Archive for the 'sandwiches' Category
The boys, anyway. I left at 3:30 to teach a class in Red Deer with Erin, and didn’t get home until well past midnight. (It’s pushing 1 now, and I have to be up at 5:30 to go to the Eyeopener tailgate party at CBC. I have the sausage and beer, so they can’t really start without me.)
W is on a pizza kick, and I didn’t want to make it too easy for them to order one (or more likely two) in my absence. These are like pizza pockets if they had pizza pockets in Europe, which I’m sure they do. (Not really calzone; more compact and less stuffed.) I thawed a wad of pizza dough and baggie of roasted peppers (they freeze beautifully if you buy a bunch to roast while they’re in season and cheap, or if you visit Vancouver and buy a suitcasefull for 65 cents a pound and just wear all your clothes at once when you come back on the plane) and made a quick batch to get them through the afternoon/evening. (These also freeze well; freeze before you bake them, and bake from frozen.)
Stromboli
Stromboli are rolled-up pizza-like sandwiches you can hold in your hand. It’s not as messy as a calzone, having no tomato sauce, but the roasted peppers make up for it, making them kind of tomato-esque without the sauce.
1 batch pizza dough
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
12 slices Black Forest or honey ham (about 100 g)
12 slices thinly sliced Provolone, Edam, havarti or mozzarella cheese (about 150 g)
1-2 roasted red peppers, chopped or cut into strips
1 egg, lightly beaten
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll each into an 8” circle on a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle each piece with Parmesan cheese and layer with ham, provolone and red peppers.
Roll the dough up, folding the ends over and pinching them to seal. Place the rolls on a cookie sheet and brush with the beaten egg. Cut a few small vents in each roll to let the steam out.
Bake for about 30 minutes, until golden. Let cool slightly before serving. Makes 6 stromboli.
Per stromboli: 348 calories, 8.5 g total fat (4.1 g saturated fat, 2.8 g monounsaturated fat, 0.8 g polyunsaturated fat), 18.9 g protein, 47.8 g carbohydrate, 62 mg cholesterol, 2.5 g fiber. 22% calories from fat
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November 21 2008 | appetizers and sandwiches and snacks | 7 Comments »
I am not liking this getting dark at 5 o’clock business – it is not helping at all with my dinnertime photo sessions. I may have to revert to Lunch with Julie.
Remember that beef tenderloin steak I brought home from Murrieta’s? It turned into two mighty fine grilled sandwiches. Thankfully (or perhaps not considering how many mini chocolate bars remain in the house) my gut forgave me and I got my appetite back. I attempted a sort of Philly cheesesteak by sauteing a half onion and red pepper with some garlic and sandwiching them with the thinly sliced steak remains and a bit of grated cheese between two slices of grainy bread drizzled on the outside with olive oil.
I mean – look at this!
It always amazes me how much you can get out of leftovers from a restaurant – I used to make a habit of asking the server to pack up half my meal as soon as I got to that point (if it’s in front of me, I’ll eat it), and without fail upon bringing it home and putting it on one of my plates it turns into as much or more than I would eat if I served it up at home. (Not counting the after-dinner pickings, I suppose.)
I think I need to set a few parameters for Free Stuff Fridays – I know a lot of people don’t get to log on over the weekend, so lets say the free stuff gets posted on Friday, and I’ll draw for it on Tuesday morning, after CBC. That way I’ll remember to do it at the same time every week too. Sound fair?
November 03 2008 | beef and leftovers and sandwiches | 10 Comments »
Mike looked so pathetic yesterday watching me braise short ribs for our sandwich show this morning (quote: “what lucky bastard is getting to eat that?”), that I had to keep one rib behind so that we could try it for ourselves. (No, this was not an entirely selfless act. I was dying to try it myself and knew there would not be a scrap left over in the newsroom this morning. Release the hounds, as they say.)
You may recall this recipe from Oprah this past spring; during one episode Gayle drove across the country to have one, and declared it well worth it. I would concur; fortunately there’s no need for a cross-country drive. This is what I always imagine a Philly cheesesteak would taste like, but in my experience never does; not that I am learned in the ways of the cheesesteak, or have frequented Philly cheesesteak joints in my lifetime. I’m sure the closest I’ve come is something along the line of a beef dip at Moxies.
Besides the fact that you have to braise the short ribs in order to make this, it’s dead easy. Brown the ribs, put them in a baking dish over some veg and add a cup or so of wine and/or stock, cover and cook for 4 hours or until you can coax it apart with a fork. Then add it to a grilled cheese sandwich, preferably made on sourdough or grainy bread with fontina, Gouda, Edam or provolone.
How to Win Friends and Influence People:
Grilled Cheese with Pulled Braised Short Ribs
adapted from Small Bites, Big Nights by Govind Armstrong
canola oil, for cooking
2 lb. beef short ribs
salt & pepper
1/2 onion, chopped
1/2 carrot, chopped
1 small rib celery, chopped
4-6 garlic cloves, crushed
1 cup red wine
beef or chicken stock (or more wine)
sourdough bread
fontina or Gouda cheese, grated or thinly sliced
pickled onions (optional)
soft butter
Preheat oven to 300F.
Heat a drizzle of oil in a skillet or pot set over medium-high heat and brown the ribs on all sides; set aside. Add the onion, carrot and celery and cook for a few minutes, until starting to soften. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. If the skillet can be covered and go in the oven, return the ribs to it and pour the wine overtop, otherwise transfer the vegetables to a baking dish and lay the ribs on top, then pour the wine into the pan to get up any browned bits and then pour over the ribs and vegetables. If it needs it, add enough stock or wine to come halfway up the meat. Cover and put in the oven for 4 hours, flipping the ribs once in awhile.
Take them out of the oven and let them cool in their liquid, pull the ribs out onto a plate and shred the meat with two forks, discarding any pieces of fat you come across. Make sandwiches on buttered sourdough (buttered side out!) with pulled meat and cheese (the original recipe calls for a bit of pickled onion as well), and cook in a skillet (as you would any grilled cheese sandwich), turning as necessary until the cheese melts and the bread is golden and crispy. Serve immediately.
(You can watch a video of Govind making it here.)
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October 21 2008 | beef and sandwiches | 14 Comments »
Let’s talk about grilled cheese sandwiches. Because there is far more to talk about than Kraft singles vs. the real thing.
Tonight I had a double header; I started out emceeing the launch of Read Alberta Magazines Month at Art Central, and then went to cook/teach at a private party until after midnight.
As I was leaving, Mike was making grilled cheese sandwiches for himself and W. Mike makes a pretty fantastic grilled cheese, but our friend J turned us on to a new trick that I think makes her an official Genius. (She should have a business card just like Wile E. Coyote; a plain one, that specifies only: genius.) Ready for it? She stirs grated Parmesan cheese into the softened butter before spreading it on the outside of the bread, creating an extra dimension of crusty cheesiness.
I KNOW!
(Also a good idea when making grilled cheese: minced purple onion and tomato in the middle with old cheddar. Or a smear of sundried tomato pesto.)
I’m sure the biggest selling point of a grilled cheese for W is its ability to transport ketchup to his mouth. He would swig ketchup straight from the bottle, if we let him. Which is not surprising, considering the fact that it contains more sugar than ice cream does. So I’ve started cutting it with tomato paste, which is surprisingly sweet on its own, working my way to a 50:50 ratio. If you try this, make sure you keep your ketchup in the fridge (something I’ve never done – I can’t stand dipping a hot, crunchy-oozy grilled cheese into a puddle of cold ketchup) or one day you’ll discover a ketchup bottle inflated to double its size on the shelf, with a sort of tomatoey moonshine inside.
October 03 2008 | sandwiches | 10 Comments »
I found two more perfectly ripe avocados in my mailbox this afternoon. (Thanks Andres!) So, as is always the case when the avocado window of opportunity is open, I take it.
I had tomatoes. I had some leftover (applesauce) chicken. I had iceberg lettuce. I had cilantro. I even had cheddar and feta cheese. And salsa. I wished I hadn’t used up my stash of corn tortillas in the freezer, but at least I had whole wheat flour ones. Something Mexican could come of all this.
I rinsed off and sliced up the chicken and tossed it with a squirt of lime juice, a sprinkle of cumin and chili powder. Everything else was sliced or diced and wrapped in a warmed tortilla. W wouldn’t tackle it though, so he ate the last of last night’s spaghetti and meatballs.
September 25 2008 | chicken & turkey and leftovers and one dish and sandwiches | 3 Comments »
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