POCATELLO — Requested the place he received the title for his meals truck, Brian Zenger replied, “The place did you at all times go as a child to get the most effective meals?”

With that, Grandma’s Pantry was born.

However earlier than they ever served their signature “jacked-up grilled cheeses,” Brian and his spouse Kimberly had been promoting selfmade jams and jellies — specializing within the spicy-sweet. Now serving ready meals, the couple leans closely on their specialty preserves, together with peach-habanero jelly of their steak and onion grilled cheese, and triple-berry syrup on their fried pork stomach — what they name stomach bites.

“So many individuals didn’t know easy methods to use our spicy jellies and had been similar to, ‘Ew, that’s nasty, I wouldn’t have that on a peanut butter-jelly sandwich’,” Kimberly informed EastIdahoNews.com. “That’s once we informed them, it’s for cooking. Cooking is the best way to go together with spicy jellies.”

Along with displaying patrons how good meals might be utilizing spicy jelly within the preparation, the Zengers are within the technique of ending a cookbook that highlights a few of their recipes and provides tips about utilizing jelly in your individual recipes.

For almost 5 years, Brian and Kimberly have been perfecting and including menu objects, together with their newest addition, the Hungry Mann — a 1/3-pound burger with huckleberry-habanero cream cheese, lettuce and tomato topped with 4 items of their signature stomach bites. They now supply an assortment of cooked meals, together with the grilled cheese sandwiches with meat choices and, after all, spicy jellies.

In a short while, Brian and Kimberly’s jam and jelly choices had grown immensely, and their menu of ready meals had mirrored that development.

However, like many different companies, they had been positioned in a troublesome place within the spring of 2020, when a lot of the state and nation was shut down as a result of COVID pandemic. With choices restricted, so far as occasions in want of meals vehicles, Brian devised a plan and took it to fellow native meals truck house owners.

“All the meals truck distributors, we’re all a small neighborhood right here,” he mentioned. “All of the occasions had been being canceled and we had been all frightened about making it by (the shutdown). We talked to one another and we had been like, ‘if we’re multi functional spot, perhaps we’ll all earn a living and we’ll be capable to survive it.’ It labored out tremendously nicely.”

The primary roundup, in 2020, featured simply six meals vehicles. With the rising recognition, each in meals vehicles as an entire and within the concept of a roundup, this 12 months’s lineup of meals vehicles has reached 20. So many who Brian has been compelled to reimagine the Monday setup the Historic Downtown Pocatello Pavilion.

“Within the subsequent few weeks, when the climate begins turning nicer, we’re going to start out having (meals vehicles) on either side of the road,” Brian mentioned.

And on Wednesdays, when the roundup is within the Chubbuck Metropolis Corridor parking zone, the rising choices will quickly embody some purchasing.

“The Portneuf Valley Farmers Market is becoming a member of us as nicely,” Brian added. “Proper now, they’ve just a few crafters, and as quickly because the climate turns and we are able to really begin rising produce we must always have recent produce as nicely.

Whereas the choices are intensive on the roundup occasions, what makes Grandma’s Pantry distinctive is their selfmade jams and jellies, and the mix of candy and spicy that utilizing these jellies gives.

Throughout EastIdahoNews.com’s go to, Brian and Kimberly had us strive the Huck Finn burger (the Hungry Mann, minus the stomach bites), the steak-and-onion grilled cheese (the sandwich that launched their meals menu), and the stomach bites.

Whereas we might fortunately eat any of these objects once more, the stomach bites left a long-lasting impression. They’re completely cooked — roasted for a number of hours earlier than getting a flash fry — and the triple-berry syrup goes with them completely. And the fries, made with fresh-cut potatoes from Gold Emblem Produce in Idaho Falls, are additionally completely cooked and seasoned.

The meals truck roundup is in Pocatello, on the downtown pavilion, ever Monday, and in Chubbuck, at Metropolis Corridor, each Wednesday. On each days, the vehicles start serving at 4 p.m. and keep till darkish.

The every day and weekly schedules for Grandma’s Pantry can be found on Fb. And jams and jellies might be bought on-line at grandmaspantrypocatello.com.

If you wish to make a suggestion for the subsequent vacation spot to be included on East Idaho Eats, e mail Kalama@EastIdahoNews.com and embody “EATS” within the topic line.