The Best Sandwich Ever: Part II

So now it's time to get down to business...the nitty gritty of an amazing meal between two slices of bread. Be sure to have all of your ingredients gathered nearby...if you need a reminder here is the list from the shopping you did yesterday:

What You'll Need
fresh seedless rye bread
thousand island dressing
swiss cheese
thick sliced corned beef
sauerkraut
cracked black pepper
butter (for cooking)

Line up the bread and place 2-3 slices of swiss cheese, torn up, on each slice of bread and season with cracked pepper. Do not skimp on the cheese, as this acts as the glue to keep the sandwich together.

Spread a small amount of thousand island dressing on one side of the sandwich rows, and top with enough sliced corned beef to form a double layer and at a minimum cover the sandwich to the edges of the bread.

Top with more thousand island dressing on the corned beef side of the sandwich.

Top with enough sauerkraut on the corned beef side to leave a small amount of "squishing room" once the sandwich is pressed together.

Flip the cheese only side of the sandwich on top of the sandwich and squish down to compress.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium/medium low heat and add two sandwiches to the pan, one at a time.

Flip the two sandwiches within 30 seconds (it prevents burning on the first two sandwiches, not sure why but it really works!)



Then add the third sandwich, and adjust the heat as necessary to prevent burning. Cover and allow to cook about 2 minutes.

Flip sandwiches and recover to finish cooking for another two minutes or so until the cheese is melted and the bread is slightly toasty.

Remove from the pan and move to a plate and slice in half to serve immediately.



Follow these steps and the most amazing sandwich will be right at your fingertips before you know it. Enjoy!

The Best Sandwich Ever: Part I

Soon, you will hold the recipe to the perfect hot lunch or dinner sandwich. Your friends at work will even be jealous of your cold leftovers the next day. Although this may disappoint some of you, with some preparation you will never be able to eat this out at a restaurant or diner again. I will by no means promise that it is a quick meal to throw together.

I've separated the meal into a 2 part recipe: Part 1 will include prepping the corned beef and the thousand island dressing following a very thorough grocery store trip to make sure you have all the ingredients you need. Part 2 will consist mainly of the assembly and cooking of the sandwiches. It is possible to prepare this in one afternoon or evening, granted that you will need about 3 hours to spare. Most of that cooking time goes to the corned beef simmering, so if you insist on cheating to buy corned beef from the deli, that will cut down the total time to about 45 minutes. It makes a huge difference on your palate if you do all the cooking yourself, but it is up to you. Try it, and you will be amazed.

Grocery List:
1 lb sliced deli swiss (not too thick, not too thin)
fresh seedless rye bread
1 bag sauerkraut, drained
thousand island dressing (see recipe below)
Hormel raw Corned beef (it includes the seasoning packet)
celery stalks (if you have them, no need to buy them just for this)
butter, for cooking the sandwiches

For the Thousand Island dressing:
1 c mayonnaise
3/4 c ketchup
2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp sweet relish
1 tbsp kosher dill pickles, chopped
1 tbsp horseradish sauce
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2  tsp black pepper
1 tsp red wine vinegar

Combine the above ingredients below in a bowl. Refrigerate to chill until you are ready to build the sandwiches. This will last in a tupperware container for a week in the refrigerator. The recipe can be doubled if you think you need more dressing.

For the corned beef:
Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add pickling seasoning and chopped celery stalks. Place the beef into the water carefully to prevent spilling. Simmer over medium/medium-low heat for 45 minutes per pound (the package says 50 but the meat will be too dry if you cook it that long). Flip the meat once an hour to ensure even cooking on both sides.

Remove from the water and pat dry with paper towels. Trim off excess fat (it is a thick layer on top of the meat that needs to be removed to prevent the sandwich from being too greasy). Slice thickly at about 1/8" and set aside until ready to use.

You are now officially ready for the best sandwich ever...stay tuned for tomorrow's blog on how to put them together!

Iggy the Halloween Birthday Celebratory Snow Pig

Everyone I run into asks me how the pig roast went on Saturday. And when I mean everyone, I'm talking even the awesome custodians at the school where I work. Do you think I have been talking about it enough? It's only been about 6 weeks since we started seriously planning it! I am strongly considering giving up my position as social coordinator, because huge natural disasters seem to occur anytime I get near major holidays.

Return of the Bad Omen Vulture: Part I
On Friday (the very sunny, warm day before the roast) we barged into Restaurant Depot, where we had ordered the pig from our new butcher friend Brian three weeks earlier. The meat guy who was there that day, Ryan, announced when I asked for our order that they had no fresh pigs in stock. In fact, he suggested I try roasting a whole lamb. I assured him that Brian had called me on Monday to confirm the order, and very gently suggested that he double check. When he returned again, he said that the order had never arrived and the only pigs they had in stock were frozen...if only we had turned and walked out the door right then! Bright eyed and bushy tailed I planted myself in the manager's office. It took him about 30 seconds after telling me that he didn't have Brian's phone number to not only get him on the phone, but to get Ryan run into the cooler (with me chasing him) to fetch the poor pig that had been sitting there all along. Don was none to pleased to find that the box had been stamped with "Green Village Packaging," meaning we had just paid the middle man to give us a hassle. Long story short, my customer service experience at Restaurant Depot left something to be desired.

Return of the Bad Omen Vulture: Part II
Oh but Saturday was one for the record books. We had EMT class for a majority of the day, which driving home from involved turning the car around at least 100 times as there were trees and telephone poles blocking even the emergency snow route back from VoTech. We then arrived home to this:

...plus no electricity at the squad building. Don rigged up a very clever "pig-loo" to keep the barbecue box warm when adding the coals.

Apparently the barbecue box, which worked very well for us over the summer, doesn't come with directions for use during Nor'Easters and I think that this deserves some attention from the manufacturer. Regardless of how much fun we had, I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to plan a pig roast in any season ever again.

As always, I had a very elaborate menu planned which I wasn't able to completely execute because of the lack of electricity. We rigged up the stove at the squad building to Greg's truck inverter, but while I was out on a call (because of course, it wouldn't be any fun unless the pager was going off every 20 minutes) the stove lost it's flame and wouldn't stay heated properly. We managed to heat the food (with special thanks to my mom for rotating all of the food in and out for two hours straight), but all cute details went out the window by about 3:30pm. This was probably okay, because all 30 of us ate crammed in the dark huddled around candles and I doubt anyone would have noticed.

I did manage to pull off a birthday cake that was supposed to resemble a pumpkin for Mark's birthday:

...which looking at it now looks like a Christmas present that got sat on by the same lady who sat on my coffee and stained the carpet orange during the first aid badge fiesta with my new Brownie troop chicken nuggets from Bernards Township. A little bird flew by my window and said that the cake seemed to be enjoyed by all during the overnight shift.

The successful Halloween recipe that will surely be making a return next year was the Witches Brew punch.

Recipe of the Day: Witches Brew
1 bottle sparkling wine (I used Cupcake Vineyards Prosecco)
1 bottle ginger ale
1 container rainbow sherbet

Right before you are ready to serve, Invert the container of the sherbet into a large shallow punch bowl. Pour over the sparkling wine, and the ginger ale. This will cause foam to form on top of the punch, resembling boiling "brew." Serve in cups with a ladle.