Leftover Turkey Dinner Sandwiches

Gobble, gobble! 'Tis the season to celebrate big dinners and lots of leftovers!

It’s the time of year when turkey dinners make themselves at home in our kitchens, dining rooms and after all is said and eaten, in our fridges in leftover form. You could enjoy piling up plate after plate of leftovers for the next few lunches and dinners – and there’s nothing wrong with doing just that. Who doesn’t love another meal of mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce?

Or you could compress all that goodness between two thick slices of bread instead.

And from the Tupperware and Pyrex containers of leftovers rises the Leftover Turkey Dinner Sandwich.

I’m not going to pretend the idea for this sandwich creation is uniquely mine because I know for a fact that many people have been enjoying this sandwich for countless post-turkey dinners. It’s probably not as iconic as Grilled Cheese, but it’s up there. At least, it is for me.

It’s hard to describe the sheer pleasure I got a few weeks ago, from pulling out the leftovers from our big Canadian Ex-Pat Thanksgiving Dinner and heaping them together in a huge, delicious mouthful of a sandwich. So tasty, so filling. After your next turkey dinner, I encourage you to do the same.

This was only part of the feast. Potluck dinners are amazing.

You will need:

Sandwich bread, thickly sliced, or a small baguette, ciabatta or sub-style loaf cut lengthwise

Whatever leftovers you have from Turkey Dinner: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, etc.

Mustard and/or mayo, if you so choose

A hearty appetite

Stretchy pants or a belt you can loosen after eating are nice to have too

Stuffing, mustard, cranberries, turkey and bread.

Prep:

1-Spread your chosen condiment(s) on the bread or loaf.

2-Pile on your turkey dinner fixings in any order you choose. My personal favorite is turkey (dark meat, if possible), then stuffing, then topped with cranberries. We almost never have mashed potato leftovers, so I haven’t tried them on the sandwich. Hopefully I will someday.

Ready for stacking and snacking upon.

3-Stack the sandwich closed. This part is a bit messy but worth it.

4-Enjoy with a Cranberry Ginger Ale. If you’re lucky enough to find the real Canada Day stuff, good for you! If not, top up your half-full glass of ginger ale with cranberry juice.

Stacked to perfection.

My sandwich was good and thick and biting into it brought back many memories of Thanksgiving Dinners past: at home with my family in Canada and here in France with seven other families that make up one big combined, extended family. Always great times with great people on both sides of the Atlantic.

A question I’d like to put out there in the blogosphere – to heat or not to heat?

I didn’t heat mine and it tasted just fine, but when my husband made his, he pre-heated the leftovers before assembling his sandwich. It comes down to personal preferences and I’d love to hear your thoughts.

My husband's version, baguette style.

I hope this post gets you inspired with something fun to try after your next turkey dinner. For those of you who aren’t hosting and therefore don’t necessarily get leftovers, I hope your host sends you home with a care-package so the holiday gluttony can last for a few more days. Whether you eat your leftovers heaped on a plate or piled high in a sandwich, the end result should be the same: the satisfied silence of a turkey-dinner coma, complete with a full belly and a loosened belt.

Gobble, gobble, Sandwich Lovers. Eat up!

Ciabatta Goodness

Can you pronounce ciabatta?

It’s a tricky one – the ‘ci’ is actually pronounced like ‘chi’, so to say the name of this lovely bread correctly, try ‘chi-batta’. I actually looked up how to pronounce it – thank you Macmillan Dictionary and your audio clips for pronunciation!

Fresh Ciabatta Goodness!

This sudden attention to the pronunciation of foreign words is a result of the intensive English Teacher training course I recently completed at the International Language Center in Paris. I can now apply for English teaching positions and the world is wide open to me once again!

During my course, I brought my lunch from home as much as possible. This was helpful to save money, since buying lunch everyday can be expensive, and to save time, especially on those afternoons when I was teaching. I often brought homemade sandwiches made with ciabatta bread and stuffed with my favorite sandwich innards: multiple types of meat and cheese, veggies and mustard.

Stacked and Packed!

I can get fresh ciabatta bread  at my local grocery store and one loaf can make multiple sandwiches, depending on the size of my appetite: 3 small or 2 large. Ciabatta is lovely bread, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, with lots of nice little nooks and crannies to hold reserves of mustard. It’s a worthy alternative to the baguette and it makes some pretty amazing sandwiches, both fresh and toasted.

A medley of goodness and ingredients

Possible ingredients for some Ciabatta Goodness include:

Meat: Ham, salami, sausage, roast beef, roast chicken or turkey

Cheese: Emmental, gouda, camembert (so good!)

Veggies: Feuilles de chêne (salad greens), arugula, spinach, avocado, red pepper, tomato, etc.

Condiments: Butter, mustard (multiple kinds in the same sandwich!), mayo

Prep:

1-Cut a fresh ciabatta loaf in half, length wise.

2-Spread butter and/or mustard on the halves, alternating or combining as per your tastes.

3-Pile on your choice(s) of meat(s) and cheese(s).

4-Top with veggies.

5-Assemble the top half of the loaf.

6-Cut to your desired size and number of sandwiches.

7-Serve and enjoy!

One Ciabatta Loaf = Multiple Sandwiches!

To create a tasty toasted ciabatta sandwich, place both halves of the bread (after the meat and cheese are in place, but before adding the veggies) in the oven under the broiler for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat, top with veggies, cut and serve!

Tasty and Toasty Ciabatta Sandwich

This sandwich was a conversation starter among my new classmates during my course and it was extremely filling to eat for lunch. It also works well at sandwich parties or potlucks, where there are lot of fun ingredient combinations to play with. We brought some ciabatta to a recent gathering of sandwich lovers (friends) and they were a big hit there too.

So give it a try with your favorite ingredients and when someone asks you about your sandwich, because they will, tell them it’s all in the ciabatta bread and help them pronounce it correctly.

Just don’t talk with your mouth full!

Upside-down Ciabatta Goodness.

Made In Canada

Happy Summer Sandwich-Lovers, and I hope your Canada Day 2014 was wonderful!

Canada Day has always marked the beginning of summer with some sort of party or BBQ. When I was growing up, my family of teachers would almost always head down to my grandparents’ house in Olds to celebrate the end of the school year and my cousin’s birthday. Now as a teacher myself, I appreciate the gloriousness of July 1 even more and the party/BBQ tradition has continued – I have even hosted! Canada Day is always a great day to get together with friends and family, wear the red and white and eat/drink all in the name of summer and patriotism.

Since my husband and I are moving to France next month, there is a good chance this July 1 marked the last Canada Day we’ll spend in Canada for a while. This upcoming move is definitely an exciting opportunity for us both and the support from our family and friends continues to be amazing.  We are definitely looking forward to the adventure but still, it’s a bit bittersweet.

I am, and always will be, a proud Canadian and moving away from the True North Strong and Free won’t change that. We will find new ways to celebrate - there’s a rumor that the Eiffel Tower is lit up red and white on July 1 – and we’ll make new traditions. But I am certain there’s one thing that will never change, regardless of where we are and that’s the tradition of eating great food with great people.

To mark this special Canada Day, I made a delicious sandwich of all-Canadian ingredients and my favorite Oh Canada Cookies.  Enjoy!

All-Canadian Ingredients for this sandwich!

The Made In Canada Sandwich needs:

Dempster’s Whole Grain Canadian Bread

Maple Leaf Natural Selections Turkey and Ham

Maple Leaf Bacon

Sobey’s Sensations Canadian Cheddar

French’s Mustard (not actually a Canadian brand but it works to honour French as one of our official languages)

Mayo

Lettuce and Radishes (from our own garden!)  

Prep:

1-Cook the bacon according to your preference for crispy/soft. Drain on paper towels and set aside. (Remember, don’t pour the grease down the sink!)

2-Toast the bread.

3-Spread the mustard on one piece of bread, the mayo on the other.

4-Layer on the turkey, ham, cheddar and bacon.

5-Top with radish slices and lettuce.

6-Slice and serve with some Oh Canada Cookies and your favorite cold beverage.

The recipe for the Oh Canada Cookies is a basic sugar cookie recipe from an old issue of Inspired, the free magazine Sobey’s used to put out a few times a year. I like this recipe because it’s really simple and easy to adapt to make other kinds of sugar-cookie type cookies.

All these Maple Leaves need is their red!

You will need:

2 butter sticks, or 1 cup of butter, softened (I leave the butter out for several hours to get really soft)

1 cup white sugar

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 egg (the original recipe says it should be warmed to room temperature, but I don’t think it makes a huge difference either way)

2 ½ cups of flour

Electric or stand mixer

Cookie Prep:

1-Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth.

2-Add the egg and continue mixing*.

*It’s very important to add the egg BEFORE you mix in the flour. I learned this the hard way and ended up with very flaky and crumbly dough. It ended up being alright eventually, but it meant I had to spend more time kneading the dough so it wouldn’t crumble when I tried to roll it out.

3-Add the flour and mix until a dough forms.

4-Knead the dough in the bowl with flour-covered hands until smooth.

5-Place dough ball in a covered bowl and chill for at least 20 minutes.

6-Roll dough out to desired thickness. (Some people like to cover the dough in parchment paper to do this. It’s up to you.)

7-Use a Maple Leaf cookie cutter to cut out the beautiful cookies. Leave some space between each cookie on your baking sheet  

8-Bake at 350F in the middle of the oven for 10-12 minutes.

9-Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely before decorating.

Oh Canada Cookies with red maple butter cream icing.

While the cookies bake, make the Red Maple Butter Cream Icing:

1-Mix ½ cup softened butter with 2 cups icing sugar.

2-Add ½ tsp maple syrup (more if you like!) and 2 Tbsp milk or water.

3-Mix until desired smoothness; add more icing sugar or liquid if required and 3-4 drops of red food colouring.

To 'set' the icing, I recommend chilling the cookies in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

The sandwiches and cookies were devoured while we watched the newest music video from Canada’s favorite astronaut, Col. Chris Hadfield and his brother Dave. If you haven't seen it yet, you're in for a treat! 

Then, we went to Telus Field to watch the Edmonton Prospects baseball game with some friends. Our seats also gave us prime view of the fireworks and the much anticipated light-up of the Highlevel Bridge.  What a show!

It was a spectacular summer night celebrating this amazing country that I will always call my home no matter where I am.  Next summer, we will celebrate Canada Day in Europe. We’ll wear our red and white, we’ll play some Rush or Tragically Hip, and we’ll be with friends - Canadian and European.  I hope they will enjoy this small taste of Canada.

I hope you enjoy it too. Je t’aime, Canada! Cheers!

Made in Canada Sandwich and Oh Canada Cookies.

Thinking Outside the Bread Box - The Bagel

Fresh from my inaugural visit to the New York Bagel Café, I am inspired by bagels and their sandwich-making possibilities!

  

Toasted, untoasted, with cream cheese, jelly, butter or bare, open or closed faced - what I love about bagels is how limitless they are!

Check out any bagel shelf of any bakery and chances are you won’t see just one kind of bagel - there’s whole wheat, sesame, cinnamon-raisin, pumpernickel, poppy-seed, onion...full-sized or mini...assorted. It’s so hard to choose just one kind!

Exquisite Hendrickson Bagels!

Thankfully, the Everything bagel takes care of that. 

With a crispy topping of poppy-seeds, chunks of garlic and onions, it really does have a bit of everything, just like the name suggests. It’s great with plain butter or cream cheese alone, or piled high with meat, cheese, veggies or all of the above. It is definitely my go-to bagel but for this bagel-sandwich to be truly blog-worthy, it couldn’t be just any Everything bagel…

It had to be a Hendrickson Bagel, known more generally as an Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market Bagel!

I love the Farmer’s Market bagels! You may have to fight your way through the packed Saturday-morning crowds to get their stall, but once you do, they are so worth it! They are fresh from Sherwood Park, contain no artificial additives and no nuts! So stock up on these beauties, my fellow nut-allergy people!  Eat them with total peace of mind!

The Hendrickson version of the Everything Bagel is simply titled ‘Onion, Garlic, Sesame, Poppy’ and they have big hunks of all these great things on their golden tops. They smell so good and are soft and chewy, even when toasted. Eat them within three days of buying, or pre-slice and freeze them to extend their shelf life.  And don’t forget to grab an exciting flavor of fresh cream cheese while you’re there!

From the six bagels I bought, two had the honour of becoming beautiful sandwiches of different varieties: two open-faced, one closed.  All three are delicious bagel options I am proud to recommend to you!

2 Bagels, 3 Different Bagel-Sandwiches needs:

-2 Bagels

-Mustard

-Mayo

-Spicy pastrami

-Smoked prosciutto

-Provolone

-Strong Cheddar

-Hot Banana Peppers

-Cream cheese: spinach and feta from Hendrickson’s and the plain Philadelphia kind

-Carrots, shredded

-Red Pepper, sliced

-Red Pepper and Garlic Jelly (mine was homemade by my mother-in-law! Check out the jams and jellies at Anneliese’s Crafts at the Farmer’s Market for something similar.)

-Fresh-ground Pepper and Sea Salt

Toasted bagel, two meats and two cheeses goodness!

#1 -Toasted Pastrami, Prosciutto, Cheddar and Provolone

1-Slice a bagel and spread one half with mustard and mayo

2-Pile on the spicy pastrami, provolone, prosciutto and cheddar

3-Toast both halves in the toaster oven on medium, until cheese is melted and the other bagel half is golden brown

4-Add some hot banana peppers, combine the bagel halves, cut and enjoy!

This is a very nice combination of spicy, smokey and salty meat with the sharp provolone and strong cheddar. The peppers add some heat to a pleasantly warm and gooey blend of meat and cheese.  

#2 and #3 - Open-Faced Veggie and Meat Bagels:

Veggie:

1-Toast the bagel

2-Spread one half with a thick layer of spinach and feta cream cheese

3-Top with shredded carrot and slices of red pepper

4-Sprinkle some fresh ground pepper and sea salt on top

Meat:

1-Spread one half with plain cream cheese

2-Top with red pepper and garlic jelly

3-Fold a piece of prosciutto and place on the cream cheese and jelly spread

4-Enjoy!

The cream cheese has big pieces of spinach, which adds a different texture to this bagel.  The spinach and feta is a bold flavor combo that’s balanced out by the crisp veggies. The pepper and salt on top add a nice tang to the vegetables as well.  A thick slice of beefsteak tomato would also do nicely instead of, or in addition to, the red pepper. 

Can't go wrong with half veggie, half meat!

On the meat half, the jelly is both sweet and spicy and works well with the smoky prosciutto. The cream cheese and jelly melt well together on the toasted bagel half, so it’s a bit of a gooey, and chewy but tasty mess. 

So for your next sandwich, bypass the standard bread and go for something a bit different instead. These three bagel sandwiches show that with some creativity in mixing and combining your ingredients, you can have your bagel and eat it too!

Some extra Bagel facts to snack on:

-The bagel’s holey design suggests a desire to make this kind of food easily transportable as “it's possible to thread such a roll on a stick or a string” and take it to-go. (A Short History of The Bagel, www.slate.com)

-Bagels are boiled and then baked, a process which helps them to last longer because their exteriors become harder than other breads. (A Short History of The Bagel, www.slate.com)

-Bagels are delicious but slicing them can also cause severe injuries if you’re not careful!  Apparently, “1,979 people [went to emergency rooms] with BRI (bagel related injuries)…in 2008”!  (Newman, Barry. To Keep the Finger Out of Finger Food, Inventors Seek a Better Bagel Cutter, The Wall Street Journal, December 2009)

-If you enjoy kitchen gadgets, you may want to invest in a bagel slicer to minimize your risk of BRI. But if slicing a bagel without one really makes you feel alive, at least be smart about it and don’t hold it in your hand while you cut!  Place it on a flat surface, hold it down with one hand and carefully slice through the bagel horizontally. (http://homecooking.about.com/)

Green Eggs and Ham Sandwich

Classic Dr. Seuss: try something new and you may like it!

Do you like Green Eggs and Ham?

Let’s go make some, Blog-I-Am! 

March 2, 2014, marked the late, great Dr. Seuss’ 110^th Birthday!  He was born Theodor Seuss Geisel and is still beloved by children and adults alike around the world for his quirky, imaginative and surprisingly profound children’s books. 

When I think back on some of my ‘learning to read’ memories, Dr. Seuss is there, right along with Robert Munsch, Shel Silverstein and Beatrix Potter. Green Eggs and Ham was a classic (probably because I was such a picky eater) and we always watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas during the holidays. The speech of the valedictorian of my high school graduating class was even interspersed with excerpts from Oh, The Places You’ll Go. There was not a dry-eye in the house...

Dr. Seuss has been part of my journey through childhood, young-adulthood, auntie-hood and teacher-hood. As an auntie to two amazing little boys, we’ve spent hours reading aloud together and nothing is more fun than stumbling through the tongue-twister masterpiece Fox in Socks while a little four year-old giggles uncontrollably! Even the older kids in my life love to get ‘Seussified’, like the Junior High students I directed in The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet, the Drama 7 class that brought The Lorax to life, and the English 10 class who enjoyed listening to Green Eggs and Ham. Those almost-too-cool high school students didn't even notice they’d transformed back into kids while I read to them.  Plus, it helped them understand the tricky concept of theme.

To honor the birthday of the man whose books hold a special place in my heart, as they do in the hearts of so many others (Beatrix Potter herself included!), I was inspired to recreate the most famous, oddly-colourful food in sandwich form: Green Eggs and Ham!

You do not like them. So you say.

Try them! Try them! And you may.

Green Eggs and Ham ingredients!

For this Special Literary Lunch, you will need:

Eggs (for two sandwiches, I used four eggs)

Ham

Sandwich Bread, toasted

Chopped Green Pepper

Fresh Dill, finely chopped

Green Food-Colouring (a few drops)

Mustard

Mayo

Ground Pepper

Swiss cheese (for the Mouse, while you enjoy it in your House)

How to make them here or there, how to make them anywhere:

1 – Crack the eggs in a skillet over medium-heat.

2 – Keep them moving by constantly stirring them in the skillet to avoid burning/sticking and add the green pepper and dill.

3 – Squeeze a few drops of the green food colouring onto the eggs while they’re still runny and keep stirring them to set the colour.

4 – Divide the eggs into sandwich portions and remove from heat. Bread should be toasted now to avoid drying out.

5 – Spread some mayo and mustard on the toasted bread and place the eggs and cheese on one slice.

6 – Arrange the ham (the damn ham, as Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird might say) on the other slice and sprinkle with dill. (Or if you want to dye your ham green too, go for it!)

7 – Assemble the sandwich and slice for easy eating.

Seuss-tacular! 

Ready for lunch! Munch, munch, munch!

The crisp, faintly bitter flavor of the green pepper contrasts nicely with the sweet, slightly tangy taste of the dill – much like the up-beat, optimistic Sam-I-Am and his bitter counterpart. The melted cheese and the sharp tinge of mustard combine with the other ingredients at just the right moments; just as the profound themes of Dr. Seuss’ stories don’t overpower the plot, they are subtle, yet truthful.

Plus it’s just so much fun to eat a Green Eggs and Ham sandwich! My inner four year-old was giggling along with my adult-self.

You can eat them in a box, with a fox, in a house, with a mouse. 

You can eat them here or there, you can eat them anywhere!

If you try Green Eggs and Ham, you may like them, Blog-I-Am!

I do so like Green Eggs and Ham!

Some fun, little-known facts about Dr. Seuss:

*He wrote Green Eggs and Ham on a bet with his publisher that he could write a book using only 50 different words.  He won when it was published in 1960 and it remains one of his best-selling books.

*If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, introduces the word nerd. Thanks, Doc!

*Many of Dr. Seuss’ books have a political bent: Yertle the Turtle, 1958, opposes tyrannical dictators, The Sneetches and Other Stories, 1961, decries racism and Antisemitism and The Lorax, 1971, warns of the dangers of exploiting the environment.

*Due to its political themes, The Lorax has been on the American Library Association’s Annual List of Banned Books.  Who knew?

*Dr. Seuss was awarded in the Pultizer Prize in 1984.

For more Seuss titles and info, check out:

http://www.seussville.com/

https://www.epl.ca/

Happy Reading and Eating!

Epic Sandwich Party!

Planning a party is usually one of two potential things: it’s really fun or it’s really stressful. There’s a lot to do and never enough time and dealing with the food aspect is usually the biggest source of stress. I wasn’t sure what to do for my recent 30^th birthday, but when it became an Epic Sandwich Party, all stress went right out the window - right along with my 20's!

Epic Sandwich of stacked proportions!

The rules of the Epic Sandwich Party are just like those that govern general sandwich creation: there are no rules! Any kind of sandwich can be created with a few key ingredients and this creative freedom brings out the fun – and sometimes weird – tastes of your guests.  Plus having your guests make their own sandwich masterpieces takes all the cooking pressure off you, the host, so you can spend more time mingling and partying with your people!

Three Major Reasons Why Epic Sandwich Parties Rock:

1-You can’t please everyone, but everyone can please themselves:

The dollop of grainy mustard makes this sandwich epic!

Let’s face it – if you try to plan your party’s menu so everyone is consistently happy, you’re in for a disappointing evening. People’s tastes are too different and with so many different eating styles (vegetarian, vegan) and/or food restrictions (gluten-free, allergies, etc.), coming up with something that everyone can eat is pretty near impossible. But an Epic Sandwich Party empowers everyone to please themselves. If you provide variety in meat, bread, veggie and side options (I’ll get to the Shopping List in a moment), you are appealing to broad tastes and letting your guests get more specific for themselves. You might not think that toasted rye bread with raspberry jam and sharp cheddar tastes good (it really does, just so you know!), but you don’t have to because your guests will think up their own food and everyone’s happy because they take care of themselves.

It's enormous! Or is it...?

2-Epic Sandwich Parties are Very Kid-Friendly:

There are lots of kids in our circle of friends and family and I wanted them to feel welcome. An Epic Sandwich Party is a fun and super easy way to include the little ones in the festivities.  Kids love sandwiches!  And getting to make their own can appeal to even the pickiest of eaters. My six-year old nephew made the first sandwich of the party and he was so excited to have that honor. I pointed out the different choices he had and he considered each one thoughtfully before putting together a Roast Beast (beef), Cheese and Ketchup Sandwich. It was just what he wanted! All the kids at our party seemed to have fun building their own sandwiches, which made their parents happy and able to have fun too!

3-The prep is so minimal, it’s hardly prep!

Just stock up on sandwich essentials, add some general party junk food, chill the drinks and you’re good to go! Have some napkins, plates and cups standing by and let everyone be inspired to create their own sandwich greatness.

You can’t go wrong with this basic Shopping List for your Epic Sandwich Party:

So many tasty ingredients!

Bread: 3-4 different kinds, such as:

Basic Sourdough

Rye (dark and light)

Multi-grain

Buns (my Dad brought his special homemade buns and they did not last long!)

Meat: Variety is key!

Turkey breast, like Lilydale’s seasoned and roasted turkey breast slices

Roast Beef

Montreal Smoked Brisket

Spicy Capocolo

Smoked Prosciutto

Bacon

Turkey, sliced applies and sharp cheddar!

Veggies/Fruits:

Lettuce (spinach and mixed greens)

Tomatoes

Peppers

Onions

Mushrooms

Granny Smith Apples, thinly sliced

Sprouts

Avocados

Cheese:

Sharp Cheddar

Mozza

Jalapeno Havarti

Goat Cheese

Grilled roast beef, mushrooms, and 3 kinds of cheese!

Condiments:

Mustards (plain yellow, spicy, grainy, Dijon, Honey, Cranberry)

Mayo (plain and Dill)

Butter

Pickles

Banana Peppers

Ketchup

Hummus

Sides:

Potato chips (your favorite kinds!)

Veggies and Dips (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower)

Grapes

Potato salad

Drinks:

Root Beer

Orange Pop

Coke

(just add ice cream for floats!)

...and don't forget real beer for the adults!

Special Equipment:

Skillet/Grill for those who want a grilled sandwich experience

This party wouldn't have been complete
without an Epic Sandwich Birthday Cake! 

Dessert:

Cupcakes

Ice Cream

...and Epic Sandwich Birthday Cake!

Convinced now? I hope so! Our guests had fun building their own epic sandwiches and we did too! For your next gathering, forget the planning stress and throw an Epic Sandwich Party instead!