it was a marinade for some nice grilled chicken. I put a couple of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a bag and poured the CocoMango sauce into it. I pressed as much air out as I could and kneaded the bag to evenly distribute the sauce and make sure the chicken was fully covered. After letting it sit for a couple of days, I fired up the grill and cooked the chicken until they were done. As there are different types of grills and cooking fuels, grilling times will be different and it would be best to cook the chicken the time and temp you normally do.

   The chicken came out beautifully with wonderful flavors from the sauce and remained juicy inside (a wonderful part of marinating). The coconut developed a more toasted flavor, picking up a strong nutty flavor with some sweetness, but never overpowering the other flavors in the sauce.

   Half Moon Bay Trading Company's CocoMango sauce will definitely become a standard for marinating chicken for the grill for us, it was absolutely delicious.

Happy Independence Day!

A happy Independence Day to all my brethren on this July 4th!

   Today we celebrate not only our freedom from the tyranny of England's reign 241 years ago, but we also celebrate the freedom that our brave men and women in uniform fight everyday to defend for us!

   So to them I say thank you; thank you for all that you have done, thank you for all that you have given, and thank you for all you have sacrificed.

We are truly in your debt and today, we show you just how much it means to us!