Big S Farms Salsa arrival!

Thanks to Missy’s great salsa recipe contest a couple weeks ago, I received a big box full of spiciness on Wednesday! I didn’t get a picture of the box, but it was pretty great…one huge box, full of packing peanuts, with a much smaller box packed inside. Inside this wonderful smaller box…3 jars of salsa and 3 bottles of hot sauce (and some recipe cards)!! Thanks to Vance from Big S Farms!

I am crazy about salsa…if there are tortilla chips and salsa in the house, I will probably want to snack on them. If I snack on them, they will probably disappear. I’m ok with this. It’s delicious! On the Big S Farms website, they describe their Gourmet Habanero sauces and salsas:

Our habanero sauces and salsas are crafted with a perfect balance of heat and flavor to make the perfect taste treat for even the most discerning palate. Each product is made with all natural habanero varieties and ingredients.

I’m contemplating a big Mexican feast this weekend, since I have so much salsa and hot sauce on hand. Perhaps perhaps perhaps. As I try all the varieties, I will definitely be reviewing them here and letting you know how I used them in my meals!

However, we already have two jars of salsa open in our fridge (one we bought a while back and one my parents had at their hotel when they were in town). It seems silly with two half-eaten salsas already on hand to open another jar. But it was new! We had to try it!

So we chose the Medium salsa for a blind taste test of salsa brands!! Matt and I are big fans of taste tests…does anyone remember when Diet 7up had a promo where you could fill out a form online and get a can of diet 7up, sprite zero, and diet sierra mist delivered to you? It was 2 years ago, I think? Anyway, we were EXTREMELY excited about this, and ran to the computer to fill out the form as soon as we saw the commercial. I don’t even think we had to talk about it…the commercial ended, we looked at each other, and we ran to the computer.

We didn’t see the package for a while…and when we did, we had mostly forgotten about it. I went to UPS to pick it up and since it was a package, I had to open it right away…I called Matt from the car, VERY excited. Not only that, they were whole cans of soda! I got 3 cans of soda in the mail! Awesome! He was just as pumped, and we soon were blind taste testing away!

We set up a pretty elaborate scheme with 6 cups. Each of us filled up the others’ cups and marked them with a sticker on the bottom. The taste test revealed some interesting results. From best to worst, Matt’s choice was: Sierra Mist, 7up, Sprite. Mine was: Sprite, 7up, Sierra Mist. We had reverse preferences! My favorite part is that despite the fact that this was a 7up promo, neither of us preferred the Diet 7up over both of the others…promo failed!

Needless to say, Matt was up for a salsa taste test.

I set the test up like this (sorry for the fuzziness):

6 chips, 3 salsas (Big S Farms Smoke on the Mountain, Trader Joe’s Medium Salsa, San Juan Salsa Mild), 1 glass of water.

First, Matt closed his eyes while I fed him the salsas in a random order and then I recorded his preferences. Then Matt fed me the salsa in a different random order…I had to turn around because I am really bad at keeping my eyes closed for things like this.

THE RESULTS (from most to least favorite):
Matt: Big S Farms, San Juan Salsa, Trader Joe’s
Mallory: Trader Joe’s, San Juan Salsa, Big S Farms

We are reversed again!! I think this is hilarious.

I was sad that I didn’t like the Big S Farms salsa! It had a strong flavor that I couldn’t pinpoint and I just wouldn’t be able to snack on that! I think I preferred the TJ’s because it is the thinnest and simplest, without a lot of “fresh” flavors…this sounds strange, but I grew up snacking on this kind of salsa, and it’s the one I can eat with tortilla chips for hours on end because it’s so addicting. I think the Big S Farms will be ridiculously better in meals, and I can’t wait to try it out! We both agreed that we liked the San Juan Salsa brand…we used this in our breakfast burritos over the weekend and it looks homemade…chunky and finely diced (similar to a salsa I made recently). Matt said his top two were really close to one another, almost tied…and I really enjoy the San Juan Salsa, I just couldn’t snack on it on a regular basis.

No matter what my fussy salsa taste buds think, Big S Farms won the Matt Taste Test! Hopefully he will snack on it, and at least I know he will love it when I use it to make some Mexican food! Have you tried Big S Farms? If not, click over to their site  to order your own or find some recipe suggestions! I can’t wait to see how its unique flavor works with other things, especially when heated up! (This makes me consider another taste test…salsa con queso dip! Matt, can I count you in?)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under Contests, Fun, interwebs, Leftovers, Life, Reviews, Southern Love, Yum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.