Zest Fest Food Show 2015

Red Kitchen Foods – Smokin’ Texas Gourmet again helped sponsor the Zest Fest Food Show at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas. Put on by Spicy Food Productions, the show was a big success in its fifth year! You can visit http://zestfest.net/ for all the information of this years show.

This year Red Kitchen Foods/Smokin’ Texas Gourmet had essentially 3 booths, one for our new VOTEW Beverage Mixer and a double booth for all the Smokin’ Texas Gourmet artisanal Sauces, Condiments, Seasonings, Rubs, and Salsas. This year we entered a total of 4 products in 4 different categories. Our company won in 3 of those categories! Two first place and one second! Winners were:

1. VOTEW Beverage Mixer: 1st Place Cook-Off, Best Cocktail Mixer and has won 2 years in a row!

2. L’il Gems Candied Jalapenos: 1st Place, Snacks, Pickled Other, also won 2 years in a row!

3. Angry Twist Pepper Sauce: 2nd Place, Hot Sauce – Consumer Ready. This is a new product that we just started selling. It is a boldly, flavorful sauce with a kick on the back end. It has “ghost pepper” as an ingredient and is not for the faint-hearten!

I also participated in celebrity chef cooking demos! I did 3 demos highlighting our tasty products. The Friday demo featured our Award Winning Garlic, Salt, and Pepper (GSP), Yumni (Umami) Sauce, and Smokin’ Chipotle Pepper Sauce. ZestFest attendees and celebrity chefs (Put in Bonnell’s and Sarah’s twitter handles) alike thought this dish was a hit! The recipe is a “South West Chipotle Cashew Soba Noodles” that gets an Asian fusion with the Yumni Sauce. The following link is a video of the demo: http://youtu.be/S4Ud-nO1ONE . The recipe can be found on our web-site, http://www.smokintexasgourmet.com/products-and-recipies/smokin-chipotle-hot-pepper-sauce.html .

Saturday’s demo had a special guest chef, Chef Sebastien Layen, Executive Chef of the Omni Hotel in Fort Worth. Together we did a “Super Bowl Tailgating Party” theme. Chef Sebastien did a special and delicious “Pickled Turkey Jalapeno Cheese Sausage”. The process is not something you see every day, and was fun to watch. It was amazing and chef used our GSP, L’il Gems, and Smokin’ Chipotle Pepper Sauce. My take on “Wings 3-Ways” used our BBQ Sauce, Smokin’ Chipotle Pepper Sauce, and Regular wings using GSP and our Spiced Dry Rub. Rounding out the lineup included a super-fast “South West White Bean Chicken Chili” with our chili seasoning and “SW Fiesta Layered Party Dip”, with GSP, South West Chipotle Seasoning, and Tres Chilies Salsa. We had a blast and everyone enjoyed the food. All the recipes can be found on our web-site http://www.smokintexasgourmet.com/products-and-recipies/smokin-chipotle-hot-pepper-sauce.html .

My last demo was Sunday and it featured “Pronto South West Roasted Chicken Soft Taco” and “Southwest Table Side Guacamole”. Two amazing dishes that are quick and easy to make featuring our GSP, SW Chipotle Seasoning, Tres Chilies Salsa, Tomatillo Salsa, and Peach Salsa. The recipes can be found on our web-site http://www.smokintexasgourmet.com/products-and-recipies/salsas/tres-chilies-8-oz.html .

All in all, it was an amazing and high octane 3 days! We had many returning customers from last year! Outstanding fun, food, people, and of course sales. See everyone next year…same place same time!