HEFFYS Bacon wrapped BBQ Shrimp (by The Hef)

Summer time is the best time of the year in my opinion.  There are so many events going on and with that comes some of the best food of the season.  We just went camping this weekend and we were all exchanging foods with our friends.  I decided to try a recipe that was something new for me and it turned out great!  Just follow the steps below and get ready for a great BBQ meal!

Ingredients:

1-½ cups HEFFYS All Natural Sweet Mesquite BBQ sauce.
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 pound peeled and deveined shrimp
½ pound pepper bacon (or preferred bacon)

Preparation:

Cut slices of bacon in half. Cook bacon half way (should not be crisp). Combine Heffys Sweet Mesquite BBQ  Sauce, lemon juice and garlic powder (pour half of mixture into separate bowl for use later). Dip shrimp into half of sauce to thoroughly coat.

Wrap each piece of shrimp with ½ piece of bacon. Place on skewer (leave small space between pieces). Place on greased hot grill, basting with remaining sauce mixture. Grill for approximately 4 to 6 minutes (depending on size of shrimp).

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.

Ingredients:
1 ½ lbs. of 93% lean ground beef
¼ tsp of basil
1 Tbls Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp onion powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
3 slices of bread (toasted and cut up into ¼ inch squares)
1 large egg
1 Tbls butter
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 Tbls brown sugar
1 tsp chili powder
½ cup HEFFYS All Natural Original

Preparation:
In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients except the Heffys and mix well with your hands; ensuring that all of the spices are mixed thoroughly. Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. Form the hamburger mixture into the pan and top with the ½ cup of Heffys All Natural Original. Bake for 90 minutes, ensure that it is done by using a meat thermometer; should read > 160. For a less spicy version; exclude the cayenne pepper and chili powder.

Enjoy!

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 Heffys was always made in small batches? –We’ll never set out to be the biggest, just the best. So thats what we are going to do.  We have now trademarked a way of making great BBQ Sauce.  We call it Micro-Crafted© . We make all of our products in small batches; taking extra care to produce the best possible taste for you — just like we have always done for our friends and family.  We taste test every batch!  These are just some of the things we believe make a difference in what you taste out of every glorious glass bottle of Heffys.

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.

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.

Here is how it works:

*Go to our BUY NOW page

*Add all the glorious Heffys products you want to buy as a gift to your cart

*When you’re ready, click on the “Add gift message” and fill it out to your hearts content

*We will deliver your sauce, and a hand written note to your dad, brother or whoever

Yup, its that easy.  Thanks to Millie.

Thanks Millie for making Heffys better for your family, friends and all those who love Heffys.

Pretty sweet huh?!  We think so, but don’t thank us, thank Millie!

Have a great Heffys suggestion and wanna be as cool as Millie?  Drop us a line and talk to us.

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.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please visit 
http://us.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs/.

Thanks….your humble moustache grower

Jason D

Vetran’s Day.

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!

I was a little shocked honestly, not that these two were that far off track at all, but what they learned and changed made it possible for some noticeable & sweet impact on their financial standing.  So I joined them.

My brother and I decided to take the class together, we started 5 weeks ago and are having fun wrestling with a budget, spending habits, attacking debt among other things.  It’s been fantastic to take a harder look at my finances, I thought I had a really good handle on them but it’s been a great challenge to do more.

Dave’s teaches about freeing up money so that you can give freely, what a great simple message and it’s very biblical.  We are all about that at Heffys.  So Jason and I decided to attend the simulcast of EntreLeadership last week, with more than 15,000 attendees across the US it was a great way to see Dave’s advice on how to run a more financially responsible business.  I have to say it was just what I needed.

We don’t aim to be the largest BBQ sauce business in the world, just one of the best.  We want to be known just as much for our philanthropy as we are for making great sauce.  To do that we have to make great financial decisions, just like we do at home.  We don’t always do it right but we have to keep working for it.

Thanks to Jason and Mindy for leading the way…and for Dave for giving some tools for us to follow.

Fans like Erik W. (aka E-Dub)

Erik has been with us since the beginning, he is a Heffys Fan, he gives us his opinion whether we want it or not.  We love him for it.

A few weeks ago he shot us a note about our outrageous shipping prices, he was like “I don’t have Heffys in my house because of how much it costs to ship it to me”.

We have learned a lot the last 4 years….one thing for sure is to listen close our fans.

We also know if would be more convenient for Erik and his fantastic wife Stacey to buy us at their local store which is why we invented the I LOVE HEFFYS program.  But still we wondered if we could do better with our shipping prices.  So we went to work, took a look at our current shipping policies & providers, and tightened down some screws where we could and after much sweat and plenty of empty beer cans we came up with the “E-Dub” shipping method.

So in honor of Erik and our 4th birthday, we are officially launching the “E-Dub” (our nickname for Erik W.) shipping policy.  It’s super simple….$4.95 flat rate shipping on up to 12 items.

Buy 2 bottles = $4.95 Shipping

Buy 12 bottles = $4.95 Shipping

Any combination of 12 items is one flat rate to ship!

Pretty sweet huh?!  We think so, but don’t thank us, thank Erik!

Wanna be as cool as him, drop us a line and talk to us.