Gyros are fantastic!

We had our fantastic Gyros and America's Next Top Model Sandwich Night last Wednesday. After careful consideration, I decided to try and make the gyro meat myself. I searched the internet far and wide and the most common home recipe involves baking a lamby meatloaf and then weighting it with a brick to compress it into gyro consistency. Intriguing. Just before I decided to try that method, I found a recipe in Cooks Illustrated that said that method lead to weird spongy tasting meat. Their method was to make the mixture, then shape it into little patties and fry them in a skilet. That way you get the good crusty browned parts too. Mmmm...

We had pita bread, chopped tomatoes and red onion, tsastiki sauce, and feta cheese for the sandwiches. I made a Greek salad, too. It was so good, we had them Thursday night, too.

And thanks to Sarah, our newest Sandwich Night participant, we had an array of baklava and killer brownies. Yum!
And Sarah will definitely be back for Sandwich Night--her friend worked on Cycle 10 of ANTM so we can get all the behinds the scene scoop!

Sir Benedict's

We went to a tournament in Duluth with Beth's hockey team last weekend. On of the team traditions during the tournament is a stop at Sir Benedict's. They have a nice selection of sandwiches with good fixings (pickled jalapenos and sprouts!) and good bread. Plus, there's a huge selection of fancy soda pop and beer. Sadly, they didn't have my favorite sandwich, the bacon avocado, on the menu this time. Beth and decided to split a roast beef with horseradish sauce and an egg salad with "bistro" sauce. Pretty tasty!

In other Duluth sandwich news, we had a vegetable panini from the Blue Note Cafe as well. It was pretty good--even with the unusual (for a hot sandwich, anyway) addition of cucumbers and lettuce.

They call it the Russian Hamburger

I arranged to meet Karen and Beth for lunch two Fridays ago at the Russian Tea House. This place sits directly across the street from my gym. I've always wanted to try it out but they are only open Tuesday-Friday from 11-3. I'm never over there then, so the place has been a mystery to me.
I have done some homework on the place though and from that I knew they we famous for their piroshki, or Russian Hamburger. Sounds like a perfect Friday lunch!

I got there first, followed shortly by Karen. Everything on the menu looked so good we decided to order one of each! We were pretty happy when Beth showed up to share in our bounty.

One of each makes a perfect meal for three. Clockwise, from the top: piroshki, cabbage rolls, borscht, chocolate poppyseed roll, more borscht, beet and potato salad, beef stroganoff (Fridays only) and black tea with honey. Everything was great and the total bill was only around $25. I'll be back!
(And I don't care if you think the piroshki doesn't count as a sandwich. I'm counting it!)

Sandwich Night!!!

Tonight is the night for gyros and America's Next Top Model! Yay! I'm attempting to make my own gyro meat from an recipe in Cook's Illustrated (July? 2007). I found the article while sorting through piles of magazines this week. Lucky break! If it turns out to be a bust, Holy Land Deli is located just a few blocks away!
Also, I'm behind on posts based on sandwiches I ate last weekend at the Russian Tea House in St. Paul and in Duluth. Expect a writing frenzy in the next few days...

Meatballs again?

Oh yes.
We celebrated week 3 of America's Next Top Model Cycle 10 with another round of meatball sandwiches. I put giardniera peppers on them this time. Fantastic!
Also fantastic--the elimination of the annoying and delusional Allison from ANTM. Yay!

Meatball sandwiches are my true love

Beth made spaghetti sauce Saturday night. And since we decided to live like shut-ins this weekend (but I went through all my paperwork and old magazines!) we were able to let it cook on the stove all day yesterday. Mmmm....
By lunchtime, I couldn't resist the temptation any longer. I had to make meatball sandwiches! We bought a loaf of big poofy French bread on Saturday, so that formed the base. I sliced the bread in half, put meatballs, a little sauce and shredded Monterey jack and parmesan cheese on it. Then I broiled it until the cheese bubbled. I spread garlic butter on the top half of the bread and broiled that next. Finally, I put it all together and squished it. Fantastic!

It ain't Matt's...

Karen kidnapped me at lunch on Friday and took me the Nook in St. Paul. I've heard good things about their Jucy Lucy (actually called the Juicy Nookie) so I figured I'd give it a try.
The result--meh. It was still a little pink inside which means the cheese is just melted and not yet molten. No servers' warnings about burns here. Sissies. They put some extra cheese on top, perhaps to disguise the soggy exterior of the meat and the not quite entirely cooked grilled onions. I was most definitely underwhelmed.
No one makes a better Jucy Lucy than Matt's. No one.