Texas Rib Candy, Part I
One of my clients, Craig – someone I also consider a friend – owns Texas Pepper Jelly. Recently, he started making a new product he calls Texas Rib Candy. As a southern girl born and bred, I love me some ribs. And it doesn’t matter how skinny I get, you put “candy” in the name of something, and you have my attention. So I thought I’d ask Craig if he’d like for me to try out his new product and pimp it out on my blog and on Facebook. I’m thinking he could send me a little sample-size jar of one or two flavours, right? Nope, he sent me four FULL-SIZED bottles of the stuff, but I had to promise him that I wouldn’t drink it right out of the bottle.
It says on the bottle not to let the name mislead you; Texas Rib Candy can be used on chicken, seafood, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Since I had some chicken in the fridge, I decided to try out the Apple Habañero flavour tonight.

I almost licked it right off the basting brush, but I didn’t!

I also managed not to lick that little pepper right off the raw chicken. Salmonella is a powerful deterrent.

And then I put it on the grill. I had to change my shirt twice cause of all the drooling. Note to self: Wear a bib or something when you start slathering this stuff on ribs.

I almost didn’t get this picture because I was so busy trying to figure out how to ingest that piece of chicken through pure osmosis.
Seriously, this is some wicked good stuff. It’s sweet, but not so sweet that it overpowers the flavour of the chicken. It carmelizes beautifully, sealing in all those yummy juices, and it has just the right amount of heat. You can definitely taste the habañeros, but they don’t blow off the top of your head. I also love that it’s a very, very simple recipe: apple juice, sugar, vinegar, habañeros, and pectin. That’s it. Nothing I can’t pronounce, no weird preservatives.. just good stuff that’s well-made. The only thing I would like to see is nutritional info on the label, so that I can enter it into my food journal.
Thanks, Craig, for the generous samples – I can’t wait to try it on ribs! I KNOW it’s gonna be a hit.









