Every smile is an awesome smile
Okay, so ignore the bad photo quality. I had to post them anyway for 2 reasons.
1. There were no kids in the house. That smiley face arrangement of tuna cake open-faced sandwiches is just for me.
2. The bottom picture was not mine. Isn’t it boring? I wish I could say they were aiming for a W…or maybe part of a pitchfork on the left. Or some Japanese symbol or art on the right. But no. Just plain, accidental ketchup and mustard piles. Booorrriiinnngggg. :P
Subs, subs, and more subs – How to mass produce sandwiches for a crowd
My family loves subs. The kids, the adults, the animals….we’re all happy for gatherings because it’s almost guaranteed that we’ll have subs on at least once and nobody’s wallets will be broken in the process.
There are pictures from one of our dozens of gatherings in the last few years, but I don’t recall which. When I run across more pictures, I’ll update with some of the variations we’ve created. This set is pretty basic.
If you check a chain grocery store like Kroger’s, they’ll usually have these loaves of bread for about a dollar a piece. They’re gigantic but delicious.
Don’t slice them all the way through. You want to create a pocket for all the goodies instead of them slipping and sliding out.
Add your mayonnaise and Italian dressing to both top and bottom, but don’t overdo it. If you’re going to be eating soon, put the dressing first to cut down on some of the mess. If these will be going in the fridge for a while, put the mayo first to create a barrier between the bread and dressing so the bread doesn’t get soggy.
A little goes a long way. You can see that I used half slices of one of the meats and the cheese doesn’t create a solid layer. There are enough toppings that you don’t need a huge amount of each.
Use fresh veggies, but don’t limit yourself to tomatoes and lettuce. Onions, avocados (replace the mayo with a layer of avocado to cut some calories/fat), cucumbers, and lots of veggies from your garden work awesome.
Notice that because the bread is so huge, there’s a cut down the middle first, so the pieces come out closer to square shape.
Also, at the far left of the picture, you can see that we put the whole subs right back in the plastic bags the bread came in. This keeps all the goodies inside and makes it a breeze to put in and out of the refrigerator if need be.
It’s also great to write across the label if you happen to have different subs. We sometimes have ones that are vegetarian or with extra dressing (or no dressing at all). No need in having to open them up to inspect the ingredients when you can just label it ahead of time and be on your way.
~Edit~ Here are a couple pictures from when we were getting ready to move. I put together 6 large sub sandwiches, stored them in the fridge, and pulled them out for various meals while we were packing, cleaning, and loading the trucks. Keep in mind that the sandwiches will hold up for a day or two (if they last that long, pfft), but you should leave the dressing/mayo off until time of serving then.
Also shared with Let’s Do Brunch linkup.
Try, try again – Reuben sandwiches
I have this weird thing where it drives me crazy not to like a food. Growing up, there were distinct dishes I didn’t like and while originally, I hated having to “at least try the dish again,” it did stick with me.
I taught myself to enjoy certain things over the years that I likely would’ve never tried again after my first brush with the foods. Often times, it was just a matter of bad preparation the first time. Other times, I’m sure my tastes had changed and I got lucky.
~~For the record, it took me at least 10 years to finally be able to eat and enjoy raw carrots. My mom would buy them for me a couple times a year when I requested the chance, knowing I didn’t like them, but not going to turn me down when she knew I desperately wanted to like them. I still can’t stand celery. ~~
Sauerkraut is a food I was presented with in a single way, over and over again, and I found it absolutely disgusting. It came in a bag, cooked on the stove in a big pot for what seemed like all day, and only contained sliced polish sausage. The smell was horrifying, but the taste was even worse. And because it cooked for so long, even trying to pick the meat out was impossible because it soaked up all the nastiness.
(This looks like heaven compared to what I remember the soggy mush with bloated slivers of sausage. via about.com)
So gross. For anyone that loves sauerkraut or has had it fresh or even had it in a halfway presentable way, you can understand why I avoided the food for years. Not that the opportunity arises often for me to have it anyway, but I certainly wasn’t going to go out of my way to have it in any way, shape, or form.
But then I made the mistake of reminiscing the awful mistake, exchanging stories with a friend who grew up with fresh sauerkraut. “So you’ve never had a Reuben sandwich before?” Uh, no.
Of course, that was put on the menu for the night and I was soon having my first taste of sauerkraut in at least 10 or 15 years. Now we weren’t having fresh, but it wasn’t like the stuff I remembered either. When they opened the can, I braced myself for the whole room to fill with pungent odor, but surprisingly, I could actually sniff the can up close without gagging, and even sneaked a bite. It had crunch….how weird, lol!
When it was all said and done, the sandwich was surprisingly tasty. It was probably just the grill marks, though, huh? Everything tastes better with grill marks.
How to make Reuben sandwiches
– Pile heavy amounts of either corned beef or pastrami onto rye bread. Every picture I’ve seen has large amounts of meat, so I have a feeling that the version I had above was actually on the light side, lol.
– Add a layer of sauerkraut. I’ve been told that Steinfeld’s is a good brand, if you don’t make your own. I imagine most of us don’t, but when done correctly, it’s apparently amazing.
– Add cheese! Swiss is traditional, but I’d imagine others could work, too.
– Russian or Thousand Island dressing goes on in there someone, too, but I don’t know between which layers it should go? We didn’t have dressing, so I guess that’s sorta cheating.
– Grill and enjoy!
^ Those potatoes had an amazing peri peri rub on them, by the way. Delicious meal that I was prepared to grin and bear my way through, lol.
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