Inside Grilling Tips (Heffys Blog Post) *Photos are coming today 8/1/2012
Most of the united states have felt the record heat blazes this inflatable slide summer which could be affecting the amount of time people spend outside grilling. Do not let that stop you from grilling! Hopefully the weather cools down before the 2012-2013 Football season starts!
We would like to throw two pieces of charcoal at once Inflatable Park For Sale and give share with you tips for grilling inside for the remainder of this summer going into the fall and winter.
1. Use an electric grill.
The 2nd most important investment in this blog post is your electric grill. It here are a variety of grills you can buy and here are the top 3 that we suggest.
Electric Sanyo Grill: I (Kenon Thompson) have this electric grill (pictured above) for 2 years and I think it is amazing! As a recent college graduate, with a 13×10 size, this can easily be used in any dorm room, apartment kitchen or bigger home style kitchens (can use multiple of these grills if needed).
Calphalon Grill: While this one is a little more expensive than the grill above, the product is worth the price! With a removable plate, enjoying perfectly grilled food on this is as easy as it gets for inside grilling!
Oh and my birthday is coming up pretty soon so if anyone would like to purchase this for me I will forever thank you haha! Okay back to the tips.
2. Choose a safe spot in your kitchen.
Next to the sinks is not the best place to put your electric grill. If you have a kitchen island it is best to make that space your grilling station.
3. Your BBQ sauce is the second most important ingredient you have!
It is true! You can still use the same spices that you use with inside grills, however, if your electric grill does not support having a smoker box (a tool box that holds wood chips) then how will you get that “smoky” taste?
Want an example?
Our sweet mesquite sauce is it! Maybe instead of basting your proteins/vegetables in our sauce, you marinate them in the sweet mesquite sauce to bring out the flavor and aroma of smoked wood cooking.
And the last tip…
4. Love your grill(s) and have fun!
The number one investment is love. Love your grill, treat it well and you two will be together for a very long time! The number one ingredient is having fun! There is always a time and place to have fun, which is in the kitchen!
Nothing changes the grilling experience you can have by moving your grill inside. Continue cooking the same food as you have before!
That’s right Heffys BBQ Co. has launched our All-Natural & Gluten Free line of BBQ Sauces.
Over 2 years ago we began looking at all-natural vs. organic vs. gluten free and everything else that was taking shape in the specialty food market. Honestly what our customers wanted the most was All-Natural and Gluten Free so that’s what we made…it only took us a year to get it up to our crazy standards.
People have asked us…Why did you switch? The short answer is we want to make a product that sacrifices nothing, is made with the best ingredients and gives back in some real ways. So it took some time.
Take a look at our ingredient list for our new All-Natural Original….go ahead we want you to. There’s more where that came from.
Many of our Heffys Select Retailers are in the process of selling off older inventory to make room for the new sauce.
If you are a retailer and want to carry Heffys in your store or need to re-order head over to our RETAILER RESOURCES section. Or if you want to snag some sauce for the house, we invite you to BUY NOW “Oh-Natural” style.
You know we do a lot of dreaming at Heffys. We love to talk about how things will be in 2 years, 5 years, or even 10. We have been doing life together as friends for more than 15 years, so sometimes these dreams have been around for awhile. A few years ago while dreaming we started asking questions…. what if kinds of questions.
•What if…. we sold Heffys for like 40 million dollars?
•What if…. we made an Organic or All-Natural Sauce?
•What if…. Heffys was always made in small batches?
•What if…. Heffys helped change the world?
•What if…. people could get Heffys all over the US?
What if…?
Well, asking questions like these lead us to really start working on some of them. We wanted to share some with you.
What if we sold Heffys for like 40 million dollars? –While this sounds cool, we think we would like to own and operate our business for years to come. Maybe forever. We make you this promise….We will always make it personal. We vow to have fun, be real, and to always be passionate about our customers and our products.
What if we made an Organic or All-Natural Sauce? –It took us over a year to get it right but in a few short weeks you will be able to order Heffys All- Natural Sauces. All the taste you have come to love, without all the high-fructose and non-natural stuff that gets in the way. We are super excited, this has really been a labor of love. Want to get a sneak preview of our new label? Like us on Facebook and see it there!
What if Heffys helped change the world? –We take this to heart….thats why it’s part of our everyday business to give back to the community by employing Special Olympic Athletes. They lovingly hand label each and every bottle of Heffys. It’s one of the ways we feel like Heffys is changing the world for the better.
We will keep dreaming, keep asking what if. But we would love to hear more from you too. Feel free to drop us a line and tell us a little more about what you think about our what if’s.
We all have a list, chances are if you are like us, you are scurrying around trying to check off one more item from that list very soon. Perhaps we can help. At Heffys, we love local. Yeah that means we try to buy local when we can, and we support local as much as possible. Here are a few of our “local” favorites:
Roasterie Coffee – Danny O’Neill, our new friend runs a sweet company in KC called The Roasterie. They make fantastic air roasted coffees, roasted right when you order. Great group of people doing good. We like their Bean Baron and Kansas City Blends. Also, watch for our own Heffys #212 Blend coming soon! (Kansas City)
Chocolate Malts – Ryan and Sarah Zink, started this business just a few months ago. They infuse Scotch into artisan crafted chocolates. Sweet deal! We love both alcohol and chocolate around our offices. Ryan has been a good friend for several years, really cool to see him and Sarah making a go of it. (Wichita, KS)
Mama Dida’s Salsa and Nut Mixes – Dida rocks out some super fresh salsas and one of our favorite sweet and spicy nut mixes. Plus she’s super cool. (Kansas City)
Art’s & Mary’s – Our boy Jeff at Art’s & Mary’s has some fantastic kettle style potato chips. Take it from us, we have had a few. Their Jalepeno or classic Salt & Vinegar are our favs and nothing like ordinary potato chips. (Cheny, KS…hint it’s close to Wichita)
Enjoy our suggestions and don’t forget to love your locals.
I LOVE coffee. In fact most of us at Heffys LOVE coffee. Almost as much as we love Heffys BBQ Sauce. That’s saying a lot.
Recently, I met a really cool guy, Danny O’Neill (aka The Bean Baron), he owns The Roasterie here in Kansas City. We have lots in common, a desire to do good, a desire to make a product that people love, doing it with integrity among lots of other things. This guy LOVES coffee. He is passionate about doing it better than anyone else. So we sat down and swapped stories. I learned a lot.
As I was leaving Danny suggested that we create a special blend of Roasterie coffee that could represent Heffys. Sold.
So I recruited a few trusted coffee coneseuirs (minus brother Jason who was unable to make the trip to KC) and went to work.
Their “coffee hunter” Paul Massard, led us through a coffee cupping. We tasted, discussed, rated, and repeated for hours. We used spoons to slurp (no better way to say it) up the fantastic nectar. Awesome. The smell was amazing, the process helped us blend 3 diverse beans together at specific ratios to create a uniquely Heffys Blend Coffee. You will be able to snag a bag of this coming very soon, so get on our email list well let you know when.
Thanks to Amanda, Paul and Danny and all the kids at The Roasterie for letting us in. New friendships are exciting, new products are a privilege and sharing the stories of how both happen is just plain fun.
We love making things better at Heffys, turns out we have a lot of fans with great ideas on how to do just that here at Heffys.
Fans like Millie Picker (aka MP)
Millie has been a fan for the last 7 months or so ever since she got her first taste of Heffys. Since then she has been planning on giving it away to her friends and family, but she had a problem.
Back in September Millie wrote on our Google Checkout Comment section:
It was very easy to order; however, I would like to see an option provided to put a greeting, for example, “Merry Christmas from the Pickers”. I want to send Heffy’s to some on my Christmas list and it would make it much easier if an option like this were available instead of them wondering who the heck sent me BBQ sauce!
By millie – Sep 7, 2010
So we went to work and added the functionality to our site. Now Millie can send “gift messages” to all her friends and family this holiday season, for their birthday, weddings or whatever is going on. We will HAND WRITE her note, attach it to her order and send it to her friends and family. It’s that simple. We love getting notes so it only make sense that we send them too.
This week we held production of all 3 varieties of award winning Heffys BBQ sauces. I took Josh Jackaway, a good friend and avid Heffys fan with me to finish up a production and participate in our taste test….here is what he had to say about his experience:
I’m not an early morning person. So it takes a pretty special occasion to wake me up before the sun shines her face. This morning such an occasion presented itself: to rise before dawn and get sauced with my friend and Heffys CEO Mike Farag. I went to bed last night giddy as a boy before Christmas about the opportunity to go see how my favorite BBQ sauce, Heffys Hot & Spicy, gets made. I couldn’t believe the smiles on peoples faces as they took part in the creation of what could possibly be the greatest sauce invented since the first animal gave it’s life for the worthy cause of a good ole fashioned BBQ dinner! What struck me the most was how the rich aroma of spice lingered heavy in the air and wove itself firmly into the fabric of my clothes for hours, seriously I smelled delicious the rest of the day.
But what was even better than seeing The Creation is what came afterward: product tasting! Now regularly my taste buds only salivate for coffee this early in the day, but today there was no caffeinated beverage that had more of a draw on me than the three Heffys sauces. Fresh off the line and even fresher to the palate, what the boys at Heffys have done is down right miraculous. I took it down sans meat and without even a thought in my head that I was consuming this at a time when normally my face would still be buried in a pillow.
I don’t need a reason to keep coming back, I’m already a fan. But I love their story too…made in Kansas City, the heart of the barbecue world, hand labeled by Special Olympic athletes, with each batch being tested by founder and CEO. This brand isn’t based in a board room but rather is squeezed out of the real stories our lives our made up of. I was handed my first bottle of Heffys nearly 2 years ago and somehow its unique flavor and spices changed the way I look at sauce. Now having seen how much care goes into crafting each batch I know why I’m a fan and I can’t help but be even more in love with it.
Thanks to Mike and all the guys at Heffys for this experience.
Heffys Batch #1029 Taste Tested, Josh Approved.
Well Josh, thanks for being a fan. You’re quite welcome.
This Movember I’ve decided to donate my face to raising awareness about cancers that affect men. My commitment is the growth of a moustache for the entire month of Movember, which I know will generate conversation, controversy and laughter.
I’m doing this because:
· 1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in his lifetime
· 1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime
This is a cause that I feel passionately about and I’m asking you to support my efforts by making a donation to support the great work of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and LIVESTRONG. To help, you can either:
- Click this link http://us.movember.com/mospace/1257078/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account
- Write a check payable to Movember, referencing my name or Registration Number 1257078 and mailing it to: Movember, PO Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726
The money raised will help make a tangible difference to the lives of others, through the world’s most promising prostate cancer research and LIVESTRONG’s programs that support young adults and their families battling and surviving cancer.
Feels like I never quite know how to adequately say thank you to those who have served in such a profound way. Willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. I guess God knows how to put it into words better than I do. John 15:13 somehow puts it into perspective for me: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
His friends. I can’t help but think of this as I walked through the memorials in Washington DC a few weeks ago. I was there supporting my significant other, she ran in the Marine Corps Marathon. Her first. Fitting to give her first effort to those willing to give us their best.
As she ran….she was among thousands like her who had come to show their appreciation by running but she also ran alongside Marines, Rangers,Navy men and women…. friends. The energy there was amazing, the sites we witnessed were moving. At one point she was running by a Marine who had lost both legs and one arm. He was using only one arm to propel a modified bike his 26.2 miles. This man wasn’t alone. He had 4 of his fellow Marines running along side him, there to ensure he had the encouragement and support to go the distance. He wasn’t alone. They were dressed out in full gear, packs and all. Attached to the top of their packs…..his prosthetic limbs.
She stopped and cried at the sight. I can only imagine his story.
It sounds so trite given what they do for us daily. But today of all days we need to….Stop. Cry. Celebrate. And say Thank You.
From the Heffys Family….THANK YOU to all our Veterans and Military!
Heffys finds financing back home. American helping American….pursuing a dream, like something out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life.
It takes money to run a business, we’ve all heard it said in one way or another right?! Well it’s true. As Heffys has grown, thanks to fantastic fans who appreciate our premium Kansas City made sauces that are lovingly hand labeled by Special Olympic Athletes, the need for some dough to help finance our growth has come along with it.
Enter the problem….banking these days is in an “interesting” spot. But being the optimistic guys we are we thought it wouldn’t be too hard for a good banker to see how sweet of an investment we are. I mean we (the American public) bailed the banks out to help spur business growth right?!
It was frustrating to experince first hand a rather large issue keeping our economy from healing, the inability or unwillingness of some banks to help small business. Kind of felt like we were up against Mr. Potter in the movie. You remember that crotchety old guy, only bent on making lots of money for himself. But as it stands we found that America still has heart.
Inman Kansas is about 20 minutes from Moundridge, Kansas. Why the geography lesson you ask? Well our Heffys BBQ award winning original recipe was born out there in the Kansas Prairie’s of Inman Kansas. We’re proud of that, although we are made just up the road in Kansas City these days. We make it a point to remember where we came from.
Lots of folks in Inman remember the family too. Larry the banker knows Phil, the dad of Jeff, one of our founders. See we are already at 3 degrees of separation and it only gets better. Phil and Larry were talking about the financing needs facing Jeff and Heffys BBQ Co. Larry pipes up and says “I’d love to step in and help, we’ve done business with your family for years. Let’s get them what they need”. And just like that a neighbor helps a neighbor striving for a dream. That’s as American as it gets! For us it really was something right out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life (happens to be one of our CEO’s favs).
Larry and Phil, thanks for proving to us that the American dream is still alive and well. We’ll travel to Inman anytime you need us, cause that’s what neighbors do for each other.
This Movember I’ve decided to donate my face to raising awareness about cancers that affect men. My commitment is the growth of a moustache for the entire month of Movember, which I know will generate conversation, controversy and laughter.
