And the cannabis of course adds its own flair. Sure, this will be a wonderful treat for stoners and it can help provide some of the euphoria many people experience when using cannabis, but it’s also a medicine. Countless people live with debilitating diseases and chronic pain, yet are prohibited by the government from exploring natural remedies like marijuana. They’ve made it illegal to have a plant and you can be thrown in a cage like an animal for having it. An untold number of terminally-ill patients likely die without ever hearing a peep about marijuana therapies from their “doctor” and this just can’t continue any longer.
More data and independent research continues to show that marijuana can help cure an impressive list of diseases, not to mention help alleviate stress and anxiety that I would venture to say we all struggle with at times. Marijuana, along with psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics, have become instrumental tools in my self-growth and introspection and I can say without a doubt that they’ve helped me become a better person. I highly encourage you to check out the documentary Neurons to Nirvana: Understanding Psychedelic Medicines (available on Netflix).
“Fun” facts about the War on Drugs (which Rolling Stone called a “trillion-dollar failure” in mid-2015):
Prohibition and government attempts to control the lives of individuals have always failed in the long run and they will never succeed; they only create spending and suffering. And frankly, I’m tired of governments interfering with our lives, which is why I’ve moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project to help put an end to this tyranny. It’s not going to happen overnight, sadly… but we can all do our part to call out the foul acts and hypocrisy of the ruling class. And if you ever get too worked up or frustrated hearing about their latest screw-ups, just take a moment to relax… and breathe… and have a cannabis cookie.
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ cup cannabis coconut oil or cannabutter (see recipe links below)
½ cup sugar
½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
½ cup creamy peanut butter
2 Tablespoons Sriracha
1 egg (or 1 Tablespoon ground flax seed mixed with 3 tablespoons water)
Hemp seeds, for garnish (optional)
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a stand mixer or medium bowl with a hand mixer, beat the cannabis coconut oil, sugar, and brown sugar together until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Mix in the peanut butter, Sriracha, and egg at a low speed until incorporated. Add in the reserved flour mixture and mix until combined.
Divide the dough into three pieces. Place each portion of dough on its own large piece of plastic wrap and cover with another piece of plastic wrap. Roll each piece out to about 1/4″ thickness using a rolling pin. Pop in the refrigerator for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Remove the dough from the fridge and cut out your cookies using your favorite cookie cutters. Place them on a lined cookie sheet and decorate with hemp seeds. Press very lightly to secure the seeds on the cookies. Return cookies to the refrigerator for 15 minutes. Bake until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Let the cookies stay on the baking sheet until slightly cooled, then transfer to a wire rack.
Makes about 36 cannabis cookies. Each person’s tolerance and reaction to marijuana is different, so please be smart and decide for yourself how many or how few you’d like to consume in a sitting. You can always go back for seconds if you aren’t getting your desired effects.
How to make cannabis coconut oil {via The Stoner’s Cookbook}
How to make cannabis butter aka cannabutter {via The Stoner’s Cookbook}
Other tasty Sriracha recipes {via The Sriracha Cookbook}
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Did you know that green Sriracha exists?! Not only is green Sriracha sauce available for purchase in bottles, my friend—Chef Kajsa Alger—was kind enough to send me the green Sriracha recipe she uses at her Hollywood restaurant, Mud Hen Tavern!
First up: let’s talk about the Midori Sriracha sauce from Musashi Foods! Midori (みどり) is a Japanese word meaning “green”, and this green Sriracha is quite different than the red rooster sauce we know and love. Made with green serrano chiles, garlic, rice vinegar, brown sugar, and salt, Musashi’s green Sriracha has a very bright, almost grassy flavor to it from the young peppers, and as their label says, “it captures the essence of Sriracha with a Japanese twist.”
You can purchase Midori green Sriracha via Amazon or from Musashi Foods directly.
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Green Sriracha recipe from Mud Hen Tavern
Reprinted from Susan Feniger’s Street Food: Irresistibly Crispy, Creamy, Crunchy, Spicy, Sticky, Sweet Recipes with permission.
Makes 4 cups“A mildly spicy, almost fruity, herbal fresh condiment, it is fantastic on a piece of grilled fish, on roasted chicken, and on sautéed mushrooms. It’s also great as a garnish for a rich soup, on top of mashed avocados with feta cheese, or as a dip for crudités. This Sriracha sauce is different from the typical red sauce you see in squeeze bottles in every Asian restaurant. I still use chiles, but I use poblanos, which give the sauce a rich, gentle heat.” —chef Susan Feniger
Put roughly a third of the roasted poblano chiles, serrano chiles, garlic, coconut, ginger, turmeric, cilantro, Thai basil, mint, chives, lime leaves, and lemongrass in a blender. Add all of the oil, water, lime juice, and salt. Puree until smooth. (You may need to pulse the blender in the initial stages of blending so that the ingredients don’t catch in the blender.)
Depending on the size of your blender, you may be able to continue adding ingredients to the pureed sauce until all of the ingredients are used. If you need more space, pour half of the pureed sauce into a bowl and continue blending the remaining ingredients in batches, always using a little bit of the original sauce to start with.
When all of the ingredients are blended smoothly, pour the sauce into a medium bowl and stir well. This green Sriracha sauce can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Related recipe:
Sriracha Deviled Eggs recipe from The Sriracha Cookbook (via Serious Eats)
Post by Kimberly Beck
Ever since I joined the Sriracha Cookbook team back in April, I have been exposed to a whole new subculture of people that I never even knew existed - Sriracha enthusiasts! I suppose I’d seen a Sriracha bottle here or there, but I never really took note. Now I am intimately involved in a world of festivals and swag and all kinds of hoopla over this spicy red sauce. And it is, I have discovered, a most delicious condiment that I whole-heartedly welcome into my life - and my kitchen! The more I use it, the more I think, how did I ever live without it?
Although I understand there to be many Sriracha purists out there who are loyal and monogamous to the Huy Fong Foods “Rooster Sauce” that started it all, the Sriracha Cookbook Team loves to explore new Sriracha horizons. There are, after all, so many interesting brands out there creating their own flavor profile for this beloved sauce. That’s why we were delighted to see a spanking new product just released from Oso Pepper Company at the Electronic Sriracha Festival in San Jose this past August.
Vincent and Myra Verret, owners of Oso Pepper Company, are proud of their latest offering, Cry Out! Sriracha Chili Sauce. And for good reason. Their sauce has approximately 1/5th of the sugar content compared to other Sriracha brands on the market with its sweetness coming from a base of pureed red bell peppers. Not only that, it contains about 1/3rd of the salt content, making it a great hot alternative for people on a low-sodium diet.
The Verrets aren’t all about the heat, though. In fact, Vincent says, “We are not fans of the vinegar and salt blast one has to endure with most hot sauces on the market today. Nor are we fans of the heat (insanely hot) for heat’s sake. So, we worked to develop products which keep within our market’s accepted flavor profiles. Plain and simply, flavors we enjoy without the salt, the vinegar blast, or the insane heat.”
Oso Pepper Company started as a “humble backyard garden” producing fruits and veggies for the Verret family table in 2008. Since then, it has grown into a family owned operation producing several varieties of sauces and pickled products. And there is more to come! Expect to see their Surf Sauce coming soon with mango, pineapple, habanero, and red jalapeno. In the meantime, Cry Out! Sriracha Chili Sauce is available now for online ordering at the Oso Pepper Company website.
Check it out!
Oh, you haven’t heard? The Sriracha Festival is BACK! In addition to returning to Los Angeles on 10/19, the San Diego Sriracha Festival is making its official debut at Liberty Station on Saturday 9/20!
To celebrate, I’m hosting a giveaway! One lucky winner will get two (2) VIP tickets to the San Diego Sriracha Festival, plus a signed copy of each: The Sriracha Cookbook and The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook!
The contest is running through 12:01am Pacific Time on Sept 15, 2014, and there are ways to enter to win EVERY DAY.
More details, and how to enter:
VIP Ticket GIVEAWAY: San Diego Sriracha Festival
To buy tickets for the LA and/or SD #SrirachaFest, visit http://sriracha.nightout.com
One of LA’s most popular restaurants/craft beer destinations, Mohawk Bend, is hosting a four-course Sriracha-themed dinner, featuring recipes from The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook!
Mohawk Bend chef Erick Simmons will be out of town this night, but the very talented chef Adam Levoe from sister company The Pub at Golden Road Brewing will be at the cooking helm for the evening.
Expect to be filled with all manner of delicious vegan Sriracha treats for just $25 per person. Drinks—full bar, wine, plus a whopping 72 craft beer taps—are additional. Come hang and grub and maybe buy a book if you’re feeling extra generous?
Monday, July 21st at 6:30 p.m.
Email authors@mohawk.la or call (213) 483-2337 to reserve your spot!
More info/Share the Facebook event page:
Authors Worth Celebrating: Randy Clemens, Author of “The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook”
Whole Foods Market has just recently entered the Sriracha game with its own version of the sauce—Ninja Squirrel Sriracha—that’s available exclusively at Whole Foods locations around the country. Naturally, I wanted to give it a taste, so I got a bottle (or two or six) and also got to interview its creator about its origins!
Ninja Squirrel Sriracha is the brainchild of Derek Sarno, who is both the Senior Global Chef at Whole Foods Market and one-half of the fraternal duo that runs the popular plant-based vegan community Wicked Healthy Food (along with his brother/cookbook author extraordinaire, Chad Sarno). I met Derek a few years back while judging the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival (which I’m doing again this year… 8/24/14!) and we’ve remained buddies since, so I was especially stoked to learn he was working on his own Sriracha recipe!
As for the taste… it’s delicious! There’s a really nice heat that hangs out for a minute or two without being overpowering. The ingredient list calls out a red jalapeño puree, a nondescript “red chili puree”, and a habanero pepper powder, the last of which I suspect may be what leaves the nice lingering spice. Regarding the chile blend they went with, Derek notes, “I was looking for hot, yet palatable, sweet, twangy, and delicious. It took trial and error to discover what worked.” The other winning quality of this Sriracha is the pronounced garlic flavor, which comes right to the forefront of the sauce’s profile once the initial heat burst starts to wane, and it all balances really nicely.
Thankfully, Derek was also happy to shed some light on how Ninja Squirrel Sriracha came to be; check out my e-mail interview with him below!
How did Ninja Squirrel Sriracha come about?
“Honestly, Ninja Squirrel Sriracha came about after I approached the Rooster company Huy Fong and they didn’t want to produce a modified version without preservatives for Whole Foods. Being the fanatic that I am, I had to find a way to produce one without preservatives and that is up to par with our quality standards for ingredients.”
How did you finally get it to the final formulation?
“Not too long. After several trials and tastings, we landed on what worked in maybe a few months.”
What was the inspiration behind the name “Ninja Squirrel Sriracha”?
“When I was a kid, we had cut a tree down in the yard and we soon discover some baby squirrels in it. The momma squirrel had come and taken all but one of the little guys and after a while, we realized she wasn’t coming back for this one… so I scooped him up and took care of him. Nursing and feeding him with little baby bottles until he grew big and strong. We named him ‘The Gooch’, after the bully in Diff'rent Strokes; he was the original Ninja Squirrel and the inspiration behind the theme.”
How would you compare it to other Sriracha brands on the market?
“We’ll have to let the people decide. I’m pretty partial to our brand for obvious reasons, and being clean and non-GMO is a huge part of that.”
What are your favorite things to do with Sriracha?
“Well, Randy, you know me pretty well from following social media outlets and food postings… and I think it’s more appropriate to ask: 'What are things you might not actually put Sriracha on?’ That’s a tough one considering my newest thought is to do a Sriracha toothpaste! I bet you’d like it.”
Where and when can people find it?
You should be able to find it in every Whole Foods Market, and if it’s not in your store yet, it will be. It’s rolling out nationally and is exclusive to WFM.
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Disclosure: Sample bottles were provided to me at no cost. I received no compensation for this post. Derek is a friend, and I am a former employee of Whole Foods Market, but that did not affect my decision to profile them nor did it bias my opinion/review. (I actually got fired from Whole Foods… funny story I’ll have to share sometime!)
Exciting news! Sriraja Panich—widely considered to be the ORIGINAL Sriracha sauce—is now available at Cost Plus World Market locations across the United States!
To celebrate, I’m giving away an awesome Sriracha prize package to TEN (10) LUCKY WINNERS! Here are the spicy items each of the ten winners will get:
* One (1) spiffy 8.8oz glass bottle of Sriraja Panich
* One (1) downloadable/streamable copy of “Sriracha"—a documentary film by Griffin Hammond
* One (1) personalized, signed copy of The Sriracha Cookbook
* One (1) personalized, signed copy of The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook
The contest is running from May 15 to May 23, 2014, and there are ways to enter to win EVERY DAY.
More details, and how to enter:
Sriraja Panich Giveaway! (And more!)
Attention fellow SoCal Sriracha fans! There will be a hearing at Irwindale City Hall on Wednesday, February 26 to address the alleged odors coming from the Huy Fong Foods plant. Fans of Huy Fong Foods and its iconic Sriracha hot chile sauce are encouraged to attend the meeting to show their support. The company has maintained that there is no odor being emitted, posting a banner outside of their factory that reads: “No Tear Gas Made Here”, and offering free tours to fans who’d like to see "how [their] Sriracha is made and how delicious it smells".
SAVE SRIRACHA! Rally — Wednesday, February 26 at 6:30 p.m.
Irwindale City Hall
5050 N. Irwindale Ave., Irwindale, CA
Resolution No. 2014-07-2667
A resolution of the City Council of the City of Irwindale California, declaring its intent to conduct a public hearing on February 26, 2014 at 6:30 pm at the city council chambers, Irwindale City Hall to determine whether any noxious, irritating or offensive odors [allegedly] emanating from the Huy Fong Foods, Inc. facility at 4800 Azusa Canyon Road, Irwindale, California constitutes a public nuisance.
Looking for something special to get yourself this holiday season? Or perhaps you’re searching for the perfect gift for the Sriracha lover(s) in your life?
How about a signed copy of The Sriracha Cookbook? Or a signed copy of The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook? (Perfect not just for vegans and vegetarians, but also for anyone looking to incorporate more veggies into their life! No gross processed soy nugget junk here… just good ol’ fashioned vegetables!)
If you order a signed copy of either Sriracha cookbook between December 1 and December 25, 2013, I’ll donate 100% OF MY PROCEEDS from the sale on Amazon to Food Forward, a North Hollywood-based charity whose mission is to rescue and donate fresh local produce that would otherwise go to waste. Over 1.7 million pounds of food has been gleaned since 2009, which goes to local food pantries, helping feed over 40,000 hungry Southern Californians each month. (The recent L.A. Sriracha Festival I co-hosted with FoodGPS.com raised $2,500 for Food Forward and I want to keep that momentum going!)
Wanna get in on the action? Want to get a signed cookbook and help get some well-needed funds to a wonderful charity? Simply buy a copy via these links:
Then, contact me immediately after ordering using Amazon’s buyer-seller messaging system to let me know the name and any note you’d like to have included. Then, I’ll stick it in the mail and have it on its way to you ASAP!
Thanks for the continued support, and for helping one of my favorite non-profit organizations! Happy holidays!
I’m thrilled to learn that The Veggie-Lover’s Sriracha Cookbook has been nominated as Best Vegan Cookbook in this year’s Libby Awards on Peta2.com! Thanks PETA!
If you’d like to vote for my book (it’s in the Lifestyles category, bottom left!) and check out their other awards and nominees, visit http://peta2.me/2iuet.
Big thanks to you all for the continued support and mutual love of SRIRACHA!
The Los Angeles Times reports that residents of Irwindale near the new Huy Fong Foods factory have lodged complaints about headaches and burning eyes, which they allege are the result of the emissions coming from the hot sauce production facility.
“The city of Irwindale filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Monday, claiming that the odor was a public nuisance and asking a judge to stop production until the smell can be reduced.”
I visited the factory a few weeks back with my friend Josh Lurie from FoodGPS.com, and while we could definitely smell the Sriracha being made once we stepped inside the factory’s production areas, neither of us noticed any such aroma outside the facility. In fact, I remember the smell being much more apparent from the outside of their previous Rosemead location, and I always loved rolling my windows down as I approached.
We’ll see what happens as the story progresses, but I’m hopeful that it doesn’t halt Sriracha production or cause any delays. Huy Fong Foods relies on fresh chiles for its Sriracha—100 million pounds’ worth this year—which are all grown by Underwood Family Farms. They are trucked directly to Huy Fong Foods from the farm, and are washed, processed, and turned into hot sauce immediately, at the peak of their freshness. Harvest season for their jalapeño hybrid peppers is almost over, but they still have plenty more deliveries scheduled which will help ensure supply for next year. An action by the court could cut into that supply.
Get the full story from the Los Angeles Times
View pictures from my tour of Huy Fong Foods
It was an absolute thrill and honor to be on “Good Food”, a most excellent radio show that focuses on… you guessed it… food! I’ve long been a listener of the program, and when host Evan Kleiman and producer Gillian Ferguson invited me on to discuss the two Sriracha cookbooks and the L.A. Sriracha Festival, I was nothing short of elated.
I cover: proper pronunciation, differences between Thai Sriracha and American Sriracha, some of my favorite things to cook with Sriracha, a little history behind the books, and of course, more info on the L.A. Sriracha Festival. (Huy Fong Foods’ founder and Sriracha creator David Tran will be there!)