Presenting the Rachel!

We were a little harried tonight. Angie and I were both late coming home from work. Beth was busy laying in provisions for the coming storm. Angie couldn't find marble rye so I ran to the Franklin Street Bakery just before closing time to grab some. Check out their happy hour special: half price bread and pastries from 5 to 6. I had to get cupcakes since I was there. They, unfortunately, are still full price. But totally worth it.
Onto the rachel--we went pretty traditional--marble rye, thousand island, swiss cheese, sauerkraut (Franks, from the can, the best!) and turkey. We had beer cheese soup for an appetizer while we were letting the super thick sandwiches grill up! All in all, not bad.
We barely even missed any of the two hour ANTM premiere. I think this may be the dumbest crop yet. We'll see what drama unfolds. One chick explained that she could wear fur if the animal died from natural causes, like, you know, how animals fight in the jungle and one dies? She totally would make a stole out of that critter. Heaven help us.
We are excited to announce that our next sandwich will be the......DAGWOOD! We are so totally raiding the Everett's meat counter. Jalapeno loaf, here we come!

D.C. update

I don't have much to report on the sandwich front from D.C. I don't think D.C. is really known for its sandwiches, actually. I did, however, have a delightful corned beef on rye at a deli on Capitol Hill yesterday. And I had a fantastic Indian Taco at the National Museum of the American Indian on Monday. But even I hesitate to call an Indian Taco a sandwich.

Yummy BLT

I met my friend Jane (of the two sandwich lead) at the Minnesota History Center for lunch yesterday and had the best BLT. Rosemary foccacia with garlicky herb mayonnaise, arugula, fancy bacon, and a really good tomato. It doesn't seem right to eat a tomato that good in February, but I'm not going to ask too many questions! It came with sweet potato fries, too. I'm glad I don't work there, it would be too tempting to eat lunch at the cafe every day. I'd be poorer and fatter! They have a hot pastrami sandwich calling my name next. (I hope we pull that one out of the hat soon!)
So, go to Cafe Minnesota and have lunch. Check out Baseball as America, or my favorite exhibit, Weather Permitting.

The Rachel…

Is our next sandwich. Congratulations, Jane, for having a second sandwich drawn from the hat! Beth and I will be in DC on Monday night. Perhaps we will sample some of our capitol’s finer sandwich offerings as a special treat. Our next official sandwich night, however, will have to wait until we are back home. Wednesday night should work, especially since it's the same night as the season premiere of America’s Next Top Model. If only there were a contestant named Rachel, then it would be perfect!

Aaaah, the Jucy Lucy

Totally awesome.
I got the meat at Everett's, which really deserves its own post. My friend John says that Everett's employs the last butchers in captivity and I think he's right. They wear white aprons and hats, wrap the meat up in white butcher paper and write the price on it with a black grease pencil. We get all of our ground beef from there and only there. They grind fresh it from big chunks of beef. They'll even grind it for you while you wait, if you ask them. No weird 57 animals and E coli mixed up in 1 pound of beef, here baby.
Back to the Jucy Lucys. I got squishy white buns and American cheese and sliced dill pickles called "Hamburger Chips". Angie seasoned the meat with garlic salt, pepper, and soy sauce. Then she divided it in 1/6th pound portions and worked them into wide, thin patties. 1 piece of cheese for each burger, folded in half, just like at Matt's. Then sandwich two of the patties around the cheese and pinch the edges shut. You have to pinch them a bunch and Angie did a bang up job.
I made french fries like Beth used to make when she worked at the french fry booth at the State Fair. Cut them sort of medium thick, then fry them at 325 for a few minutes, drain them, then fry them at 375 quickly so they get brown and crunchy.
We filled our house with grease and smoke frying up the burgers but it was completely worth it.
We went a little unorthodox and added a piece of cheese on top as well. Quite delicious. Angie made hers a double, crazy girl.
Fear the cheese!

We actually watched Heroes last night after our L-Word/Thai food get-together, so we opted to watch a movie about Winston Churchill I had checked out of the library while we ate. It was pretty good, even if it put Angie to sleep in 5 minutes. But so do most tv shows after 9:00 PM.

An ode to Matt's

I've gone on about the Jucy Lucys for too long without mentioning Matt's Bar. Some fools claim the Jucy Lucy was invented at other South Minneapolis establishments, but they are wrong. Everyone knows they started at Matt's and that Matt's is the only place where you can get them done right.
That being said, we are going to try and emulate the Matt's recipe and technique in our very own kitchen Tuesday night. We're thinking we'll stay traditional with American cheese in the middle. But maybe we'll go crazy, who knows? Angie likes to stuff peppers in everything, after all!

The LIST, updated

We're getting ready for Jucy Lucys next week--but we'll have to eat them Tuesday night, while watching Heroes on tape. Why? Jen and Junior will be here and we're watching the L Word and eating Thai food with them. So many food and tv pairings! What will we do when America's Next Top Model starts? Eat carrot sticks and Baked Lays?
So anyway, thanks for all of your excellent sandwich suggestions. These are the ones that have made it into the hat. I have to exclude any sandwich containing fish (sorry, Peter) since Beth won't eat them. And sandwich night is for the entire house. I'm also leaving out the excellent peanut butter suggestions since they aren't dinnery enough. Also my friend Patrick's cheddar cheese and strawberry jam sandwich, for the same reason. But I'm totally making it for lunch.
New Additions:
Jucy Lucy
Patty melt
Rachel
California Chicken Club from the Mac Grille
Roasted Vegetable
Monte Cristo (or shall we say, Monte Crisco?)
Steak
Pulled Pork
Barbeque (we'll figure out what kind when we draw it)
Amy Boese's Giant Dinner Sandwich

Hot Turkey Deliciousness

Surprisingly, Wimpy and Sam didn't go completely nuts while I was roasting the turkey breast on Sunday. Perhaps it didn't stay in the oven long enough to permeate the house with the pet intoxicating aroma of roasting turkey. They were pretty psyched to get some roasted turkey treats, however. Sam performed his turkey begging dance well. Angie tried to get Wimpy to do the "balance the turkey on your nose until I say okay" trick, but Wimpy wasn't interested in any kind of a wait, so we have no good photo of that!
So, to the sandwiches. Now, I've heard some criticism that a hot, open-faced turkey sandwich isn't technically a sandwich, but I'm making the rules, so they count! I think that any small town diner would agree. We each followed separate techniques in constructing the sandwich.
I went with toast, potatoes, stuffing, turkey, gravy, and cranberries on the side.

Angie used a gravy interleaving method: toast, gravy, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, turkey, gravy. Cranberries on the side.

Beth was a purist: toast, turkey, gravy. Potatoes, stuffing,and cranberries on the side.

And we were all happy.
Thanks for all of the great sandwich suggestions! It has paid off and next week we are making Jucy Lucys!!!!
Peter, think you can find a cheap flight?

What's in the hat?

Here's the list so far:
panini
hamburgers
hot beef (open faced, with potatoes and gravy)
grilled cheese
chili dog
chicken salad
roast chicken sandwich (like I had in Cairo)
gyro
dagwood
reuben
blt
cubano
hot pastrami
falafel
cheese steak
french dip
meatloaf
club
bahn mit (Vietnamese sandwiches)
hot ham and cheese
steak sandwich

Sure, it's heavy on the hot meaty sandwich options, but, 1.) we're eating these for dinner, 2.)we're carnivores, especially Little Angie and 3.)have you seen the weather reports for Minnesota? It's ACTUALLY cold right now. I think today is the first day in over a week when we spent most of the day above zero. So take that, hot sandwich haters! You know who you are...
So, if you have any suggestions--post 'em and if we deem them worthy, they will join the others in the hat!

Cheese and pickle?

I’m so excited about the sandwich I made myself for lunch today. It’s potato bread, Dijon mustard, baby spinach, cheddar cheese and ploughman’s pickle (which is sort of like chutney.) Yum! The Dijon added some lovely depth. I first had cheese and “pickle” sandwiches when we were in England last summer and I couldn’t get enough of them. The best was Wensleydale cheese, carrot chutney and arugula on multigrain bread. We learned that in England, when you ask for pickles, you get chopped up fruits and vegetables in a sticky dark vinegary sauce, kind of like chutney. When Junior asked for pickles for her hamburger at one pub, she got a very confused look from the bartender. After some discussion (seriously, we should have brought an English-English dictionary with us)he realized what she really wanted were called gherkins. And he was still confused. Why would you put THAT on a hamburger?

Mmmmmm...

There it is: Italian beef.
Angie added lots of onions and peppers to the pan juices and cooked it while I sliced the meat.

The meat slices went into the juice and practically dissoved. We warmed the buns up, split them and filled them with delicious meat, cheese and peppers.
Fantastic!
Heroes wasn't so bad, either. And we learned that Angie is slightly phobic of Little People during Deal or No Deal. Heh heh heh. That's some good intelligence, I'll tell you what.
Kate came over with carrot cake cupcakes, too. Now, if they could only write a decent plot on Studio 60, we'd be set.

Next week: Hot Turkey! That's going to drive the pets CRAZY!

Meet our newest housemate

We couldn't help it. We got a food slicer! Can't wait to try it out tomorrow!

I cooked the beef roast for the Italian beef sandwiches today. I stuffed about 6 garlic cloves into slits in a rump roast. Then I coated the roast with black pepper, garlic salt, oregano, crushed fennel and crushed red pepper. I seared it on all sides in a Dutch oven, then put it in the oven to dry roast for about 30 minutes. I added some water and some red wine and covered it and cooked it for another 3 hours. I think I hit a point when it was still intact but tender. It's in the fridge now, developing some flavor. Angie is going to use the pan juices to make the gravy tomorrow (do you can it gravy when it's clear?) We got rolls from Cossetta's for the sandwiches. Yum!

The only bummer is that Beth has to work tomorrow night and will miss all of the festivities. We'll take lots of pictures!

Put it in the HAT

I made Beth a felted hat for Christmas a few years ago. It’s enormous and stiff and looks like Cookie Monster (or Marge Simpson, if you hold it on your head right).

Needless to say, it has never actually been worn. It needs a job, though, since I put $50 worth of yarn into it and countless hours of knitting and standing over the washing machine willing it to shrink into something warm and cozy and cute.
Tuesday arrived and we couldn’t decide which sandwich to make next. Reubens? Hot Turkey? Gyros? Club? So many choices! So they all get written down and put in the giant blue hat. If we pull one out we don’t feel like making, we can pick again! Problem solved.


What did we draw for next week? Italian Beef! I think we're onto some kind of theme here.

Next!

The Heroes hero was awesome. My coworker Kate came over to share the sandwich love. It lived up to all of my lunch time scheming and plotting discussions. On Tuesday, still in post-sandwich bliss, we came up with a plan: every Monday, a new sandwich.

Next up: Meatball Subs.


Beth made the meatballs and sauce. I swear, they were the best meatballs she has EVER made. No joke. Beth will share the recipe by request ONLY!

We spread garlic butter and a blend of provolone, mozzarella, parmesan, and white cheddar cheese on hoagie buns and melted them in the broiler. On went the meatballs and more cheese and they went back into the oven to get all melty. Then we put pickled banana peppers on top.
That’s the best meatball sub I’ve ever had, hands down. I couldn’t even move once I’d finished it.

Dare I say that I love Mondays?