Posted on 04/23/2015 4:13:22 PM PDT by Jamestown1630
Sammiches!
With Summer coming, I'm looking forward to nice tomatoes, and one of our favorite sandwiches is the classic BLT, for which nobody needs a recipe. (Before he died, my father-in-law would ship us boxes of his first eating tomatoes from PA, and we always looked forward to that - and to the sore gums that were a measure of our delighted excess :-)
But when I was growing up, my favorite Summer sandwich was just thick tomato slices on white-bread toast, with lots of mayonnaise and salt and pepper.
Due to this love of fresh tomatoes on bread, I was intrigued when I read John Berendt's book, 'Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil', in which the renowned Savannah caterer Lucile Wright was featured. Her tomato tea sandwiches were especially admired, and here's a link to a blog that has her recipe:
http://mercadoslifelessons.blogspot.com/2013/08/miss-luciles-tomato-sandwich.html
I've always liked the idea of tea sandwiches, and years ago I found some of those fancy bread tubes in a thrift store; they were like these (though I believe mine are 'Pampered Chef' products):
http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Piece-Canape-Bread-Mold/dp/B0000VLYP4/ref=pd_sim_sbs_k_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0K6V5P14N7DYS72NSPJQ
I wanted to make tea sandwiches for a party, and found an Almond Chicken Salad recipe. They were a big hit and looked nice, but you don't have to do them 'dainty', on fancy bread; any sturdy bread will do. And if you do want to get fancy, you can cut shapes out of a bought loaf, instead of baking loaves in a specialty tube.
This is the recipe I used, which is a very nice mixture of textures and tastes (not sure where I first got it, but the same recipe is all over the Web):
Almond Chicken Salad Sandwiches with Lemon-Basil Butter
To make butter spread:
Combine ¾ Cup softened butter with 2 tsps. Lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and ½ cup fresh basil leaves finely chopped, or 2 T. dried basil.
To make filling:
Combine 1 C. finely chopped cooked chicken with ½ Cup mayonnaise, ½ cup slivered almonds, and salt and pepper to taste. (I shred the chicken in the food processor, to get a very smooth, consistent texture.)
To make sandwiches:
Carefully spread each slice of bread on one side with thin layer of butter spread. Then place filling on one bread slice, and top with second buttered slice.
If you take these to a party, they can be made the evening before, and stored in a container with a double layer of paper towels between each layer of sandwiches. The butter spread will help keep the bread from going soggy.
(If you DO want to make fancy bread: I usually use the Bridgford frozen bread dough, cutting dough in half and baking each half in a canapé bread mold sprayed with PAM. To slice the bread for sandwiches, it helps to partially freeze it. Slice thinly.)
Lastly: one of my favorite sandwiches growing up was leftover meat loaf with mustard on bread; but I have not found a meat loaf recipe that really satisfies me, especially as it goes cold into sandwiches. My grandma made a great one, but I never got her recipe, and have never been able to reproduce it. (She would have been making this from the 1950s, if not earlier.)
Does anyone have a 'Grandma' or 'Great-Grandma' meat loaf recipe that you think is really good?
-JT
This must be the same 3 amigos - THREE CUBAN GUYS FROM MIAMI
http://icuban.com/
I’ll check for the meat loaf recipe and post it later, if I can find it. If not, I’ll post one of our family chili recipes.
Tomorrow I’ll be trying a new bread recipe - 12 hour bread and using some of my home grown grain. Great for Blts or other sammies.
Too tired to post tonight.
I have finally figured out how to properly season a cast iron pan.
I inherited my son’s nasty pan about a week ago when he left town for a new job and it wasn’t well-seasoned, but kind of getting there.
I’ve fought with cast iron for decades and finally decided to try something different for my husband. A lard seasoned pan.
I’m Jewish. He’s not. He has his pork product pan and the rest is mine.
Over the years I’ve tried to season cast iron. I’ve used crisco, vegetable oil, peanut oil, coconut oil, olive oil... none of it worked.
This time I did two things different. I used lard and I didn’t wash it out with salt. After hubs was done with his breakfast, I’d heat up some lard in the pan, then wipe out whatever remained of his meal.
Within a week I *finally* had a non-stick, properly seasoned pan. It’s better than anything that my mother ever had.
So, the secret is pig fat. NOTHING works as well. Now that the pan has been used with bratwurst, sausage, bacon, and hash it’s finally good for eggs. No lie. The eggs slip right off.
Hubs is loving it. He’s finally got a good cast iron skillet and I’m happy because his pork is kept in one place.
Why are all the good women married? I think I’m in love.
I always was getting it where it worked good and then I’d make milk gravy and have to wash it. Now I try to avoid gravy but one thing that really helped was I bought a cheapie gasquet scraper. On of those ones with a replaceable razor blade. Now when I fry something and it sticks some I just scrape it and wipe it out with a paper towel.
OMG, best sandwich ever is fresh from the garden sliced tomatoes with mayo on cheap white bread but not toasted so that it’s all soft and gooey. Second best sandwich ever is cold meatloaf on cheap white bread with one side mayo and the other ketchup.
Another sandwich I like is along the lines of the deviled ham idea but using leftover steak or beef tips. Put the beef into a food processor, add onion, a bit of pickle or relish, mayo and mustard and maybe a dash of Worcestershire. On cheap white bread but maybe toasted since the beef is more hearty.
And cream cheese on toast topped with homemade salsa but store bought will do, yummmmmm.
We like the standard meatloaf - a couple lbs ground beef, crushed saltines, a couple eggs, onion, a can of diced tomatoes, parsley, basil, salt and pepper and whatever leftover veggies found in the fridge. Any shape or size of pan but make sure to leave a finger width moat between the meat and the edge of the pan so the grease can ooze out and be drained off later. Top with a good slathering of ketchup.
Meat loaf - Instead of ketchup or canned tomato (?) try a good dollop of bbq sauce and yellow mustard.
The bbq sounds good but hubby would run screaming from mustard.
Thanks for posting this! We just inherited two nice old frying pans, but they need work. The husband is in charge of cast-iron care, and I don’t think he’s ever tried lard.
-JT
I bought a cast iron pan in ‘58 right after we married. I seasoned the pan again and again but almost every time I used it it needed to be seasoned again.
I finally figured out that if I only fried or roasted meat in it never needed seasoning again. If you cook something like beans or anything with water or tomato sauce in it the seasoning will come off and you will have a metallic taste in your food.
The only sandwich I eat mayonnaise on is a tomato sandwich....lots of mayonnaise, thick cut dark red tomatoes, lots of salt. Could live on that all summer!! I think I’ll go fertilize my tomato plants now. :)
Well, I never figured out why my cast iron skillet needed to be seasoned over and over while my cast iron griddle has stayed perfect.
You solved it for me. The griddle is always for fat/greased foods-fried eggs, grilled cheese, bacon, etc. I’ve used the skillet for all kinds of foods, including sauces.
I was thinking of hand-cranked; in case of Zombie Apocalypse ;-)
I think I recall seeing one you can hook up to a bicycle...
-JT
I fried chicken breast in it the other night, then made a milk gravy for hubs dinner. No sticking issues.
Preheating the pan well makes a huge difference. You can’t start with a cold cast-iron pan.
One of my favorite sammiches is lettuce and miracle whip on lightly tasted white bread. That’s it. :)
What I’m doing is heating the pan with the crud in it (add some lard), then just wipe it out. After that, I add a touch more lard, then heat it up HOT (like 450-500*) for about ten minutes. Let it cool and that’s it.
The carbon works with the lard to make the crust, but it takes intense heat to get there.
I just pulled out another small pan out of storage and started working on it last night. I cooked bratwurst in it, then did the lard heat clean up and it’s already looking better. Today I’ll do three rounds with sausage and lard and it should be done.
Got to let it cool completely before the next round, though.
Thanks for the warning! I’d be very mad at myself if I ruined all the hard work! O.O
I think she’s right, too. I’m using the skillet as if it were a griddle and that’s what’s working.
Hubs is dying to throw a good steak in there. :)
How do you clean it after the gravy? When I rinse it it seems to stick afterwards.
Well now you know! Glad to help.
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