Saturday Sandwich 13: Muffaletta + We're moving!

I'd never heard of this one before but apparently it was invented by a grocer in the French Quarter who saw Sicilian workers buying the ingredients separately for their lunch then created this sandwich to make it easier for them to eat it all. Or to make lots of money from them, one of those! It's basically several different cheeses and meats layered in focaccia bread and topped with an olive salad.


Ingredients: black and green olives, capers, sun-dried tomatoes, red onion, anchovies, olive oil, salami,  mortadella, ham, swiss cheese, provolone and focaccia bread.

Chopping up the ingredients for the olive salad part was interesting. You chop up the olives, onion, capers, anchovies and sun-dried tomatoes to mix together. It felt like I was chopping up all the worst smelling, strong tasting foods I could find to make some kind of poison mixture for my worst enemy. Except the sun-dried tomatoes, they're manna from heaven!

Next you cut open the focaccia and remove some of the bread to make room for the grotesque amount of fillings you're going to put inside. Brush it with some olive oil. Layer the cheeses and meats alternately on the bread. We had to do a bit of substituting with the provolone and mortadella as we couldn't find them.

Spread the olive salad liberally on the top.

Slice in half so you can see the fancy layering effect and then serve. We also added a Lindt egg each, it is Easter after all :D

I didn't know what to expect from the flavour of this sandwich but the last thing I thought was that it'd be good. All the strong flavoured foods seem to be milder when mixed together. The olive salad was a nice texture to go with the smooth cheeses and meats. The most striking thing about this sandwich is how filling it is. The bread is really dense so combined with 6 layers of fillings and a layer of olive salad it's a meal in itself. We made two sandwiches each but only ate one. We still had room for the Lindt egg though!

Ratings: JD - 4/5 Emma - 3/5

WE'RE MOVING!

It's pretty exciting. Especially for the kids as they've never lived anywhere else but here. We've lived on this street since 1996!! We're moving next Saturday so there'll be no Saturday Sandwich next week. Things are going quite smoothly. We've packed up a lot of stuff which is great but now the kids occasionally want a thing we've already packed and the house is full of inconveniently placed boxes (sitting at my computer desk is almost like being in small box fort). The worst thing about moving is having to call round the gas, electric, water etc and tell them we're moving. Most places we've called take the opportunity to gratuitously sell us more of their services. The best thing about it is a feeling of leaving all the worries of this house behind. All the DIY jobs we didn't get done won't matter soon as they'll be someone else's problem.

Hopefully the move goes well, wish us luck :)

Saturday Sandwich 12: Yakisoba Pan

Apparently this is a Japanese equivilent of the kebab. It's eaten late at night on the way home and can be bought in many convenience stores or on street food stalls. Yakisoba means fried noodles in sauce and Pan means bread.

Ingredients: Bacon, hot dog buns, carrot, onion, green pepper, oil and yakisoba sauce (recipe below).

 Cut up the bacon into strips and fry in the oil. Cut up the vegetables and fry them in oil until soft.

 Cook the noodles and fry in oil for a few minutes. Add the vegetables and bacon. You can make yakisoba sauce by mixing oyster sauce, soy sauce, oil and sugar. Mix most of the sauce into the noodles and hold back a bit for drizzling on the finished sandwich. When the noodles are ready put a generous amount inside two hot dog buns.

These rolls were great. the sauce was really delicious and coated the noodles well. The soft bread rolls were perfect for the noodles and made it all easy to eat. JD said he was surprised how good the noodles were on a sandwich because it's an unusual sandwich filling. We were both a bit displeased we hadn't bought huge bread rolls but that was only because we wanted more once we'd finished. Which is always a sign of good food :D

Ratings: JD - 4/5 Emma - 4/5


My daughter Leigh will be walking the Nidderdale Walk 2014 next month for the Cavernoma Alliance UK charity. It's a charity she particularly wants to support because when she was 18 months old we found out she had a cavernoma and had to have brain surgery to have it removed. She's since had 2 more operations and we all feel very lucky that she's so unaffected by such intrusive surgery. I feel really proud that she wants to raise money to help the charity and we'll be doing the walk as a family to support her.

This is our donation page on Just Giving ---> https://www.justgiving.com/EmmaJDLeighErin and it'd be fantastic if anyone feels they want to help out with a donation.

Thanks,

Emma xx

Saturday (Late again, sorry!) Sandwich 11: Mexican Torta

Ooh this one looks like a good one! It might score reasonably high on the hassle scale but what are Sundays for if not making a slightly elaborate sandwich :D

Ingredients: Chorizo, tomatoes, red onion, lime, chilli flakes, coriander, avocado, ciabatta rolls and refried beans.

Chop up the tomatoes, red onion and coriander then add the chilli flakes and lime juice to make a spicy salsa. Leave it to mix together.

 Mash up an avocado and add salt and lime juice.

Fry the sliced chorizo until charred (it's burnt on purpose I'm not a maniac!)

 Slightly toast your ciabatta bread and then dip in the chorizo oil in the pan (aw yeah). Spread the avocado on the bottom half of the bread then add the chorizo slices.

 Top with salsa. Now spread refried beans on the top half of your bread and sandwich together.

 Admire the Mexican work of art you have created for a moment and then devour.

This sandwich was great in many ways. Firstly it's huge. It's a bulky sandwich that's really satisfying to hold. The textures are great too. The crusty bread is covered in smooth refried beans and smooth avocado plus has the chewy chorizo inside. Chorizo is sooo tasty, it's greasy and delicious but in this sandwich it overpowers the other flavours a bit. I would've enjoyed tasting the salsa more but it was difficult to. JD said it would be better with thinner slices of chorizo so we might try that sometime. He also pointed out how great the sandwich looks, the fillings are coloured quite brightly and it makes for an attractive sandwich :)

Ratings: JD - 4/5 Emma - 3/5

I think this has been the sandwich we've enjoyed most so far but our quest for the perfect sandwich is still ongoing!