Recently in From the DIF Test Kitchen Category

I can't stop eating this stuff.

A customer in Alaska, Lloyd, emailed to say that he made this recently with popcorn but he's also doing it with pork rinds. I just bought a neat gadget called a Whirley-Pop™ that I'll review Monday, so with this cool popper and a great idea in hand, I had to give it a try.

I really can't stop eating this stuff, I just had to go back into the test kitchen and have some more.

Where was I? Right. I'm going to try different techniques, but for this batch, I used about 3 parts cheese to 2 parts Survival Spice™. I had some parm in a green can that I needed to get rid of, so I used that. It doesn't have enough flavor, though, and because it's so dry it doesn't cling to the popcorn very well, so next time I will definiteIy use freshly grated. I melted some butter, then added the dry mix to that and mixed it up. When the popcorn was done, I tossed it with the mixture, added a bit of kosher salt, and there it was.

Was, being the correct term. It's gone now.

(Photo: Mary, of TPC's Easy Orange Survival Glaze)

I've been working on this for a while now, and I think it's ready to share. This is a simple glaze that gives both a beautiful appearance and a nice hit of flavor to ham, turkey, chicken and duck. It's well balanced, with lots of orange flavor, a nice sweetness, lots of depth from the dijon mustard, and a subtle bit of heat from the Survival Spice™.

It would be easy to add lots of interesting stuff to this, if you wanted to customize it- garlic, tarragon, use a different citrus component, the list is as long as your imagination.

Try it this year! Please let me know if you do, and if you experiment with variations! Pictures are a plus. It was a huge hit at the photo shoot this weekend, after eating a pot of gumbo we weren't even hungry, but couldn't stop nibbling at it. I HAVE to try this on duck...

Another tough afternoon in the test kitchen. I haven't quite finalized the proportions yet, here's a terrific breading recipe that I'm working on. Sort of "Old South meets Southwest" concept smashing together a traditional corn meal breading with a Southwest influence.

I salted and floured some fish fillets, then coated them with a roughly equal mix of Survival Spice™, flour and corn meal, then fried them in a cast iron skillet. Normally, in a standard breading procedure, you would dip the fish in some sort of liquid- milk, buttermilk, egg, beer, etc. after you dusted it with flour the first time, but this fish was so moist that I didn't have to. I fried them in a cast iron skillet with just a bit of oil, over medium heat. You don't want to burn the corn meal, so take it easy!

The nice thing about this technique is that you hardly have to use any oil, so it still tasted great and is reasonably healthy, too.

I'm definitely going to do this one more time soon, then adjust the technique for chicken and thicker cuts.

(Tags Survival Spice™,Desert Island Foods™)

I've been working on a Survival Spice™ flavored tortilla chip idea for a while now. I think it's a great combination of flavors and I really like the heat profile of what I'm getting.

Try sprinkling some on a salted tortilla chip sometime and tell me what you think. Survival Spice™ has a hint of sweetness that backs up the heat, do you like that quality on a chip? Please let me know if you try it, via the DIF contact form, which is where you can find our toll-free number as well.

A big part of why I'm doing this blog is so I can get direct feedback from our friends and customers. From my perspective, there's nothing worse than dealing with a company through a cold, impersonal corporate interface, so we're doing things a bit differently here. Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!