Vendor Profile: Aunt Ruby’s Peanuts

As we’ve mentioned before, we are always searching for new products to add to the store. On a recent trip down south, we came across Aunt Ruby’s Peanuts. Aunt Ruby’s has been selling some of the most delicious roasted peanuts for over 50 years.

Established in 1945, this family owned business started as a feed and seed store serving the farmer of North Carolina. They sell only the finest quality peanuts, roasting and processing them right there in Enfield, NC.

You can choose from their Spanish style redskin peanuts, their honey roasted peanuts and even cashews and almonds. Check out these newly added Aunt Ruby’s nuts today.

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Hatley Now At Zeb’s

Hatley is one of those brands that when you see one of their products you instantly know it’s a Hatley. With fun designs of moose, bear, pigs and more animals Hatley used a fun Hatley lab notes magnetic note pad at Zebs.comand funky play on words to create original designs on pajamas, cooking aprons, socks, pot holders, notepads and so much more.

Hatley started about 20 years ago, the same as Zeb’s, and has grown to selling their unique gift and apparel items all over the world.

Zeb’s is now stocked with a great selection of these funny, but useful, everyday Hatley products that will put a smile on your face and help make life a little less serious.

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Cheesy Garlic Mashed Red Bliss Recipe

You have to try out this recipe for Cheesy Garlic Mashed Red Bliss Potatoes. It’s easy to make and will have your dinner guests thinking you’re the best cook ever.

Ingredients:

* 2 # Baby Red Potatoes  What's Cooking Recipe Club at Zebs.com
* 4 garlic cloves whole
* 1 cup cheddar cheese grated fine
* 1 cup milk warmed
* ½ cup heavy cream
* ½ sour cream
* 1 tsp Creepin Quag Hot Sauce

Instructions:

Boil potatoes until just tender
Add to food processor or whip with a mixer until fluffy
Warm milk with whole garlic cloves, add heavy cream
Discard whole garlic cloves
Whip in milk mixture, add sour cream and cheese and mix

Season to taste with hot sauce.

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Featured Product: Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

This week, I’d like to feature one of the newest additions to the store, and our web site. It is the Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce created by Stonewall Kitchen.

If you’re like me and you get tired of always pouring the same old marinara sauce onto your pasta dishes you’re sure going to want to try this pasta sauce. It has a wonderful Click to enlargebutternut flavor to it but it’s also blended with sweet apples and brown sugar. You can use it in your favorite lasagna recipe, poured on top of ziti, ravioli or any other pasta you wish.

Go ahead and give it a shot…you may find that you don’t go for the marinara sauce as often as you used to.

After you’ve tried it, be sure to write a review on our web site. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this great new pasta sauce by Stonewall Kitchen.

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Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

* 1 medium onion
* 3 cloves garlic
* 4 cups chicken stock
* 2 chicken base or bouillon
* ½ Gal Whole Milk
* Roux to thicken
* 2 Tbl Oregano
* 1 cup Fresh Basil (2 Tbl Dry)
* 6 Roasted Red Peppers
* 1 Tbl Black Pepper
* ½ cup white wine
* 2 cups heavy cream
* Howlin Hollar or Creepin Quag to taste

Instructions:  Creepin Quag hot sauce

Roast Red Peppers either over an open flame on gas stove or under broiler unit of oven turning often so as to blacken all sides of peppers, place roasted peppers into a plastic bag and tie closed.
Puree onion and garlic in food processor, while processor is running add white wine.
Bring onion mixture to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Add chicken stock and chicken base, stir to dissolve base or bouillon.
In a separate pan bring milk to a slow boil.
Slowly add enough roux to thicken and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add oregano and basil(using fresh basil is best) to chicken stock.
peel and seed roasted red peppers and puree, add to simmering chicken stock.
incorporate béchamel(thickened milk) with the simmering chicken stock.
add heavy cream to soup mixture.
Stir into soup – Howlin Hollar hot sauce or Creepin Quag hot sauce, add 1 tablespoon at a time and taste.

ENJOY!

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Meat Roll Napoli Recipe

Here’s a recipe for Meat Roll Napoli from the archives. We’d love to hear from you if you have used this recipe.

Ingredients:

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* 1 pound hamburger
* ½ cup Italian bread crumbs
* ½ cup milk
* 2 eggs, slightly beaten
* 2 minced garlic cloves
* 3 teaspoons minced parsley
* 1 teaspoon pepper
* 4 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
* 4 oz. bag of Garfield’s Smoked Cheese Nibbles
* 2/3 cup ketchup
* 4 tablespoons brown sugar

Instructions:

1. In big bowl combine and mix with big spoon: hamburger, bread crumbs, parsley, parmesan cheese and pepper.
2. Mix in small bowl milk eggs and garlic. Pour over hamburger and mix together well.
3. Line a double broiler pan with aluminum foil, slicing a few places so fat can drain into bottom of broiler pan. Lay hamburger mixture on aluminum foil and press flat. Spread cheese nibbles down the middle and fold the meat over the cheese, making a roll.
4. Bake at 350„a for 30 minutes, take meat roll out and top with a mixture of ketchup and brown sugar, then cook for another 15 minutes.

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Vendor Profile: Richard’s Vermont Made Sauces

Richard’s Barbecue Sauces were first produced in the early 1990′s. Inventor and self made chef Richard Jr. set about making a thicker and zestier sauce than already existed on the market.

Richard's Vermont Made BBQ Sauces at Zebs.com

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Using a converted maple sugar pan he came up with a recipe for a truly satisfying Hot and Mild barbecue sauce, unique in flavor and rich in texture. A family affair since its inception, today the sauces are still made in the family’s ancestral homestead. An 80 gallon steam kettle and commercial work space allows new owners sister and brother in law Martha and Steve the ability to keep the business rural and home based. With new products added and with a few changes in ingredients we have made Richard’s Sauces a product of quality and good health, low sodium, sugar and carbohydrates is key along with no gluten, wheat, MSG or other preservatives. Our tomato base products also contain no high fructose and they are fat and cholesterol free. VT Made Richard’s Sauces have been providing Zeb’s General Store the 18 ounce bottles with the Award winning Cow, Pig and Chicken label for many years. Zeb’s gift baskets with Richard’s fun and colorful labels are a sure winner.

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Zeb’s Top 10 List for 2011

With the new year comes a look back and a top ten list. Here are our top ten selling items from Zeb’s General Store in 2011:

Classic Coca-Cola in a glass bottle

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  1. Coca-Cola in an old-fashioned glass bottle
  2. Zeb’s All Natural Kettle Corn
  3. Zeb’s Nostalgic Candy bag
  4. Lightfoot’s Pine Scented Soap
  5. Zeb’s Cream Soda
  6. Zeb’s Grade A Medium Maple Syrup, 1 quart jug
  7. Zeb’s Root Beer
  8. Strawberry Licorice Laces
  9. Zeb’s Grade A Medium maple syrup, glass bottle
  10. Zeb’s Raspberry Lime Rickey

Wow, four of the top 10 are old fashioned type sodas and nine of the 10 are food or beverage with the only non-food item is the ever popular Lightfoot’s Pine Scented soap. I must confess that as a Zeb’s employee I kept seeing people buying this soap, in the store and online, by the dozens. One day I finally had to see for myself what was with this soap and brought one home to try. I’m hooked. It smells good, isn’t too strong, is a good sized bar of soap and doesn’t shrink away to nothing within a week like a lot of the big commercial brand soaps do. Guys…give it a try.

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Vendor Profile: Grafton Village Cheese

Back in 1892, a group of farmers started the Grafton Cooperative Cheese Company in the picturesque village of Grafton, nestled in the Green Mountains of Southern Vermont. They would haul their extra milk to the cooperative to be made into cheese, which could be stored longer than milk in the days before refrigeration.

Grafton Village Cheeses at Zebs.com

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Today, we still get our fresh, raw milk from dozens of family farms that dot the Vermont countryside. The natural, healthy qualities of raw milk also infuse our cheese with a creamy, smooth flavor that’s missing from mass-produced cheeses. Our award-winning, naturally aged and naturally flavored cheeses are still handmade, true to the Grafton Village tradition.

Through our legacy of quality and community, our cheeses have helped put Vermont on the map for making some of the best artisanal cheeses in the country.

Grafton Village Cheese is part of the nonprofit Windham Foundation, whose mission is to promote Vermont’s rural communities. When you purchase our cheese, you help to further our mission that benefits both Vermonters and visitors to our state.

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Vendor Profile: White Mountain Gourmet Coffee

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White Mountain Gourmet Coffee began roasting fine specialty coffees in Epsom, NH during the winter of 1989. This family owned and operated business bought a 1920 Royal #5 antique coffee roaster to produce small batches of fresh-roasted coffee. After months of experimenting (and a few smoky roaster fires) they finally developed a unique roasting style that enhanced the flavors and aromas of the raw coffee beans.

They then began buying and roasting coffees from Colombia and Brazil but quickly added coffees from 13 other countries. New flavors, blends , and roasts were introduced, including White Mountain Mudslide, Pumpkin, Maple, El Salvador Peaberry and 180 others. Opportunities to explore coffee farms throughout Guatemala and Costa Rica allowed them to discover new sources of unique coffee beans and insight into the many different coffee varieties.

Today, White Mountain Gourmet Coffee roasts coffee and operates a café / bakery in downtown Concord, NH with a staff of 12. They supply independent cafes, restaurants, and gift shops, like Zeb’s General Store, throughout New Hampshire with coffee, brewing and grinding equipment, espresso machines, and more.

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