Strawberry shortcake is a springtime favorite. Here is our favorite shortcake recipe, although we don’t want you to feel too badly if you buy your shortcake at the store. The strawberry mixture is the important part, you know. Here is our favorite homemade shortcake recipe, just in case you feel ambitious:

Ingredients:

2 pounds fresh strawberries, washed, drained, and sliced
1/2 cup Strawberry Jalapeno pepper jelly
3 tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and salt. Add the cream and mix until just combined. Place mixture in an ungreased 8-inch square pan and bake for 18 to 20 minutes.

Remove shortcake from pan and place on a rack to cool slightly. Cut into 6 pieces and split each piece in half horizontally.

In a medium bowl, mix together the strawberries, remaining sugar, and pepper jelly. Put in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.

When it’s dessert time, put a few tablespoons of strawberry mixture in a small bowl, add a split shortcake, put more strawberry mixture on the cake, add the other half of the cake and some more strawberries. Dress it up with a dollop of whipped cream and you’ve got a dessert fit for a king.

Even more important, you’ll have a dessert fit for your family.

Cookouts are a way of life for many people, and no summer gathering is complete without one. There’s something about eating in the house when the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing softly that is just, well, wrong. This weather was made for eating outside.

Balancing a paper plate of delicious food is what summer is all about. Isn’t that why we have knees in the first place? And no food, not even Thanksgiving dinner, can beat a summer cookout and the food that comes off that grill.

My neighbors are grilling already, many of them, in fact. When I get home from work around 7 p.m., the neighborhood smells so good I can hardly walk into the house from my car. The smell of good barbecue is unequaled in the annals of cookbook aromas.

We’re having a family reunion for Mother’s Day on Sunday afternoon. We’re all bringing picnic food, in spite of the thunderstorm forecast. The main dish is spiral baked ham, and the glaze, which MAKES the ham, is straight from the cookbooks of Texas Pepper Jelly. Why? Because that’s the best one!

We’re also having Pineapple Sweet Fire Potato Salad and the BIG crockpot full of Texas Partytime Beans.

For dessert we’re having dark chocolate cake because it’s my nephew’s birthday. But we’ve got a lot of Texas Pepper Jelly to spoon over the ice cream!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of our readers, because some of you ARE mothers, and the rest of you HAVE mothers.

Texas Pepper Jelly’s 6-jar Star Sampler is the perfect teacher end-of-year gift, and right now it’s ON SALE! Speaking as a teacher myself, I can pretty much guarantee that a gift of Texas Pepper Jelly will make all those candles, mugs, picture frames, and whatever-the-heck-that-thing-is-that’s-made-of-popsicle sticks. Our Star Sampler is something a teacher will appreciate much more than a pencil holder or Christmas tree ornament, and believe me, any teacher lucky enough to have students’ parents savvy enough to give the gift of Texas Pepper Jelly will remember those parents in a positive light for a long time. How long? I’m guessing. . . . forever, maybe?

For the price of a trinket bought at a gift shop or one of those overpriced educational supplies stores, you can give your child’s hardworking, dedicated teacher a real gift – a gift that will be used and remembered. Besides, after the teacher has eaten up all the pepper jelly, there will still be the attractive star-shaped tin, which can be used for many things!

Remember, whenever you order a gift package from Texas Pepper Jelly, YOU get to choose your pepper jelly flavors. Choose all the same flavor, or 6 different flavors, or three and three, or any combination whatsover – YOU are the boss of Texas Pepper Jelly flavor choices!

You’ve still got plenty of time to order and get your package before school’s out, but don’t wait too long! Get your teacher appreciation Star Samplers ordered, and one more kid’s school “thing” will be done!

Order your Texas Pepper Jelly Star Sampler right HERE!

P.S. Did I mention that the Star Sampler is ON SALE? You’ll save eight bucks! Order now!

Grilling out is best when you’ve got a crowd, and family reunions are the best kind of crowd because they’re so often a mixture of generations – older people, children, and everything in between.

After all that excellent food is eaten, it’s time for dessert, and what dessert can rival Spicy Peach Ice Cream in a Baggie for delicious fun! Nobody is ever too old to play with their food!

Bear in mind that this recipe is for ONE BAGGIE of ice cream. Therefore, each individual will have to follow these directions with his/her own individual baggie of ice cream!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup milk (any kind of milk will be fine, so depending on your dietary needs and what you’ve got on hand, feel free to use skim, 2%, whole, half-and-half, cream, almond, etc.)
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of sugar (real or Splenda)
2 tablespoons finely diced peaches (canned, fresh, or frozen)
1 tablespoon of Texas Pepper Jelly’s Spicy Peach Grilling Sauce

4 cups of crushed ice
4 tablespoons salt
2 quart-size Zip-loc bag
1 gallon size Zip-loc freezer bag

What to do:

Mix the milk, vanilla, sugar, peaches, and grilling sauce in the quart size bag. Before sealing, try to force out as much air as possible, and then seal the bag. Double-check the seal – you don’t want ANY leakage. Put the filled bag inside the second bag and double-check that seal, too. (The two bags are JUST IN CASE you get a leak. . . .)

Place the two quart bag inside the gallon bag. Fill the gallon bag with ice and sprinkle all of the salt on the ice. Let as much air as possible escape, and seal the bag. Double check the seal!

Play with the bags. Toss them back and forth. Knead them. Play catch with them. Check the seals occasionally; if you get an inside leak, your ice cream is ruined.

After about 7 minutes, check the contents of your inner bag. You’ve probably got ice cream! If you don’t, play with the bags a few more minutes.

Imagine the fun of a pleasant crowd of adults and children making Spicy Peach Ice Cream in a Baggie, in your backyard!

Once your mixture has turned to ice cream, remove the inner bag, rinse off the salt, open the bag, and dig in with a spoon!

Spicy Peach Ice Cream in a Baggie is awesome fun for reunions, parties (kids and adults!) and any kind of outdoor gathering. It’s more fun than a regular dessert, the peaches are good for you, and the Spicy Peach Grilling Sauce adds a little zing to your plain ice cream.

Order your Spicy Peach Grilling Sauce now!

P.S. Here’s still another way to make ice cream, from science guy Steve Spangler!

P.P.S. You can use any of Texas Pepper Jelly’s pepper jellies or Rib Candies in your ice cream, with or without the fruit. If you do use fruit, try to match it with the flavor of pepper jelly or rib candy.

P.P.P.S. You can throw some chopped nuts in the bag, too!

Most licensed t-shirts are expensive, but Texas Pepper Jelly’s t-shirts are only $15.00, and they’re made of 100% pre-shrunk cotton. Throw them into the dryer – they’ll be the same size when they come back out! We accept several payment types, including PayPal!

Our t-shirts are so popular that sometimes a particular size/color combo is out of stock, but if you get that message, please try again in a few days. We WANT you to have one of our awesome T-shirts, and we’ll have your size later, if we don’t have it right now.

Mine is pink.

I wear it whenever we grill out in the summer, and I’ve already worn it twice this spring. This weekend it’s going to freeze again, but where I live, the seasons change every five minutes, and in a few days it’ll be warm again.

My Texas Pepper Jelly shirt is my favorite t-shirt, and just seeing it makes me think of the awesome products I’ve stocked my pantry with in preparation for official grilling-out season.

I’ve got several flavors of pepper jelly, two jars of Loco Cheese Dip, three bottles of Rib Candy, and a jar of Pineapple Sweet Fire Pickles, so far, and I’m not done ordering yet. Besides, I can’t keep any of Texas Pepper Jelly’s products IN my pantry for more than a few days, because my family is crazy about them and when everybody’s home, things mysteriously disappear.

P.S. Those Pineapple Sweet Fire Pickles are really good. They’re also on sale right now.

P.P.S. Did I mention that those pickles are really good? Holy cow, SO GOOD!

P.P.P.S. The Loco Cheese Dip is on sale, too. I might need to order some more of that right now – my son is here and I spotted him eating something an hour or so ago, and I suspect that he found my Loco Cheese Dip. . .

In order to produce the best grilling ever, it’s important to choose your sauces wisely. Texas Pepper Jelly’s Rib Candy is the best by far, and I think it would be a good idea for grillers everywhere to order a good supply before the grilling season starts in full form.

The Texas Rib Candy Six-Pack assortment package is your best deal – you’ll go through all six bottles in no time flat anyway. Remember, Texas Pepper Jelly does assortment packages differently than most companies – with most companies, you get what they give you. With Texas Pepper Jelly, you get what you tell us you want.

So, choose your flavors and order a Rib Candy assortment today! Order different flavors, or all the same flavor, or most of one and a little of another, etc. YOUR way. You tell us what you want and that’s what you’ll get – each order specially made just for YOU.

And once you’ve got your Rib Candy six-pack, you can start grilling without fear of running out of sauces!

Don’t think one order, one package, will get you through the summer, though; you’ll be ordering and re-ording, because your family and friends won’t be able to get enough of Texas Rib Candy’s awesome taste. You won’t mind re-ordering a bit, either, because you won’t be able to get enough of it, either.

It’s easy, too. Super easy.

Just buy a big baked ham, a can of pineapple rings, and some Texas Pepper Jelly’s Pineapple Habanero.

Line a big sided baking pan with aluminum foil. Place the ham (be sure to get all the plastic wrap off it!) in the pan on the foil. Brush the ham all over with pepper jelly, and start sticking the pineapple rings all over it with toothpicks. Fasten a cherry in the middle of each pineapple ring if your family likes cherries. If you’ve got some pepper jelly left over, spoon it onto the top of the ham. (It’ll melt and trickle down all through the pineapple rings and make your ham even MORE delicious!) (Use Cherry Jalapeno -or Cherry Habanero – if you put cherries on your ham.)

Put the ham in a cold oven and set it to 350. Your ham is already baked, so all you’re really doing is heating it up and “setting” the glaze. Bake the ham about 15 minutes per pound, so you’ll have to do a little math.

When the ham is done, remove it from the oven and, while it’s still on the foil in the pan, pour a little more pepper jelly over it. Let it “set” for about 20 minutes, then remove and put on a platter. Slice. Serve. Step back. If you’re counting on leftovers so you can make a sandwich tomorrow, you’d better steal a few slices, put them in a baggie, and hide them behind the ketchup bottle in your fridge.

This ham is delicious. Absolutely delicious. And isn’t it easy? I told you it was easy.

Happy Easter from Texas Pepper Jelly!

Here’s something awesome that makes Texas Pepper Jelly assortments different – and BETTER – than the assortments you can order from almost every other company: YOU get to choose your flavors. When you order an assortment of any kind from most companies, you’re limited. The baskets are pre-made, and often you are stuck with one or two flavors that nobody likes, and they go to waste, and so did part of your money.

Texas Pepper Jelly doesn’t do that to its customers. When you order an assortment from us, YOU are in charge of telling us which flavors you want. Often, people order several assortment baskets or tins and each one is different.

Order all one flavor if you wish. Order one of each. Order two of one and two of another. It’s up to you.

You tell us what kind of pepper jelly you want in your star-shaped basket, or your round basket, or your tin, and we’ll make it up fresh for you and send it right out.

Texas Pepper Jelly is proud to say that our shipping is really fast, too.

P.S. On Easter morning, when people traditionally have eggs, be sure to set out some pepper jelly to mix with the scrambled eggs, dip the boiled eggs into, spread onto your toast or biscuit or bagel, or eat with a spoon. Hey, people do that all the time. It’s great on French toast, too. And nothing jazzes up a grilled cheese sandwich like our Loco Cheese Dip and pepper jelly on whole wheat!

It’s also awesome stirred into your cocoa or coffee. And your wine, but that’s for later in the day.

Next week: Spice up that traditional Easter baked ham!

Texas Pepper Jelly’s delicious crockpot meals are ideal for working people; just throw your dinner together the night before, or in the early morning before you leave for work, and when you get home, well, your main course is ready to devour!

Ingredients:

1 cup of water
1 package of cream cheese (I use Neufchatel)
2 cups of brown rice
2 cups finely chopped spinach
1 cup finely chopped tomatoes
2 cups black beans, rinsed and thoroughly drained
2 tablespoons minced onion, fresh or dried
1/2 cup peas
1/4 cup finely chopped apple (I use Granny Smith)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon oregano
Dash black pepper
1/2 cup Apple Habanero Rib Candy
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
6 bell peppers, any color (I like to use an assortment)

What to do:

Pour the water into your crockpot and turn it to “low.”

In a large bowl, put the cream cheese, rice, spinach, tomatoes, black beans, onion, cumin, oregano, peas, apples, and Rib Candy. (In other words, everything but the cheese and the peppers!) Mix well. Mixture should be moist; add more Rib Candy if you think the mixture is too dry.

Remove the tops from each of the peppers, but don’t discard those tops. Remove all the seeds and rinse the outside AND inside well.

Fill each pepper with the mixture, replace the peppers’ caps, and sprinkle the shredded cheese over the tops. Place the peppers’ tops – I like to mix and match colors here, too. Place the peppers inside the crockpot. It’s okay to squeeze them in tightly.

Go to bed, or go to work. Let the peppers cook all night, or all day. If you cook them all night, turn the crockpot off in the morning and put the insert in your refrigerator before you leave. When you get home, put the insert back in the pot and turn it on “high” for about an hour.

Delicious, nutritious, and easy – it just takes a little mixing! Put the bottle of Rib Candy on the table; some people like to add a little more before they dig in with those spoons.

Texas Style Armadillo Eggs are a perfect snack or party food. They’re easy to make, your whole house will smell wonderful, they’re nutritious, and your family will LOVE THEM!

Ingredients:

4 ounces of room-temperature cream cheese (I use Neufchatel)
1/4 cup Loco Cheese Dip (It’s on sale, too!)
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon finely-chopped cilantro
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Salt to taste (I don’t use any salt because the spices are enough)
6 medium-size jalapenos
2 pounds bulk sausage
1 tablespoon Butcher BBQ marinade
Shake & Bake (if desired) (I use it on half the batch, as my husband loves it)

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 375. Lightly grease a baking or cookie sheet

In a large bowl, mix together the cream cheese, Loco Cheese Dip, garlic, cumin, and cilantro. Blend well. Add a little salt if you think you need it.

Remove the stems from the jalapenos, cut in half lengthwise, scoop out ALL of the seeds, and cut the sliced jalapenos in half, horizontally. (You’ll end up with jalapeno quarters.)

Put about a teaspoon of the cheesy filling in each jalapeno quarter.

Pat the sausage into as many 3-inch circles as you have jalapeno quarters.

Place a stuffed jalapeno in the center of each sausage circle.

Wrap the sausage around the jalapenos, completely, and form into an egg shape.

Brush the “eggs” with the Butcher BBQ marinade. Roll in Shake & Bake, if you desire.

Put the “eggs” on the baking sheet, and bake for about 20 minutes. Watch carefully; when the sausage is cooked, they’re done. If you want them to be a little browner, put the sheet under the broiler for a few minutes.

You can also cook Texas Pepper Jelly’s Armadillo Eggs on the grill.

Serve with various dressings and dips. My daughter uses Ranch dressing, my husband uses salsa, and my son dips them in everything. As for me, I like to dip mine in Loco Cheese Dip.

I mean, has anybody ever really had enough cheese?