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Weekly Cooking (and related issues) Thread

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


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To: Jamestown1630

Will try gain. Posted last night with the storm coming thru. It must have failed to post. Lightning strike just as the enter key hit

Thick or thin bacon strips. Thin here as well. Cooked in the oven. Before cooking mix a small amount of brown sugar and a pinch or two of cayenne pepper; lay slice on top to coat both sides of bacon then cook in oven Careful the sugar doesn’t burn.

Do enjoy the thick sliced -especially the slices with the black crushed pepper corns on it. The meat market in Dallas turned us on to the peppercorn bacon. Then we were unable to find it for such a long time. Moved up here and on our excursion in Gainsville we found another meat market (ironic, almost the same name as the one in Dallas) They sold the peppercorn bacon as well.

Try the brown sugar and cayenne and see what you think. It might not rank #1 as Trillion’s Whiskey meat loaf, but it could possibly come close. (sorry T - realize the name is not spelt correctly but unable to verify at the moment.

CAST IRON -Grew up being told that cast iron should never touch water. When water is around dry it in a hot oven. Another rule was not to use anything acid. Iron and acid normally do not go well together. Tomatoes=acid. Heading off the the camping cooks site and find what they do to make chili and such in their cast iron pots.

Last night storm was a dozy. Tornadoes south of us and another major storm coming thru this evening. We have webbed feet now; lots of quacks, just no bills.


101 posted on 04/27/2015 11:46:17 AM PDT by V K Lee
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To: Jamestown1630

Late arrival, trying to get caught up.

As a child, road trips meant Mom using a cutting board on her lap, slicing and making tomato & onion sandwiches to pass out to us. Sometimes she used a small jar of mayo; other times, ‘sandwich spread’ to make them. No stopping, except for gas, when Iron Bladder Dad was driving!

OTOH, when hunting or fishing with Dad, it was onion, limburger spread, and the small sized canned sardines.

Favorites now are Monte Cristo, Reuben, or (since I don’t care for lettuce) a BAT sandwich: bacon-avocado-tomato.


102 posted on 04/27/2015 2:12:51 PM PDT by ApplegateRanch (Love me, love my guns!©)
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To: ApplegateRanch

LOL! I recall ‘sandwich spread’; and I love your “Iron Bladder Dad” reference :-)

-JT


103 posted on 04/27/2015 9:02:05 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: ApplegateRanch

After a very strict study, it was found that most travel-by-car dads had had that same trait. Potty breaks and hunger. He was oblivious to all requests.


104 posted on 04/28/2015 6:11:45 PM PDT by V K Lee
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To: Jamestown1630

Speaking of Spam... though it wasn’t requested...DH brought home this week a can of Spam. Why? I asked. He said he just saw it, and decided that one morning he’d like to have it for breakfast. JT are you starting a trend here? LOL Can’t think of Spam without thing of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House all the while looking for an ad slogan for Wham!

Fried Spam is ok, but not something to eat often.


105 posted on 04/29/2015 7:55:58 AM PDT by V K Lee
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To: Marie

Did my first round just now!

I went WAY beyond the smoke point though - no fire however. But after heating for 10 minutes, I realized my house was cloudy and filled with smoke. I have all the windows open and fans going!

I think I’ll tone it down a little with the next go around.


106 posted on 04/29/2015 9:59:46 AM PDT by Hardens Hollow (Couldn't find Galt's Gulch, so created our own Harden's Hollow to quit paying the fascist beast.)
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To: Hardens Hollow

Awesome!! Do two more rounds, then cook meat. Then do another round.

Your heat is perfect. Just cut the time to 7 minutes and turn on the vent above the stove.


107 posted on 04/29/2015 3:10:40 PM PDT by Marie
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To: Marie

And I’ll open the windows! LOL!


108 posted on 04/29/2015 3:27:04 PM PDT by Hardens Hollow (Couldn't find Galt's Gulch, so created our own Harden's Hollow to quit paying the fascist beast.)
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To: V K Lee

Well, I don’t buy it; but we usually have some from family - or managed to get almost free w/coupon - that we keep in our ‘Zombie Apocalypse stash’. (For canned meat to keep in case of emergency, we usually have corned beef, canned hams, chicken; and tuna and herring.)

But that home-economics class that I took in school was probably using things common to the neighborhood at the time; and I had never had Spam before. It was really good in barbecue sauce, over rice (I’m assuming we fried it, but I can’t recall.)

-JT


109 posted on 04/29/2015 4:14:14 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Hardens Hollow

LMAO!

I had to turn on the swamp cooler to get the same effect! lol!

Seriously, have you ‘felt’ the difference in your pan yet?


110 posted on 04/29/2015 4:23:48 PM PDT by Marie
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To: Marie

If I do the rest of my pans in the summer, i’ll be turning up the cooler too!

I haven’t cooked with the pan yet. And quite a bit of lard stays in when I pour the rest out, so I can’t tell what the bottom looks like yet. Tomorrow or Friday though, I’ll check it out. I’m excited about it!

Thanks for sharing your expertise. I do love cast iron! I think my biggest error, after reading your instructions, is I over-cleaned the pans each time. I’ll watch out for that too.


111 posted on 04/29/2015 6:38:52 PM PDT by Hardens Hollow (Couldn't find Galt's Gulch, so created our own Harden's Hollow to quit paying the fascist beast.)
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To: Hardens Hollow

The only reason that I posted this is because I’ve been struggling with cast iron for *decades* and couldn’t make it work.

I studied and worked so hard and nothing worked until this.

Today, I was so excited that I went thrift store shopping for more! Now I want to collect them! lol!


112 posted on 04/29/2015 9:27:46 PM PDT by Marie
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To: Marie

“Today, I was so excited that I went thrift store shopping for more! Now I want to collect them! lol!”

Cast iron is addicting, isn’t it? I love having cookware that will out live me and I don’t have to purchase any more of it.

I went another round this morning with my 16” pan and a little baby pan. I’ll cook something today or tomorrow in the bigger pan. But since it’s going to be colder the next 2 days, I’ll quit the 10 min seasoning for now - I need to have the windows open for that!


113 posted on 04/30/2015 8:24:16 AM PDT by Hardens Hollow (Couldn't find Galt's Gulch, so created our own Harden's Hollow to quit paying the fascist beast.)
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To: Marie

I made a grilled turkey sandwich. The pan was smooth as glass and the sandwich slipped around beautifully!


114 posted on 04/30/2015 10:53:48 AM PDT by Hardens Hollow (Couldn't find Galt's Gulch, so created our own Harden's Hollow to quit paying the fascist beast.)
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