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Monday, April 07, 2008
Expensive sandwiches
I'm a white guy, and that basically means I like expensive sandwiches. I don't however, like paying five bucks (or $169.73) for a thin slice of dry chicken between dry bread and not enough soda to choke down the disappointment. For that matter, I don't want to wait forty minutes, tip someone, travel, deal with a singer/songwriter barista, or go between the hours of 11 and 12:30pm.

I'm not that whitey.

So lately, I've been toying with interesting combinations that would make me happy at a sandwich shop and even posted a few of the better ones here. To me, though, the hardest part is finding ingredients that won't cost me a fortune, and will last in the refrigerator long enough to actually use them. I swear lettuce goes bad by the time I drive it home from the market.

So here is my rotating list of sandwich ingredients that are good but stay a while and aren't larcenously expensive:

Bread & Dairy:
  • Gigantic block o' cheddar
  • Smaller block of swiss
  • Parmesan cheese
  • Port wine cheese and crackers
  • Potato or wheat bread
  • Chive cream cheese
  • Plain cream cheese
  • Pita bread
Fruit & veggies:
  • Red onion (stays about a month!)
  • Alfalfa sprouts (50¢ per package and lasts a while)
  • Lettuce (organic in-the-box stuff lasts best for me)
  • Applesauce side (OK, my fruit & veggie intake is lacking)
Spreads:
  • Caesar dressing
  • Sun-dried tomato paste
  • Sun-dried tomato pesto paste
  • Homemade hummus
  • Pesto
Meats:
  • Whatever you want, really, but try for the better stuff in the supermarket deli. Don't buy much, but mediocre meat brings down the sandwich. It's still worlds cheaper than eating out, anyway.
Notes:
Hummus is ludicrously expensive when bought pre-packaged. I have no idea why; garbanzo beans are about 50¢ per can for the good stuff. Buy some good olive oil, some sesame seeds (also dirt cheap), fresh garlic, tahini, and lemon juice (plus anything else you want, really) and a good food processor on Craigslist. You can justify the $30 food processor this way: it's the same as buying six of the pre-packaged stuff, and you get to flavor it how you like.

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posted by Steve @ 12:42 PM   0 comments
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Recipie: No holds barred flavor fight!
When I worked at a smoothie bar I'd try to get the most ridiculously tart. I would use mango juice, sorbet, peaches, blueberries, strawberries and oranges. They were awesome. Now, I make similar smoothies, but my sandwiches follow the same tongue-tantalizing route.

Here's a sandwich I made that I thought was particularly intense:
  • Wheat bread
  • Pesto
  • Chive cream cheese
  • Thick-sliced cheddar cheese
  • Alfalfa sprouts
  • Turkey slices
  • Cucumber slices
The sandwich itself was pretty zing (although with sourbread it would've been even more so). But the sides really helped: Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits with sliced chunks off of a Kaukauna port wine cheese log, and strawberry-apple-kiwi juice to drink. Wow.

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posted by Steve @ 6:48 PM   0 comments
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Recipie: Tart Chicken
I am still trying to eat well. Rachel's gone kinda-sorta vegetarian, but I don't want to be that kind of paranoid about my food (especially with soups, as they often have chicken or beef in them without it being obvious).

A big part of eating well is putting a little effort into making food. You can only go so far when relying on super-quick frozen or ready-to-eat meals. I am terrible at this. I've been known to just not eat anything rather than spend five minutes making a sandwich.

But today I actually made a sandwich -- a brand new sandwich whose primary ingredient is awesome.

Kitchen bits:

Large skillet (depending on how much chicken you want)
A slotted turner (I admit without apology that I had to look that up)

Ingredients:

Frozen boneless chicken tenderloins
Sundried tomato spread
Chicken marinade
Caesar dressing
Alfalfa sprouts
Swiss cheese
Pita bread

How to make it:

Put the chicken into a skillet for ten minutes in the marinade on low to defrost and get the flavor in. While that's happening, get out the ingredients.

Split the pita bread, and spread the tomato paste on one side. When you add stuff, try not to destroy the pita. Put some caesar dressing on the other side, to taste. Keep in mind that both ingredients are pretty tart. Slice up the cheese and put it in there. Flip the chicken over so that it defrosts evenly. Put away the cheese, dressing, and paste: it's nice to not have to clean that after you eat.

Once the chicken is defrosted and properly marinated, take the pan to the sink and dump the marinade carefully while holding onto the chicken with the turner... or just dump it in a colander, whatever. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do perfectly, so have a paper towel handy to wipe the pan lip. Return the chicken, sans-marinade, in the skillet on the burner.

Start chopping up the chicken so it's in nice little half-inch bits until it's done through. I like mine just starting to brown on the outside, personally. There's nothing worse than chewy chicken.

Stuff the chicken into the pitas. The sprouts will stuff into the corners, which is why they go in last. Arrange in some pretty way or another. Applesauce is a good side, and root beer goes down very well with it.

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posted by Steve @ 11:56 AM   0 comments
 
About Me


Name: Steve
Home: Tucson, Arizona, United States
About Me: I like to think about things, and I occasionally like to write what I think.
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