Russian dressing is never anything I actually put on a salad but I do like it on sandwiches periodically, particularly Reuben sandwiches. And I figure lots of folks might be having Reuben sandwiches tomorrow with their leftover corned beef from their St Patrick’s day dinner tonight. I just skipped the whole plain boiled dinner and made Reuben sandwiches tonight, after cooking the corned beef brisket in a Crockpot (affiliate link) all day.

For the corned beef, I put some carrots in the bottom of the Crock Pot , mainly for flavoring. I used the seasoning packet that came with it, put a bottle of beer in and topped it off with water until the brisket was covered and cooked on low all day. Came out great.

This recipe is courtesy of How to Cook Everything, one of my most oft-referred to cookbooks
and makes just under 1 cup of Russian dressing, which should keep in the refrigerator for a week or so if well covered.

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 Tbs red wine vinegar (or lemon juice)
• 1 dash of dry mustard powder
• 1 Tbs minced fresh onion
• salt and pepper to taste

Mix it all together and voila, there’s your Russian dressing.

I made the Reuben sandwiches on our George Foreman grill with:

• rye bread, 1 piece spread with Dijon mustard and the other with Russian dressing
• thinly sliced corned beef
• sliced Swiss cheese
• sauerkraut

Spread butter on the outside of the bread, then place on the grill or in a skillet and cook until heated through and the cheese is melted and yummy.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

My youngest loves pulled pork sandwiches and asked that I add them to the menu this week. The pork shoulder was not on sale, but even so, it’s still very cheap per serving.

I’ve got a couple of different recipes for pulled pork. This had a less tomato-ey base than I’d hoped for so I’d love to hear your recipes!  Still, this was good! Especially so with the homemade hamburger buns I made.

• 1 T oil
• 2 chopped onions
• 6 minced garlic cloves
• 1 T chili powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 12 oz chili sauce (1 small bottle)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 T Worcestershire
• 3 lb. pork shoulder

Heat the oil in a skillet while you chop the onions. Add the garlic when it’s chopped and cook until the onions are soft, 5 minutes or so. Add the chili powder, black pepper, chili sauce, brown sugar, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer, stirring. Turn off the heat.

There’s usually a large piece of fat covering the bottom of the pork shoulder. Cut that off and discard. There’s  plenty of other fat in the roast to keep it all moist!  Put the roast in the Crockpot.  Pour the sauce over the top and turn to either low or high, depending on how long you have.

High will take about  6 hours.

Low will take 6-12 hours depending on how new your slow cooker is! (New ones cook at a higher heat and will take less time.

I always turn my roast over about halfway through, just so it’s all getting cooked in the sauce.

When it’s done, use two forks to turn it into shreds, pulling the meat apart in the slow cooker or pulling chunks out onto a plate if that’s easier. Let the pulled pork simmer in the sauce until you’re ready to eat.

Serve atop homemade hamburger buns or some other split bread or bun.

Goes great with coleslaw. Here a few of my favorites:

• Corn and Cabbage Salad
• Coleslaw with Peppers but no Mayonnaise

I just realized I haven’t posted my standard mayonnaise based coleslaw recipe!

Tuna Melts

Bad picture but good tuna melts! A good friend sent me some English Muffins from Wolferman’s for Christmas. We started working together, whoa, something like 23 years ago I think and got along great.  Then  I quit work for a while to stay home with my kids and we drifted apart but still stayed in modest touch. Then she had her kids and quit work, but around that time  I was divorced and a single mom so the opportunities to get together were slim, although we still managed at least a yearly something I think. Just the past year or so, we’ve reconnected on a more regular basis for lunch and it’s been great.

And what a treat these muffins are! Big thick hearty fresh muffins.  We’ve been enjoying them from breakfast and I froze some for later. Tonight my youngest asked for tuna melts for dinner and I thought to use up the last of the “original” flavored muffins.

For 4 large English muffins, mix together:

• 12 ounces canned tuna, packed in water, drained
• enough mayonnaise to moisten
• capers if you like (my kids don’t, so I just add a few capers to mine

Toast the English muffins while you preheat your broiler and mix up the tuna.

Line a small baking sheet with foil for easy cleanup and put the toasted muffin halves on it, then divide the tuna among the muffins and spread out. (I had some leftover so you could easily do 6 halves. We only ate 1 each of these, along with some broccoli and cheese sauce.)

Top the adult portions with capers. Top each muffin half with a good slice of Cheddar cheese. If you added capers to any, add a caper or two to the top of the cheese so you can tell which have capers in them after they’re cooked!

Slide under the broiler for a few minutes, until the tuna is warmed and the cheese is melted.

We’ve got one leftover which one child has claimed for lunch tomorrow.

Black Bean Burgers

I don’t watch cooking shows very often, but these black bean burgers on Sandra Lee’s Money Saving Recipes were intrigued me. My parents came down on Wednesday to stay with us so my mom and I could start on Thanksgiving preparations. I knew they are always willing to try new foods and enjoy low fat recipes so I decided to try them out on my parents!  We agreed the flavor was wonderful but the burgers definitely fell apart. I was using sliced sourdough toast rather than hamburger buns so perhaps I made the burgers a bit larger than could easily bind. I might try making smaller burgers next time or adding more binding (more breadcrumbs and maybe more egg).

• 1/2 an onion, chopped
• 2-3 cloves garlic, chopped (about 1 Tbs)
• 2 (15-ounce) cans black beans, rinsed, drained and divided
• 2 Tbs chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 tsp chopped fresh parsley
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup  bread crumbs
• Salt and pepper to taste

Her recipe makes enough for about 6 burgers or you can set some of the mixture aside and make black bean echiladas or tacos later.

Put the onion in a food processor and pulse a few times until chopped. Add one can of the black beans (rinsed and drained), cilantro, parsley, egg and red pepper. Pulse a few times so the beans are mashed but not totally smooth. Move this mix into a bowl, add the bread crumbs and the other can of drained and rinsed black beans.  Mix together, adding the salt and pepper to taste as you combine everything.

Preheat your grill and form the mixture into roughly 6 patties (or set aside however much you’d like for enchiladas or tacos).  Cook 3-4 minutes on a George Foreman grill.  Serve on a tasted bun or bread with the condiments of your choice. We had lettuce, mustard, sliced tomato and pickles.

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I served these with another batch of sweet potato fries, which came out awesome again. My parents loved both dishes.  Hardly a recipe but I peeled up some sweet potatoes and cut into thin strips by slicing the potato length-wise into about 1/4″ to 1/2″ slices, then stacking those slices and cutting length-wise again to form the fries.  Put these in a bowl and coat lightly with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt, cinnamon and paprika.

Bake on a jelly roll pan at 425 for about 30 minutes, checking periodically and stirring a bit.

I had a few nights this week where it was just me for dinner!  Wow. Not used to cooking for one.  I had some ham so both nights ended making ham paninis with various fixings and a simple green salad with tomatoes from the garden.

Ham Panini with Roasted Red Peppers and Cheddar Cheese

First up was a Panini sandwich with some thinly sliced ham, roasted red peppers, mustard, and cheddar cheese. I think that was all but this was a few days ago. Unlike most of my posts, I didn’t note the recipe but DID take a picture! I was just rooting through the frig to see what would taste good.

I just used sweet French bread rolls, not a ciabatta loaf as usually called for in Paninis. And I made these in my very simple George Foreman Grill, Black.

When the sandwich is done. unplug the grill and then put a wet paper towel or washable cloth on it and close the lid. The steam will clean that grill in no time!

Ham Panini with Basil and Jack Cheese

Next up was the same ham, but this time with a honey mustard, some balsamic vinegar on one side, some jack cheese and some fresh basil from the garden. I was going to put some sweet pickled peppers on it but I couldn’t find them in the pantry  so opted for the last of the roasted red peppers again. Different with the basil and jack cheese, more mild and sweet somehow.

Both made a great simple meal with a simple tossed salad. I usually think of sandwiches as lunchtime affairs but don’t really want to cook at lunch, so these were a nice treat.

A dinner of leftovers tonight. I can hardly cook when the doorbell keeps ringing!

First, I had some leftover Sort of Mexican Chicken Soup.  I added a large spoonful of this avocado pico del gallo and some crushed tortilla chips. Mmm!

I also used the last of the cooked chicken to make a chicken salad sandwich.  I am totally guessing at the measurements just to give any new cooks a starting place. You must taste and adjust!

• 1 cup diced cooked chicken
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1-2 Tbs sweet pickle relish
• 2-3 Tbs mayonnaise
• 1-2 tsp Dijon mustard
• a dash of sweet curry powder
• a dash of salt

I toasted up some sliced sourdough for the sandwich part. Had I wanted a salad without the bread I might have added some diced apples and/or diced grapes.  I kept the curry powder very light. I just wanted a hint of it.  Really quite nice!\

Oh, and I don’t mean to imply this only made one sandwich!  There is more chicken salad for tomorrow!

Meatball sandwich

In truth, there’s hardly a recipe for a meatball sandwich. At its simplest, you take a French or hoagie roll, put a few meatballs on it, ladle some spaghetti sauce on it and eat.

If you want to get a bit fancier, you’d use your own homemade meatballs. My favorite recipe uses ground pork and ground beef, plus cheese.  But if ground pork is hard to find or too expensive, just use all ground beef. These days I prefer to bake them rather than fry them. I make a lot, then flash freeze what i don’t need so I have a handy stash in the freezer.

The other night we had company and I went all out and made Sunday Gravy a la the Soprano’s. I made double the meatballs though and froze the extra sauce and meatballs, plus sent some sauce and sausage and meat home with a guest plus sent some over to the neighbor with a broken leg. The recipe makes a lot!

My youngest has been loving having spaghetti and meatballs for lunch every day this week, although she took a break today. Then she came home and asked if we could have meatball sandwiches for dinner! Ha!  Sure…

I put some meatballs and sauce on the stove to heat up, then took the French rolls and opened them up, spread with some butter, sprinkled with some garlic powder and broiled until crispy.   By then the meatballs and sauce were warmed through. I put 3 meatballs on each French roll, ladled some sauce on top, then put some grated Mozzarella over it and put the sandwiches back under the broiler for a bit.

Mmmm.  We broke with tradition and ate dinner while watching Glee on TV.  Served the sandwiches with a green salad and it was a lovely dinner.  What a great way to use up leftovers.

I made some macaroni and cheese tonight for dinner but felt like we needed a bit more as well, plus I was bringing dinner over to my broken-leg neighbor. I decided on a small panini and brought him some vegetable soup from last night as well.  I had some ham and cheddar cheese as the base for the Panini and added some apple slices, arugula and a dab of maple syrup as well. I made them on English muffins as I just wanted something small.

Each sandwich consisted of:

• one English muffin
• 1 slice of ham, folded over
• a few very thin slices of apple
• thin slices of Cheddar cheese
• a small puddle of maple syrup
• a few leaves of arugula

Layer all this in the English muffin while you’re preheating the grill. Butter the outsides of the English muffin and cook in the Panini grill until warmed through and the cheese is melted.

It came out quite nice! I really liked the crunch of the apple and the arugula kept it from being overly sweet somehow.

I really made too many chicken cutlets the other night. However, they are good simply reheated.  Last night I used some up in a Chicken Divan casserole.  For lunch today, my daughter took a simple salad with some chopped romaine lettuce mixed with Ranch dressing and a chopped chicken cutlet. She loved it.

Today for dinner, I felt like experimenting with a Panini sandwich of some kind using one of the last cutlets, with a simple salad on the side.  This came out really good!  I had a small jar of roasted red peppers in the pantry and used a few of those. I also used up the last of a small jar of mango chutney.  (The raisins are the dark spots you see in the picture.)   I also added a slice of provolone cheese.  The bread wasn’t even very good, a bit stale, but somehow using it for a panini I didn’t even notice!  So for one sandwich:

• 1 French roll or two slices of ciabatta or other hearty bread
• 1 slice of provolone cheese
• 1 leftover  chicken cutlet
• a spread of mayonnaise and mustard
• a spoonful of mango chutney
• a few roasted red pepper slices

Spread the mayonnaise and mustard and chutney on the bread. Lay the chicken cutlet down, then top with the red pepper slices and then the cheese. Spread a bit of butter on the outside of the sandwich and grill until heated through and the cheese is melted.

This came out great! I think the key to good Panini is a) the bread and b) having some little treat tucked into your pantry or frig, like the roasted red peppers and chutney.  I think this would pack up well in a lunchbox and be good at room temperature.

I read Rachel’s Italian Deli Panini recipe and my mouth was watering.  I don’t really know any good Italian deli’s around here and don’t often buy good cold cuts but I went to our Safeway  and picked up some ham, capocolla and salami, plus a jar of artichoke hearts. I had some provolone cheese at home already.

I also picked up a nice loaf of ciabatta, a really good chewy bread.

The artichoke hearts really added a nice tangy touch and the mix of meats was a treat, certainly not one I’d eat every day but awfully dang good!  Now I feel the need to scout out a good Italian deli.

What are your favorite Panini recipes?  My kids like ham and cheese, or quesadillas made in the panini. This Cuban pork sandwich recipe was our first, and perhaps still our favorite.