Review: Club House Spices and Sauces

**Products in this article were received complimentary for testing purposes. All opinions shared are my own. For more information, visit my Disclaimer page.**

It’s that time of year again, the gorgeous weather has descended upon us and Canadians across the country are embracing grilling season. Whether you are a traditional charcoal griller or prefer the newer gas and propane options, BBQ enthusiasts take their love for grilled food seriously! Trust me, I married one!

When we moved into our current house, the winning feature the house offered both of us was the backyard. While I was quickly picturing long days spent in my hammock enjoying the sun and pool parties with friends, my husband was eying up the perfect location on the deck for a new BBQ. It’s not that we didn’t already have a nice one, but he knew what he wanted, and it was something more… fast-forward to today and there is now a combination charcoal/propane grill with smoker attachment on my back deck, and much of the grocery shopping that will be conducted throughout this season will be my husband’s decision as he explores his grilling and smoking options. This includes not only the food itself but the sauces and spices that will bring his creations to life.

Recently I was selected to receive an Influenster Hello Flavour BBQ Box. For those bloggers that are reading this and haven’t yet heard about Influenster, it’s worth checking out! It’s a website that is designed to bring influencers like yourself together with brands to collaborate on sharing various products from cosmetics to food-related items and everything in between.

You start by creating your profile and linking your various social media accounts, and then you will be asked to answer a series of questions in different categories called ‘snaps,’ giving them a better idea of what you do and do not use in your home. That’s when the fun starts. On the site, you have the option to review products and read the reviews of others. They regularly do what they call VoxBoxes, where they will select a number of influencers from the site to send free products in exchange for social media shout outs and reviews. Sometimes these products are sample sized, however, many times since I signed up I have received full sized products that I have come to love! (I have done some reviews that aren’t 100% positive as well)

This isn’t my first Club House VoxBox. Back in December, I was sent the Club House Organics VoxBox, including a couple of their seasoning mixes that I really enjoyed cooking with. So, when the email came in that I had been selected for this one, I will admit that I was excited!

The box contained a few different BBQ related goodies:

• Club House La Grille Brown Sugar Bourbon Mix-In
• Club House La Grille Spicy Montreal Steak Spice
• Franks Red Hot Sauce Original
• A Coupon for a Free French’s Ketchup or Mustard

I’m going to kick off the review quickly with a mention of the French’s condiments. I live outside of Windsor, Ontario where there has been a lot of change industry-wise. One of the big employers down in this area was Heinz, with one of our local towns even known as the Tomato Capital of Canada due to the large number of tomatoes that they would produce, largely (although not exclusively) for Heinz ketchup. When Heinz made the decision to close their Ontario plant, this hit the area hard, leaving 740 local residents out of work, and the area was angry! Calls to boycott Heinz swept the province – and one brand came into the spotlight: Frenches.

In the years since the company was purchased by U.S. spice company McCormick & Co., however, the company vowed that buying French’s and all other food products owned by Reckitt Benckiser (including Frank’s RedHot) wouldn’t take away from its Canadian-made reputation. Instead, the company vowed to continue its production in Canada, making it a fast favourite in many Canadian households, including our own.

That being said, the coupon for free ketchup or mustard, and the bottle of Frank’s RedHot certainly aren’t going to waste in our home, as these are regularly used items in our house. My husband swears by his Franks – in fact, he fits perfectly into what the commercial states… He puts that shit on everything! If you’ve never had the chance to try the Frenches products, I highly suggest you give them a go. Not only are they Canadian-made, keeping jobs here at home, but they also taste great!

As many of you know, especially if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, my husband and I have very different views when it comes to eating meat. He LOVES the opportunity for a good steak, whereas I am a pescatarian (a vegetarian that also eats fish). That being said, he was far more excited than I was for the Montreal Steak Spice. I can say that he has used it on salmon that he was grilling, though, and despite the fact I may have been skeptical at first it was really good! This is one of his new favourites for grilling, and he claims that it works with nearly anything!

The item I enjoyed the most was the La Grille Brown Sugar Bourbon Mix-In. This sauce had a lot of flavour, and luckily, I was able to find a delicious veggie-friendly recipe that would incorporate it (or any sauce of your choice really) for a fun summer dish. I do want to warn that it is not gluten-free, so if you do have a limited diet for any reason, that is definitely a point to consider.

The sauce had a delicious smell the second that you opened up the package, and the taste certainly didn’t disappoint. There was a sweetness that popped immediately, and a smoky taste that was underlying every bite. We chose to use it in the following recipe, but I saw other participants in the VoxBox use it to marinate chicken and mix it into homemade hamburgers, all, they claimed, with great results! The only downfall is the package itself isn’t resealable. While that didn’t matter for us (as we used the whole package in one go), for those that maybe live on their own, or a couple just looking to make enough food for a single meal, this may be a good consideration for the company moving forward.

How did we use our sauce? We threw together vegetarian sloppy joes on the cast iron skillet on the bbq (while he proceeded to grill other goodies). The great part about this is that it was incredibly simple and can easily be made on a large scale. My husband isn’t generally a big ‘vegetarian foods’ person, leaving the tofu and meat substitutes for me, but he has enjoyed this meal with me on multiple occasions since.