A couple of months ago I received an email from a gentleman named Al Malekovic.
He represents a small company called (as you may have guessed) Country Bob's, Inc.
They make sauce.
Three kinds: All-Purpose, Spicy, and Barbecue. They also make a Seasoning Salt.
Anyway, Mr. Malekovic asked if I'd like to try a sample of their All-Purpose sauce and write about it on my blog. He offered to send me two bottles of the All-Purpose sauce, and I asked if one of them could be the spicy version, because we are all about spicy here.
Anyway, he kindly agreed to my request, and shortly after I received a package containing the two bottles of sauce.
Bill and I opened them and tasted the All-Purpose Sauce first. It's very tasty - a tangy-sweet sauce great for - as advertised - steak, burgers, chicken, fish - whatever you'd like to add it to. It would probably make a great dip as well. One of the things Bill and I both picked up on (before we read the lable) was molasses, which adds a dark, rich sweetness unlike any other sweetener. Yum.
We also tasted a bit of the Spicy version, and it was just that - the original sauce, but kicked up a few degrees with a very pleasant heat. Not blow-the-roof-off-your-head heat, but a good, solid, attention-getting heat. Also yum.
Also included in this package was a little brochure that included a few recipes we might like to try. (They include recipes on their website as well, and they also have a cookbook.
I decided to try out their Country Bob's Meatloaf, since I hadn't made meatloaf in years and I thought it would offer a good chance for the All-Purpose Sauce flavor to strut its stuff.
And it did. The meatloaf was moist and tangy and delicious. Alex especially, our 6-and-three-quarters-years-old son, LOVED it. LOVED IT. Couldn't get enough of it. First he had a serving of meatloaf, and then he decided it would be a great idea to make a sandwich out of another huge slice of meatloaf. He ate that, too, except for the bread crusts. Priorities, you know. After that, he rolled away from the table, full and contented and lapsed into a happy food coma. Just kidding about that part. But he ate a LOT.
My only concern, actually, was there seemed to be a lot of liquid in the pan, and the meatloaf didn't hold together as tightly as I'd expected. That could be my fault, maybe I didn't use the right percentage of leanness in the hamburger. Maybe it should have baked longer? I don't know. Like I said earlier - I haven't made meatloaf in years. It didn't affect the taste - which was lovely - just the appearance.
More recently we (finally) tested the Spicy All-Purpose Sauce. This time we had a few more people seated around the table. I made a cocktail sauce of Spicy sauce, ketchup, horseradish, and lemon juice. Very simple, and a great accompaniment to the grilled shrimp my husband cooked that night.
So all-in-all, a very tasty experience was had with the Country Bob's sauces.
If you'd like to check out their website, go here (or click on any of the other links scattered throughout this post). And while you're there, you can click on the link on the top right corner of the site to sample a free bottle of the All-Purpose sauce yourself!
I got the same offer from Al and tried and blogged about the sauce also. Here's my post....
http://themerlinmenu.blogspot.com/2008/09/country-bobs-sauce.html
Posted by: Ron Merlin | May 03, 2009 at 06:35 PM