Greetings again readers, from the great state of salsa…er, I mean Texas. Sometimes I get the two confused. They are becoming synonymous to me.

There’s seldom a day that goes by I don’t consume some salsa. I’ve been trying to lose weight by eating lots of salads at night instead of heavy meals. My favorite salad dressing right now is a mixture of non-fat yogurt and salsa. Zero fat and great taste…and, it’s good for you.

Salsa is good for you. You can feel good about eating it. Beanie’s is a salsa you can feel good about twice. Or three times if you like, but at least twice because a portion of the profits go to support Project Sunshine, a charity that helps out kids. That’s super cool in my book.

That’s all well and good but what you want to know is… does it taste good. The answer is yes, but it’s not what I have come to expect in a salsa. Beanie wants her salsa to complement food, not overpower it. She removes the tomato skins to produce a subtle tasting product. It reminded me of something, but I wasn’t sure what. More on that later.

I wanted to ask Beanie a few questions about her experiences and her company, so, through the magic of email, here’s a mini interview:

CH: Was it scary making the leap from homemade salsa to a business venture?

Beanie: Was it ever. I have no experience in business. Thank God that my husband does. I am the cook and he is the business guy. It took a lot of encouragement from my husband and friends for me to get started, they really cheered me on because they love the taste of my salsa.

CH: Tell me a little more about AMK Enterprises. What other products do they ( you?) make besides Beanie’s Salsa.

AMK Enterprises is a small minority, woman owned family business based in Houston. Our mission is to provide the freshest quality food products for our customers to enjoy with family and friends. We also believe it is our obligation to support and help improve the communities in which we do business. We are committed to donate a portion of our profits to local charities. Beanies Homemade salsa is our first child. We are working on some other ideas as I type this.

How did you get involved with Project Sunshine? How does giving a percentage of your profits to a charity make your business more ( or less) successful?

We were looking for an up and coming charity that needed help. We figured that we could grow together. The whole concept of giving was modeled for me as a child by my Mom and Dad. They are the most generous people I know. I believe that the secret to life is the giving of oneself to help another. If I can make one person’s life a little easier, that’s success in my book. In other words, success is NOT measured in the amount of money we make, but in the number of people we can help along the way. We really struggled with the decision to tell people that their purchase supports charities. We are not patting ourselves on the back. We would do it regardless, but we figured the more we sell, the more we could give. If this helps us to do that then it’s all good.

It is all good. How good? Well…..

Beanie sent me one of each of her products; HOT and Mild. I started with the mild, on tortilla chips.

The sauce has the look of canned crushed tomatoes, and I suspect that’s what they use from the ingredient listing: (Notice the parenthesis after tomatoes)

INGREDIENTS: tomatoes (tomatoes, tomatoes juice, salt, calcium chloride, citric acid) onions, jalapeno peppers, cilantro, salt, spice, sugar

The taste was mild…yet deep. I tasted garlic and celery in the profile, and I think the sugar helps to smooth out the taste profile. Strange that garlic isn’t listed as an ingredient, but there’s the ubiquitous “spices”. I guess some folks like to play their cards close to their vests…and the FDA allows it.

Heat? This is a mild salsa so just the tiniest little tingle which was barely detectable to my scorched taste buds.

On to the HOT….

This one had more noticeable bits of jalapenos and chile seeds in it, a hopeful sign to me. It had the same “crushed tomatoes” look to it other than that.

The ingredient labels on both jars were identical so I have to assume this is pretty much the same salsa with just more jalapenos, which is an improvement…to me anyway.

The heat here is what I would call “mild” and someone with a “yankee tongue” might call “hot”. It did build after a few chip-fulls and I scarfed up quite a bit of it..nearly half the jar. After about 30 seconds I had a mild warm sensation that was quite enjoyable.

Here’s how they stack up for me:

Beanie’s Mild

Heat 1/10
Taste 6/10

Beanie’s Hot

Heat 5/10
Taste 6/10

After the initial tasting I had about half a jar of the Hot and a quarter jar of the mild (my wife likes the mild) left over. The crushed tomato look gave me an idea. Tex-Mex pasta!

I chopped some onions and crushed some garlic. I put some olive oil in a skillet on medium heat.

After seasoning with salt and pepper and sautéing for a few minutes, I added the remaining Beanie’s salsa.

I let this cook down a bit, for maybe 10 minutes…and that’s really all I did.

I poured this sauce over some vermicelli and topped it with a little Romano cheese and one each chopped jalapeño and serrano .

I have to tell you, this was some of the best pasta I’ve had in a long while…and my wife’s Italian, and so that’s saying something! I hope she doesn’t read this!

Here’s a tip my wife taught me. After you cook the pasta, drain it and put it back in the pot. Pour some olive oil over it and add a little salt, you’ll be glad you did!

Beanie has a couple other recipes on her site, one of which is for a meat loaf that I might just have to try. Check ‘em out!