On Sandwiches and Such

Tonight’s guest post comes from my brother in law, Kevin, who writes a DIY home improvement blog. I am so excited to share this post with you because Kevin was very apprehensive about doing a food blog post – you’re going to love it! I am also guest posting for Kevin right now over at My Dad’s Shoes all about our home renovations from a woman’s perspective. You don’t want to miss it!

I suppose I should start with a warning.

I’m not really the clean-eating type.  I do try to some extent.  I haven’t had any fast food in almost 8 years.  Except Chick-fil-a.  I mean, come on.  It’s Chick-fil-a.  The only meat we have in the house is ground turkey and chicken breasts.  I take a multivitamin.  I switched to (mainly) decaf.  I drink lots of water.   But… I also drink lots of beer.  And I like a steak now and then.  Oh, and pizza is not a kind friend to me, but I am the best of friends to it.  So if you struggle with dietary limitations and reading about my lack of them would be upsetting, feel free to stop now.  No hard feelings.

Ok, so a little about me.  I’m Kevin.  I blog at My Dad’s Shoes about manly stuff like home improvement and yard work.  My wife, Dani, chimes in occasionally.  You’ll probably like her posts more.  I moved away from the family stomping grounds of the Midwestern plains at 18 to join the Navy, where I went everyone and did stuff.  I deployed for Afghanistan, spent some time in Iraq, got tired of it, moved to Maryland, married a native, bought a house, and have found some sense of contentment in staying in one place for a change.

 

 

 

I had a little trouble finding a picture I was ok with, so I picked two that are such polar opposites, it’s unlikely that any clear conclusions can be drawn about me from them.  The identity you’re most likely to click with, however, is this one: Chelsey’s husband is my brother; and we’re Dutch.

 

(It wasn’t very good)

 

I would never read a blog like Chelsey’s if it wasn’t for the familial relation, but I’m happy I do.  I feel I know her pretty well from her ramblings.  Come to think of it, though… that’s a little creepy.  When she asked for volunteers to do guest posts, I thought about skipping it, since it’s likely we have so little in common, you and I.  But I decided to give it a try, and so here is my tongue-in-cheek attempt at a post on cooking.

 

Last winter, I redid my kitchen.  Allow me a quick before/after to brag.

 

 

 

So it only makes sense, of course, that I would use my nice new kitchen to do a food post on sandwiches.  I love sandwiches.  Love them.  They are cheap, easy to make, usually not horribly unhealthy, and have a huge variety of flavors.  Today, I was putting in a vaulted ceiling at my Father-in-law’s house in the morning, and working on building some furniture in the afternoon.  In between the two, I made a typical weekend lunch, but I added some sautéed asparagus to liven it up.  Asparagus is a recent addition to my list of delicious vegetables.  I made them first to snack on while I made my sandwich.

 

 

I started by putting just enough water in the pan to not quite cover the asparagus, and then boiled them for about 3 or 4 minutes.  I shocked them with some cold water from the sink before letting them simmer in some EVOO for a few minutes.  I mixed in some pepper and garlic salt (sea salt also works very well) and rolled them around a bit.  I don’t really have any metric to determine if they’re done… it’s a crap shoot.

 

 

 

 

This was the third time this week I’ve made this dish for myself.  To be honest, they didn’t turn out very good this time.  A little too chewy; probably over-boiled.  When done right, they have this great crunch in the middle and I just love it.

 

The center piece for my lunch was the sandwich, though. I pulled some American Cheese, Olive Oil-based Mayo, natural turkey breast, an egg, and some lettuce out of the fridge and toasted some bread.  Oh, and this.  This is critically important.

 

 

I simply cannot overstate the awesomeness of Old Bay.  Below is a short list of some things I’ve recently put it on.

• Grilled Cheese
• Popcorn
• French Fries
• Mac-n-cheese
• Chicken
• Crab Cakes (duh)
• Veggies!

 

It works on everything.  You could sprinkle this on just about any healthy food and it would become a dance party in your mouth.  It’s also a critical part of local culture.  It makes an appearance at every single Orioles home game in the form of the Crab Shuffle Game.

 

 

I have to smell things.  It’s a thing.  I don’t know what to tell you.

 

 

 

The turkey smells fine.  The Old Bay is applied liberally.  After my less-than-stellar Asparagus, things are starting to look up.

 

Another little something I sometimes enjoy on a sandwich is a fried egg.  I’m supposed to be cutting my cholesterol down, but for the sake of demonstration, I did one today.  There is likely some cooking implement that will fry an egg in the proper size for a sandwich, but if there is, I don’t have it.  So here’s how I did it.

 

 

 

 

Once cooked and on the sandwich, I grabbed a beer out of the fridge.  This beer is a home brew from a friend of mine.  It’s bacon beer, and quite delicious.  It has just a hint of smoky bacon flavor in it. 

 

 

And there is the enviable spread.  I should admit that taking pictures of food is not a normal thing for me, and I burnt two pieces of toast because I was too busy gathering images of things.   I woofed it down, did the dishes, and headed back out to the shop.

 

Well, I hope you had fun.  I promise to not stray into food-blogging very often.  I’m always looking for more DIY fun, so if you know of any good ones, let me know!

 

PS… if you didn’t click ‘dance party’, go back and do it.  I like aerobic-robot.

Question: What is your favorite sandwich?

Tagged as: asparagus, guest post series, Kevin @ My Dad's Shoes, sandwich