Secret Recipe Club: French Dip Sandwiches

My most exciting time of the month - Secret Recipe Club reveal day!

I had the pleasure to be assigned the blog Mom's Fridge.  I've been to Barb's blog before and everything on there is a hodge-podge of comfort food and foods that make you think of home (if you're not already there, of course).  You can find things like Ranch-Style Macaroni Salad to Caramel Filled Snickerdoodles.  She's got it all!

One thing that stuck out in my head were these French Dip Sandwiches, though.  I've just been so busy at work and school that I hardly ever have time to cook anything.  So what better way to feel like I slaved over a meal than to throw it all in the crockpot!  It's my favorite time-saving kitchen device.  So without further delay, let's get to it!

Ingredients:
Adapted from Mom's Fridge

3 lb. bottom-round roast
2 cups beef stock
1 small onion, diced
salt and pepper, to taste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 baguettes, toasted

Heat a large skillet under medium high heat and add olive oil.  Season meat on both sides with salt and pepper.  Sear the meat in the skillet on all sides until you get a nice golden brown.

Place the seared meat into the crockpot and add beef stock, onion, and garlic powder.

Place on HIGH for 1 hour and then reduce heat to LOW for at least 6 hours.

Shred the meat and place on toasted baguettes.  Serve with strained broth from crockpot.  Dip to your heart's content!

This was a wonderful meal!  I just loved dipping the sandwiches into the flavorful broth.  This was definitely an easy winner for us!

Want to join the SRC?  Check out the site now!  And don't forget to check out Mom's Fridge too!

Buffalo Chicken Breast Sandwiches

One of the first things we ended up making in class were Buffalo Chicken Sandwiches.  I guess they want to start us off with something easy before working our way up to something more skillful.

I didn't mind because buffalo chicken sandwiches are actually one of my favorites. 

So the first installment of "What to do with your broken down chicken" is making use of the chicken breasts.  A simple sandwich that is as easy to put together as it is to eat!

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, skin removed
1 tablespoon olive oil
lettuce
1/4 cup of your favorite hot sauce (I used Frank's Wing Sauce - it's thicker and coats the chicken perfectly)
bacon
2 whole wheat buns
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat a large skillet under medium high heat and add oil.  Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper on both sides.  When oil is shimmering, add chicken to pan.

When the bottom side is a nice golden brown (about 4-6 minutes), flip the breast over.

Finish cooking the chicken until white throughout, an additional 5-7 minutes.  Transfer chicken breasts to a plate and let rest.

Assemble your sandwiches by placing lettuce on the bottom half of the bun.

Then you'll want to place your hot sauce in a medium stainless steel bowl.  Add chicken breasts, one at a time, swirling them around to coat well with sauce - kind of like you're saucin' some wings, ya know?

Then place your sauced chicken breast on top of the lettuce.

Then add a little bacon if you're feelin' frisky.

And close that sucker up with the top bun, and voila!  A buffalo chicken sandwich that'll be gone in less time than it took to put together!

Serve with fries if you'd like (I got to practice my battonet knife cuts in making them so I was all about it - speaking of, would you guys like some how-to knife cut posts?) 

Next up we've got a sweet and salty treat to use up the other edible parts of our chicken (those of you who are friends with me on Facebook probably have an idea of what's to come!).  Have a great Wednesday guys!

Grilled Grilled Ham & Cheese

For some reason I wanted some grilled corn too...

Happy Friday!  It's been an extremely long day and I'm ready to kick my feet up and put in a Netflix movie.  And I might just be in a cruel enough mood to make Andy watch a chick flick with me.  Yes, the perks of domestic bliss.

I grew up eating grilled cheese, but never understood why it was called "grilled" cheese.  I mean, I only knew of it being cooked in a frying pan - never a grill.  Then I saw Nick from Macheesmo do this.  And I was instantly inspired to do the same! 

Ingredients:

Bread
Cheddar cheese
Spinach
Ham slices
Softened butter

There's not really much to this.  And you don't necessarily have to use the ingredients I did - it's just the sandwich I was feeling at the time.

Light a charcoal grill. 

Butter one side of two slices of bread.  Place one slice on the grill, butter-side down, over moderate heat and top with cheese, spinach, ham, and another slice of cheese.  Then top with remaining piece of bread, butter-side up. 

Grill for about 2-3 minutes, or until grill marks appear and side is golden brown.  Flip over and grill for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Slice in half and enjoy!

Seriously, this was awesome.  Even better than actual grilled cheese.  Don't believe me?  Try it out and let me know!

Have a great weekend guys!  I'm super pumped because we're getting a new couch!  Yeah, you know you're getting old when you can be excited about furniture! 

Secret Recipe Club: Apple & Brie Grilled Cheese

It's that time again!  Secret Recipe Club time!  Last month was my first time and I had so much fun so I knew I had to join again for another round!

What is the Secret Recipe Club, you ask?  It's basically a secret Santa for food bloggers!  The brainchild of Amanda from Amanda's Cookin' - bloggers sign up to get a "secret" blogger from whom we choose to make a recipe from their blog and post on a designated day!  I think my favorite part is seeing what others do with my own recipe!  Last month, Dana from Food For Thought made an awesome rendition of my Coffee Ice Cream Pie by turning it into a Cookies & Cream Ice Cream Pie!  So I can't wait to see what whoever has me this month does with something else of mine!

So let's get to it!  My secret blogger this month was Sara from Cupcake Muffin.  I'd never checked out her blog before, and my first thought was - Cupcake Muffin - Andy's going to reap the benefits of this one!  Although there are tons of sweet treats on Cupcake Muffin, there are also many delicious savory dishes as well!  It's pretty much an all-around blog with tons of great stuff!

Something that really caught my eye was the recipe for Pear and Goat Cheese Sandwiches.  It has been extremely hot here, so the last thing I've wanted to do was actually cook something or turn on the oven/stove.  Sara says it best in this post when she says that these are so simple, but so gourmet!

But during my shopping trip, I couldn't find good looking pears anywhere!  So I opted for apples and switched out the goat cheese for Brie.  I mean, I love me some goat cheese, but Andy's a little picky about that one for some reason.  So I got some Brie - which is also creamy and crowd pleasing.  And everyone knows that Brie is best melted - so I had to turn this sandwich into a grilled cheese!

Ingredients:
Adapted from Cupcake Muffin's Pear & Goat Cheese Sandwiches

1 Granny Smith Apple, sliced thinly
Dash of Apple Cider Vinegar
Lettuce Leaves
Brie Cheese
Sliced Sourdough Bread
Pumpkin Seeds
Dash of ground cinnamon
1-2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Sprinkle the lettuce leaves with a little bit of apple cider vinegar and toss.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a medium skillet under medium high heat.  Add one piece of sourdough bread (kind of swirling the bottom of the slice in the melted butter to coat) and top with one or two lettuce leaves.  Then add 3-4 slices of apples.  Layer on desired amount of Brie and sprinkle top with pumpkin seeds and cinnamon.  Top with slice of sourdough.

Once bottom is golden brown, carefully flip sandwich over (adding more butter to the pan if needed - and swirling again to get butter on 2nd slice).  Cook for another 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown on other side.

Simple as that!  Not much cooking at all, just basically some quick melting of the cheese and toasting of the bread.  This was probably one of the best sandwiches I've ever had, and could have never happened if I wasn't inspired by Cupcake Muffin's sandwich (which I will definitely be trying once I find some decent pears!).



Want to join the Secret Recipe Club?!  You should!  Click here to find out more and don't forget to check out what all the other SRC participants did this month!

Garden Update & My New Favorite Sandwich

The garden is really freakin' green right now!  It's definitely in better shape than last year's garden!  We've got tons of lettuce, that's for sure!  The onions are doing pretty well too, well, besides the fact that I planted the pumpkins right next to them.  Maybe next year, the pumpkins will have their own patch of land - I'm still learning =)

The herbs are growing nicely too - parlsey and cilantro are practically a-plenty... anybody need some?  Hehe.

And my tomatoes!  They're flowering, which is exciting - because they didn't even get to this stage last year.  Looks like I'll be buying plants from now on, as opposed to seeds like I did last year!

Anyway, with all the lettuce we've been having, in our CSA and in the garden - salads seem to be a go-to lunch.  But when we tire of salads, I like to make a nice little sandwich!  And this just happens to be my fave at the moment:

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread, toasted
lettuce
hummus 
smoked gouda slices
cajun turkey

Assemble all ingredients into a sandwich and enjoy!

Hummus is seriously my favorite sandwich condiment... especially since I HATE putting mayo on sandwiches =)

What's your favorite sandwich?  How's your garden (if you have one) shaping up??

Have a great Tuesday guys!

Loaded Turkey Sandwiches

TGIF!

I know, I say that every Friday.  But seriously.  Friday is a great day, isn't it?  The end of the work week (well, for people who don't work weekends, unlike me).  A day that begins the much sought-after weekend.  And in my case, a day off.

It's snowy and sunny today, so practically perfect to just lounge around the house.  Maybe I'll do some cleaning.  Maybe I'll do some studying.  Or maybe I'll just do nothing.  Actually... I've been pretty productive today - looking at wedding venues!  Andy and I kind of silently decided that we need to have one booked by March and get this planning underway.  We've been procrastinating for too long! 

I checked out the website for The Green Building in downtown Louisville and was pretty impressed.  It's a somewhat small space (probably couldn't have more than 100 people), but you know... the more I think about it, the more I want an intimate small wedding.  Less to plan, more to be extravagant about (like the food!).   And speaking of the food, I also contacted 732 Social (which is a restaurant in the Green Building that we LOVE), to see if they could possibly cater!  So, while nothing is set in stone... a vision is coming together!

Anyway, I thought I'd end the week with an easy recipe.  Everyone knows how to make sandwiches so this really isn't a recipe, but more of just a showcase of the awesome sandwiches we ate the other day!  Sometimes easy and quick dinners like these are just what you need!

Ingredients:

Fresh homemade bread (I've been using this recipe here, and I LOVE it!)
Cajun turkey slices (for Andy's sandwich)
Maple-glazed chicken slices (for my sandwich)
fresh spinach
sliced tomatoes
chopped artichokes
mayo or miracle whip
slices of mozzarella cheese

I don't have to tell you guys how to make a sandwich.  I'm sure you're well-capable of doing that =)

But I did lightly toast the bread (so that the cheese could melt slightly) and sauteed the artichoke in a dry pan for a few minutes (I love warm artichokes!)  Then pile your chosen toppings on the bread and close!  Serve with some chips and voila!  Easy dinner or lunch!

Enjoy the weekend guys! 

Hummus Sandwiches

Andy is the best.  I can't say it enough.  I don't know what I would do without him.

We've made it tradition that we open presents with eachother on Christmas eve.  Our first year together, I explained to him my family's tradition of opening up one present on Christmas eve and we agreed to do so.  After we both opened one present, we looked at eachother and both thought the same thing - "you wanna open another?"  And so we ended up opening all of our presents!  So we've just agreed to open up all of our presents to eachother on Christmas eve and save our family stuff for Christmas Day.

So "Andy Claus" was very generous to me this year!  He got me a 35mm lens for my camera, which I've been ogling FOREVER.  I can't wait to take some bad ass pictures with it!  I also got a camera bag to lug my little baby around!  Way awesome.

On top of that, he got me various dishes from Sur La Table, which definitely will be making appearances on the blog soon enough!  He's just the greatest!

And of course "Peggy Claus" did some good work too!  He's practically got a finished gym in the basement - I added some to it by getting him some more free weights, a curl bar, and a dumb bell rack.  And I think I did a real good job on getting him a digital camera (A Nikon Coolpix S8000).  He really wanted a camera that shot HD video and this does, and it does it very well, so I'm glad he's happy with it!

Anyway, I thought I'd give you guys a quick recipe today and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday!  It's not a Christmas-related recipe, but it's a quick lunch/dinner fix for the upcoming week!  Enjoy your holiday weekend guys!

Ingredients:

Hummus:

15 oz. can chickpeas, drained
1/3 cup tahini paste
4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
juice from 2 lemons
juice from 1 lime
1 tablespoon Sriracha sauce
2 teaspoon salt
1 roasted red pepper from a jar


Sandwich:

Cucumber slices
Bean sprouts
Cheddar cheese
Turkey slices (optional)
Wheat bread 
Butter (optional)

In the bowl of a food processor, combine all ingredients for hummus and mix until smooth.  It should be somewhat thick, but still moist.

To assemble sandwiches, butter one side of each bread slice. 

Heat a nonstick pan under medium heat and add one slice of bread, butter side down.  Top with slice of cheddar cheese and cook until cheese is melted and bottom side of bread is browned.  Remove bread and place on plate.  Add remaining slice of bread, butter side down and cook until it is browned, as well.  You can skip this step if you want to, but I want a nice "grilled cheese" effect on my bread.

Top bread slice that has cheese on it with a good amount of the hummus and top with desired sandwich toppings.  I used bean sprouts and cucumber slices.  I added a few slices of turkey onto Andy's (as he wasn't too thrilled about just eating a hummus sandwich).  Place other bread slice on top, cut sandwich in half, and dig on in!

At first, Andy was a little hesitant, stating that he's never really liked hummus.  But I think this went over well, I mean... he ate the whole thing, so it couldn't have been that bad!  Personally, I loved the sandwich and could probably eat it for lunch several days in a row! 

 Again, guys, I hope you have a great holiday and spend it being with the ones you love!  Enjoy!

Salmon BLT's

Sometimes the simplest things in life are some of the best. I have this ongoing suspicion that the city of Louisville is against me and finding trout. Every time I set out to cook trout for dinner, I can't find it anywhere. Not at Whole Foods, not at Kroger, not anywhere! And so yesterday was no exception, but we decided to with some Sockeye Salmon instead. And honestly, I think it was meant to be. Because these sandwiches were delicious, simple, and made me forget all about my trout woes. And plus, I'm on vacation so I couldn't stress about it too much!


Ingredients:
Adapted from Food & Wine's June 2010 issue - "Grilled-Trout BLT"

4 slices of whole wheat bread, toasted
2 6 oz. salmon fillets, skin on
3 scallions, roughly chopped
1/2 tablespoon capers
small handful italian parsley, chopped
juice from 1 lemon
zest from 1 lemon
3/4 cup mayonnaise
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
6 slices habanero bacon (this was apparently a quick seller at Whole Foods and I HIGHLY recommend it if it's available), cooked
2 thick slices of tomato
2 large leaves of lettuce

Start by making your lemon-caper mayo. In a bowl of a food processor, combine scallions, capers, parsley, lemon juice, lemon zest, and mayonnaise. Pulse a few times until everything is combined well. Season with salt and pepper to taste and transfer to small bowl.

Light a charcoal grill under medium high heat. Rub small amount of olive oil onto salmon fillets. Season with salt and pepper. Spread desired amount of lemon mayo on salmon fillets. Grill salmon fillets, skin side down first, on direct heat for about 3-4 minutes per side.

To assemble sandwiches, place a good amount of leftover lemon mayo onto bottom slice of toast. Place lettuce leaf atop mayo and add salmon fillet. Top with tomato and 3 sliced of bacon. Close sandwich with remaining piece of toast and enjoy!

I found it really hard not to like this sandwich. Who knows, it could have turned out worse with the actual trout? We'll never know will we? But what I do know, is that salmon saved the day and made these a permanent sandwich in the sandwich rotation! Enjoy!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Well, back to normal programming. I feel like it's been a while since I've had just a plain old recipe post, with all that's been going on. And after much debate with myself and talking it over with good ol' Andrew... after I'm done with my Biology degree... I'm going to culinary school. I keep trying to convince myself of reasons not to, and honestly... none of them stick. I think I would be quite successful, and I would enjoy myself more. Right? I'm hoping so anyway.

There's nothing better than a great pulled pork sandwich. It's great because it's easy (you just leave the pork shoulder in a crockpot for the day and come back after work or school and BAM! nice, tender pork). And this is a different riff on your normal pork barbecue because it's not really barbecue at all, but something different... something good.

Ingredients:

4 lb. pork shoulder
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno, minced
1-2 cups chicken stock
1 tablespoon cumin
1 cup brown sugar
1 bottle of hot taco sauce
1 can of Coke or plain cola
salt and pepper to taste
Buns
Sliced tomatoes, optional

Place crockpot under high setting and add pork shoulder, garlic, onion, jalapeno, and enough chicken stock to come up half way on the pork. Let sit in crockpot at high for about 1 hour.

Place crockpot at low setting and let cook for about 6-8 hours. (Perfect for a workday).

Drain the chicken stock and add pork back into crockpot. Shred pork and add cumin, brown sugar, taco sauce, and cola. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Let sit for at least 30 minutes.

Serve on toasted buns with a slice of tomato.

The one thing I wish I would have added to this sandwich was sour cream. It would have been a perfect trifecta of flavors! This was more on the sweet side, but not too sweet. The cola adds a depth of flavor to the pork like no other and it was just a darn good sandwich! Enjoy!