Cuban Sandwiches
Sep. 29th, 2010 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
laura_kincadeEvery Christmas Eve, my mom makes soup and sandwiches. For as long as I can remember, she has been preparing this meal on that cold December night. Last year, she made the most delicious sandwich I’d ever had.
The sandwich was called a Cuban. It consisted of break, turkey, ham or chicken, pickle, cheese, and mustard/mayo mixture all wrapped in foil and slow cooked in the oven. I remember how good they were and decided to recreate it last night.
I decided to make mine with turkey and ham and made a few other changes. I decided to use some sliced red onion, spices, and spicy brown mustard to the sandwich. I preheated the oven to three hundred degrees and made the sandwich while the oven was preheating.
The directions are simple. Make a sandwich and hold the condiments. Then wrap the sandwich in foil and put it in the oven for about ten minutes. Wait until the cheese has melted and the bread gets toasty then take out of the oven. Cut in half and serve with soup. I chose Progresso’s Tomato basil soup to go with the Cuban.
After the sandwich cooled off, I added some of the mustard and mayo mix to the sandwich. It was really good and I especially enjoyed the soup and glass of milk I had with it.
I really liked saving money this week on my food bill. A few times I already skipped the drive through window and opted to use ingredients I already have for a fresh lunch or dinner. I really want to make cooking a habit by being properly prepared to cook at all times.
In order to do that I decided to find what an expert believes are kitchen staples. I went online to one of my favorite websites: realsimple.com and found what they think are the staples to have in a kitchen at all times. Included are: potatoes, shrimp, flour, olive oil, brown rice, pasta, pasta sauce, and red wine vinegar. Along with these staples, they gave recipes that one can make from these staples.
I have already made shrimp jambalaya for this blog so I think I will try and challenge myself to make something different with shrimp and brown rice. Maybe I can add some Asian flavors and make some sort of shrimp stir-fry.
One thing I’ve learned about cooking is that I like mixing up the ingredients to suit my tastes. You can follow the recipe to a point, but there is no recipe police and you are able to make any recipe your own original by making a few tweaks. It felt empowering to do this because I had always feared that if I didn’t follow the recipe exactly my meal would turn out awful. Then, I thought if my meal turns out awful, who cares? Next, time at least I will know what NOT to do.
Also, I turned on the Food Channel last night and watched a segment Paula Deen had. I noticed that everything she did wasn’t perfect and I really liked that. Usually the cook on TV has everything perfectly measured out and perfectly whips and chops all of their ingredients, but she was different. She was genuine. I don’t believe that her food suffers by spilling a couple drops of milk or doing something small on accident. By observing this I got a sense that to these professional cooks, cooking is their creative outlet. I’m sure Paula Deen has made some food that she wouldn’t serve and that she also experiments with. Experiences like these make for a better-rounded cook and hopefully that is where I’m headed.
The sandwich was called a Cuban. It consisted of break, turkey, ham or chicken, pickle, cheese, and mustard/mayo mixture all wrapped in foil and slow cooked in the oven. I remember how good they were and decided to recreate it last night.
I decided to make mine with turkey and ham and made a few other changes. I decided to use some sliced red onion, spices, and spicy brown mustard to the sandwich. I preheated the oven to three hundred degrees and made the sandwich while the oven was preheating.
The directions are simple. Make a sandwich and hold the condiments. Then wrap the sandwich in foil and put it in the oven for about ten minutes. Wait until the cheese has melted and the bread gets toasty then take out of the oven. Cut in half and serve with soup. I chose Progresso’s Tomato basil soup to go with the Cuban.
After the sandwich cooled off, I added some of the mustard and mayo mix to the sandwich. It was really good and I especially enjoyed the soup and glass of milk I had with it.
I really liked saving money this week on my food bill. A few times I already skipped the drive through window and opted to use ingredients I already have for a fresh lunch or dinner. I really want to make cooking a habit by being properly prepared to cook at all times.
In order to do that I decided to find what an expert believes are kitchen staples. I went online to one of my favorite websites: realsimple.com and found what they think are the staples to have in a kitchen at all times. Included are: potatoes, shrimp, flour, olive oil, brown rice, pasta, pasta sauce, and red wine vinegar. Along with these staples, they gave recipes that one can make from these staples.
I have already made shrimp jambalaya for this blog so I think I will try and challenge myself to make something different with shrimp and brown rice. Maybe I can add some Asian flavors and make some sort of shrimp stir-fry.
One thing I’ve learned about cooking is that I like mixing up the ingredients to suit my tastes. You can follow the recipe to a point, but there is no recipe police and you are able to make any recipe your own original by making a few tweaks. It felt empowering to do this because I had always feared that if I didn’t follow the recipe exactly my meal would turn out awful. Then, I thought if my meal turns out awful, who cares? Next, time at least I will know what NOT to do.
Also, I turned on the Food Channel last night and watched a segment Paula Deen had. I noticed that everything she did wasn’t perfect and I really liked that. Usually the cook on TV has everything perfectly measured out and perfectly whips and chops all of their ingredients, but she was different. She was genuine. I don’t believe that her food suffers by spilling a couple drops of milk or doing something small on accident. By observing this I got a sense that to these professional cooks, cooking is their creative outlet. I’m sure Paula Deen has made some food that she wouldn’t serve and that she also experiments with. Experiences like these make for a better-rounded cook and hopefully that is where I’m headed.
