stiffwillichili

Stiff Willi™ Steamed Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce

Here's a delicious and easy recipe just in time for your New Year's Eve party tonight. Hey, I know you love Old Bay, but T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili spice mix gives those guys a run for their money!

STIFF WILLI™ STEAMED SHRIMP WITH COCKTAIL SAUCE

INGREDIENTS
1 cup water
1 cup beer (or ½ cup cider vinegar)
3 tablespoons T-REV’S STIFF WILLI CHILI™ Spice Mix
2 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt
Juice of half a lemon (no seeds!)
1 pound large shrimp, deveined but leaving shells and tails on

DIRECTIONS
In saucepan or stockpot with steamer insert, bring water and beer to boil on medium high heat. (If you don’t have a steamer insert, use large saucepan with cover and place shrimp directly into pan, using only ½ cup water and ½ cup beer or vinegar.)

Combine spice mix and salt in small bowl and mix thoroughly. Place shrimp in large mixing bowl and toss with lemon juice. Add spice mixture slowly while tossing shrimp until all shrimp are well-coated.

 

Steam 6 to 8 minutes covered, or just until shrimp turn pink. Drain well.

 

Serve immediately alongside homemade cocktail sauce or refrigerate until ready to eat.

 

COCKTAIL SAUCE

INGREDIENTS
¾ cup ketchup
4 tablespoons horseradish
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons T-REV’S STIFF WILLI CHILI™ Spice Mix*

DIRECTIONS
Mix ingredients thoroughly in small bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use. Serve alongside STIFF WILLI™ steamed shrimp.

Makes 1 cup.

*If you prefer a more traditional cocktail sauce, replace spice mix with ½ teaspoon black pepper and 1 teaspoon onion powder.

I'd Rather Be in Key West

My friends Matt and Michele surprised me today with a photo of their girls holding bottles of T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili Spice Mix in Peppers of Key West, a cool hot sauce shop in Key West that carries it. If you live in the Key West area, I'll be heading down in February for a chili promo so keep an eye on this blog for details.

T-Rev's Super Bowl Class -- Feb. 6, 2010!

If you happen to live in the southern Maryland area and you're looking for some great dishes to serve up for your upcoming Super Bowl party, be sure to sign up for my next cooking class, which will be held Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 (the day before the Super Bowl) at Quality Street Kitchen & Catering in Leonardtown, Md.

The course costs $55, which is a bargain as you will be served Buffalo Wings with my homemade Bleu Cheese, Mozzarella Crostini with Marinara Sauce, Grilled Reubens with homemade Russing Dressing, and, of course, my award-winning T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili. Oh, and the service also includes wine, so you can work on your buzz while I work on making your stomach happy!

Here are some photos from a great class last year.

If you'd like to hire me to give a cooking class/demo at your restaurant or shop, just send me an email here.

What's the Best Chili Meat?

Now that there's actually some snow on the ground in Maryland, I'm starting to get phone calls and emails from friends asking me what the best type of meat is to use in chili.

Without doubt the best -- ond only -- meat to use in chili is beef. Those who've already bought my spice mix will notice that the recipe on the back of my bottle specifically calls for ground chuck. That's because my preference is chuck from the shoulder of the cow; it has a nice richness of flavor and a good balance of meat and fat. There's no need to buy more expensive cuts of beef because lesser ones -- even "select" grade -- will become very tender in slow-cooked chili.

My spice mix chili recipe calls for ground chuck because if you're looking for a good, easy recipe that doesn't require a lot of hassle and time -- and let's face it, most people are looking for convenience these days -- you can toss it right into the pot and get on with it. However, if you have some time before the big game or you otherwise want to make a more authentic pot of chili, you can (and should) cut chuck steak into 1/4" or 1/2" cubes.

One thing I need to make clear: Ground beef or hamburger meat is not the same as ground chuck. Ground beef comes from the scraps that are trimmed from all types of cuts and put through the grinder at the end of the day. It's fine for meatloaf or chili sauce, but chuck is the ticket for your chili.

By the way, if you're looking for a suitable alternative to chuck in the event your grocer doesn't carry it -- which, by the way, means you need to find a new grocer -- you can use sirloin. In fact, you'll notice that my competition red recipe calls for a combination of chuck shoulder and sirloin. Top round is also good for chili. So whatever you choose, just order your steaks cut to 1" thickness, and you'll be able to dice them into proportional cubes very easily.

Now, some people have asked if they can use ground turkey in their chili, ostensibly to make it more healthy. To that I say sure, go ahead, but just as long as you know that chili made with any type of poultry is not chili. I know for a fact that my spice mix still tastes great when used in turkey "chili," but hey, my job is to educate in addition to warming your heart with a little culinary love. So there you have it.

That said, I'm actually working on a vegetarian "chili" to appeal to folks who can't have or don't prefer meat. I also know that hunters love to use venison in their chili. At the end of the day, it's all about you -- cook with ingredients you like and don't be afraid to experiment with all sorts of flavors and techniques.

Famous Fan?

My friend Joann McKeown, owner of Quality Street Kitchen and Catering and supporter of T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili spice mix, told me a couple days ago that the comptroller of Maryland, Peter Franchot, was in the shop last week doing some media gig and asked if she carried anything local.

So Joann pointed out my bottles of spice mix, told him my story, and he apparently took a bottle home with him. Tell all your friends, Pete!

Fight Depression: Eat Chili!

Economy got you down? Chili is a great depression food, as you can generally make a ton of it very affordably. I make it every week just for promotions alone, but I thought I'd throw some numbers at you if you're looking to save a little green on your next family meal.

Of course, you'd start by purchasing a bottle of T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili Spice Mix, right? Right?!? This will run you roughly $6.49 -- some stores sell it for less and others a little more, and you may have to factor in tax and/or shipping, depending on how you buy -- but this is a pretty decent price considering my spice mix is made only with premium, all-natural peppers and you need only half a bottle per batch. So, let's just say you're paying about $3.50 per batch.

Here's the breadkdown per the recipe right off the back of the bottle:

1½ lbs. ground chuck (assuming about 3 bucks a pound): $4.50
1 yellow onion: $1
1 green bell pepper: $1
14½ oz. can diced tomatoes: $1
29 oz. can crushed tomatoes: $2
2 cloves garlic: the entire head will cost about $0.50
I can pinto beans: $1 or less
1 can black beans: $1 or less
Half-bottle of spice mix: $3.50

Now, the recipe calls for some Worcestershire sauce and salt to taste, but these are negligible costs. So you're looking at about $16.50 for one batch of chili. A single batch makes about three-quarters of a gallon, which comes out to about 12 solid servings. If you do the math, that's a whopping $1.38 per serving -- and if you've got a big appetite you can double it for less than $4 per meal.

On a side note:

T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili Spice Mix is well-suited for novelty shops, but that doesn't mean I'm not shooting to get it stocked on the shelves of your local big box supermarket. If you think they'll like it, wherever you live, feel free to tell them all about it! (And, of course, let me know about any gourmet shops in your area that you think might be a good fit.)

I think my spice mix is priced just about right, though my production costs are on the higher end of things because of the premium ingredients, and I don't cheapen it with fillers like salt (so it's healthy too!). But I set out from the beginning to create the best product possible that I could sell at the lowest price possible.

You'll definitely find chili powders on the market that come in around $2.75 for a 2 oz. bottle -- but keep in mind you'd be using nearly the entire thing for a batch this size, as that's just about the size of a half-bottle of my spice mix. Not to mention, that's just the chili powder -- and plain old chili powder at that -- it doesn't include the cumin, garlic and onion powder, sugar, or cayenne you'd have to buy in addition to it in order to get the flavor you do out of a complete spice mix like mine.

So, while it's hard to compete with the Paul Prudhommes and Emerils of the world, whose products can usually hit the shelves at less than 4 bucks a unit, be sure to take a look at their labels before you choose theirs over mine. The big guys put out a good product too, but if true quality is your goal -- both in terms of flavor and healthiness -- spend at least one night in the kitchen with the Stiff Willi and I promise you won't be disappointed. No matter what the state of the economy, we'll cheer you right up!

Bills Tailgate

 
T-Rev, Rico, Brady, Brian, and Daren

Weekend Willi -- Dec. 5-6

Another weekend's around the corner so you know what that means: more chili!

Tomorrow (Saturday, Dec. 5) I will be at the Apple Basket antique shop in Mechanicsville, Md., at 11:00 am. There will be free chili and plenty of spice mix and T-shirts for sale, just in time for all your holiday shopping!

Then, on Sunday, I'll be at Catamarans Restaurant on Solomons Island for their NFL Ticket special. I'll be there during the 4:00 games. And don't forget: Tomorrow is also the grand re-opening of Catamarans, as Chef Robert Hesse of Hell's Kitchen fame grabs the reins, revamps the menu, and brings his wares to Maryland.
 

Chef Robert Hesse Digs T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili

Chef Robert Hesse, Hell's Kitchen finalist and new executive chef at Catamarans Restaurant on Solomons Island, Md., poses for a quick shot tonight in his T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili shirt. I didn't want to bother the chef and his staff too long as they prepared for this weekend's grand re-opening, so I just snapped this shot with my phone.

Catamarans also carries T-Rev's Stiff Willi Spice Mix and I'll be there every Sunday for football. This weekend I'll be showing up with free chili in time for the 4:00 games.
 

BillsGate 2009

It's not very often you get to combine a guys' weekend with a long-overdue reunion between old friends and home victories by the Sabres and Bills. But that's how it went down Saturday and Sunday, and the very first T-Rev's Stiff Willi Chili tailgate was a blast.

Brady, Brian and I departed southern Maryland at Oh-sober-30 Saturday morning in Brady's company Cirrus and arrived around noon in Buffalo, where we were picked up by my buddy Daren and subsequently commenced ingestion of Guinness and Labatt. Daren is an old friend from high school and college, so it was great to catch up as he and his wife Bridget put us up for the weekend in their Orchard Park home.

After we polished off a twelver, the four of us headed to Tops to pick up all the ingredients I needed for six gallons of chili. We all prepped everything as fast as we could once we got back to Daren's -- stopping intermittently, of course, for repeated swigs of beer -- and got everything in the pot by about 3:30. The chili should simmer for at least two hours before you cut the heat, so by 5:30 it was good enough to pull off the stove and cool down in Daren's "refrigerator/Buffalo garage in November" while we got ready to head out for the Sabres game that night.

It's at this point where any respectable guy stops talking publicly about the night out, but I will say that we went to Laughlin's pub before the game and again afterward. And then a couple more places. Sadly, however, none was a strip club thanks to the fact that wonderful U.S. law now prevents you from getting back from Niagara Falls (Canada, of course) without a friggin' passport. I swear the Dept. of Homeland Security must be run by a bunch of wives.

We were home in time to get to sleep by 2 a.m., and I have to say I was pretty impressed that we all made it up by 8:00 so we could get to The Ralph by 9:00. My friends Rico and Melissa were already at the stadium by the time we arrived, but then, no one's really ever questioned their dedication to partying. Again, huge thanks to them for rallying a bunch of our old college buddies for the tailgate.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without Peter Conklin and his friends Scott and Bart from Conklin's Bar 'n' Grill, who were all featured on the Food Network's Tailgate Warriors with Guy Fieri not too long ago. You seriously have never tailgated until you've tailgated with these guys! In addition to my chili, they served an incrediby tasty menu including grilled chicken and sausages with banana peppers, seemingly unlimited drinks, and, of course, all the "Illegal Motion" shooters you could handle. And they give it all away for free; all they ask is that you contribute a modest donation. Here's a shot of the "Illegal Motion" bus, an old Wonder Bread truck that CBnG has converted into its now-famous Billsmobile.

 
If you look closely, you'll notice the "Tailgate Warriors" logo that Fieri's guys spray-painted on the bus.

By the way, I couldn't believe how great the weather was on Sunday. It must've been almost 50 degrees. In Buffalo. At the end of November. That's basically like spring break. As you can see from the picture below, the sun was shining and the beers were flowing. The chili was hot by 9:30 as anticipated, and it was on. For the next few hours I handed it out to dozens of tailgaters, and from what I was told it was a pretty big hit. I sold a couple cases of spice mix and maybe a dozen shirts, but overall a pretty good sales day in a depressed economy before a football game where people would need to save most of their money for the $8 beers inside.

 
Brady, Brian, Bridget, Daren, and Rico

Around 11:00, my buddies Kevin and his brother-in-law Mark stopped by to party with us. Kevin runs one of my favorite websites, BfloBlog.com, and, amazingly, it's been almost three years since I first met him in person after a year of merely corresponding with him through his blog. Funny thing is, even though I knew Kevin and Mark were planning to throw a few back with us, there was still that instantaneous moment of surprise you get when you haven't seen someone in a long time. Good times indeed.

This was taken right before the inevitable onslaught of tailgaters. 

As a new, small company -- I'm so small I'm not sure I even qualify as a "small business" yet -- it probably doesn't need to be mentioned that at this point there's no way I can finance trips like this using company revenues alone (to date the majority of which are the result of modest spice mix sales). Like most people who take a chance at turning a hobby into a full-time venture, almost all the costs associated with advertising and these types of marketing events are subsidized personally by my wife and me (i.e. by "the day jobs"). So, really, I should probably take a little bit of space here to thank her too -- she was fully supportive a few weeks ago when I asked if I could go off and have fun with all our friends while she stayed at home to take care of our 2-year-old.

My wife aside, I would be remiss if I didn't single out several people who have played pivotal roles in whatever success I've had since I launched this company only three months ago. There are those who've been my sous chefs at the DC and WV cookoffs -- Mike, Brian, Brady, Rico, and my brother Erik -- and about 20 others who trekked all the way to West Virginia in October to support me at the World's Championship Chili Cookoff. In particular, Brady has basically volunteered to be my private pilot whenever he's available for these types of gigs. That's friendship you couldn't buy even if you were made of money.

Rico and Melissa took it upon themselves to put out a Facebook invite for Sunday's tailgate; Brian's wife let him come with me even though she's pregnant (I don't think that's a secret anymore, right Amanda?); likewise Erin, who's not pregnant yet but nevertheless gave up a seat on the Cirrus for my box of T-shirts, and so Brady could hang out with the guys by himself; as we speak my brother-in-law is trying to hook me up with the head chef at Watkins Glen in the attempt to get me a vendor's license at a NASCAR race next year; Daren refused to take money for $160 hockey tickets, which made it a heck of a lot easier to pay for gas in the plane; Daren's neighbor Tim gave me a Bills ticket for free chili and a shirt; Kevin, who was the one who alerted me to Peter Conklin and his crew, gave me a nice plug yesterday on his blog. And this is just off the top of my head. Obviously, there's no guarantee that things will ultimately work out even with all this help -- and hey, it's not like we're not having fun in the process even if it doesn't -- but there's no chance it would without it. So I just needed to take a few minutes and let everyone know how much it's appreciated.

One of the coolest things about the tailgate was that I met a lady out of Toronto who's starting a "tailgate tours" company and wants to hire me to work tailgates with her. That's right, hire. So while I may have spent five times more money to make this trip than I actually collected in sales at the tailgate, I'm hoping all the networking pays off in the long run.

Finally, we woke up Monday morning to find that the Buffalo News put a nice photo from the tailgate in the paper. Unfortunately, the editors wrote that I was the one featured on the Food Network but, much as I wish that were true, it obviously was my hosts who pulled that one off.

The photo appeared only in the print edition, so I took a snapshot of it last night so I could reprint a nice digital copy. For some reason, however, Typepad isn't letting me insert the image so I had to take a lesser quality version with my phone's camera.

Serving chili to Rico as Brian looks on in the background.

As usual, I'll post more pics as I get them.