Saturday Sandwich 73: Fried Chicken Sandwich

Everyone's looking forward to this one! We've never fried chicken before so it'll be a new experience too.

Ingredients:

chicken, soft bread rolls, buttermilk, salt, sugar, flour, mayo, lettuce, pepper, paprika, cayenne, celery salt, garlic powder and onion powder.

Soak the chicken in buttermilk with an added teaspoon each of sugar and salt. Leave it for up to 8 hours in the fridge. Make a seasoned flour using all the spices.

Pat dry the chicken and coat it in the flour. Prepare the bread rolls by slicing in half and filling with shredded lettuce and a layer of mayo on top.

 Fry the chicken in oil until browned.

These sandwiches were fantastic. Really simple but delicious. The lettuce adds a nice crunch and mayo on hot chicken is a match made in heaven. We all loved them. The fried chicken was different from other more coated fried chicken we've in fast food places but the seasoned flour had given the chicken a lovely spicy flavour.

Ratings: JD -4, Emma -4, Leigh - 4, Erin -5

Coming next Saturday - Picnic Loaf

Saturday Sandwich 72: Burrito

I feel unsure if this counts as a sandwich but we're eating it either way :D

Burritos can include a variety of different fillings so we went with the recipe in the book plus a couple of additions of our own.

Ingredients: tortilla wrap, steak, onions, salsa, guacamole, grated cheese, refried beans, sour cream and chopped cucumber (because I forgot to buy a green bell pepper).

The recipe suggested wrapping the tortilla wraps in a damp kitchen cloth and warming in the oven and it's a great idea. The wraps are then much easier to fold and don't break.

 Saute the steak and onions.

 Ingredients assemble!

 Layer up the fillings and then fold it all up inside the wrap.

Burritos are great but ours today weren't that good. There were too many soft ingredients which made the final burrito a bit squishy. We should've added some rice or maybe whole beans instead. The combined flavours are delicious though with every bite being different. I need practise folding because my burrito filling ended up all over my hands and it was quite messy.

Ratings: JD -2, Emma -3

Coming up next week - Fried Chicken Sandwich

I Love Trello

Trello is an organisation program for your computer or phone. Basically it's lists, which I love. :D

I used to keep a notepad and pen handy but I decided I wanted to move to an online planner/to do list. I looked around and tried out lots of other free programs before I found this one. It's easy to use and lets you make a board of everything you need to organise in one place.

I use it in a relatively simple way compared to the demos I've seen. I do lead a fairly simple life. I have one board of lists with everything I want to keep track of.

The list I use most is my daily to-do list. I list everything I want to get done that day and delete each item as I do it. If something doesn't get done that day I move it (a simple drag and drop) into my general to-do list or leave it for the next day.

This is the top half of my daily to-do list. I write everything I want to do in the list, even really small things and appointments. It's how I remember something needs doing and also how I motivate myself to get something done. The satisfaction of clearing my list or deleting something makes me do it.

I have lots of other lists on my Trello too. A list of blog foods from around the world I have left to do, ideas for posts for this blog, goals for the year, birthday presents to buy and more.

Lifehacker explains it all way better than me.

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-use-trello-to-organize-your-entire-life-1683821040

I really like having everything in one place and I keep it open on my pc so I can look easily whenever I need to. It's also an app on my phone which syncs to keep the lists updated. That way if I'm in town and need to pick something up I can check before I come home. Or if one of the kids are on the computer I can still access my lists.

 It's not a perfect system for getting things done, sometimes I'll leave something on my list for days (or weeks) and every time I check Trello it's there mocking me.

Anyway, if (like me) you enjoy being organised I recommend you give it a try. :)

Saturday Sandwich 71: Bauru's Sandwich

This sandwich comes from a city called Bauru in Sao Paulo. It was invented by a student who asked for this combination one night and it soon became the most popular sandwich on the menu.

Ingredients: crusty white roll, roast beef slices, dill pickles, tomato and mozzarella cheese.

 Scoop out some of the crumb of the crusty rolls to make a hollow space for the fillings. Layer up slices of beef, mozzarella, pickles and tomato. Bake in the oven at 170C for 10 minutes and then eat.

This sandwich smelled great as it was baking in the oven. I think the ingredients go well together, especially the beef and pickles. Unfortunately we didn't enjoy the sandwich that much. The baked crusty roll was too hard to eat. The cheese hadn't melted properly in 10 minutes either. What should have been a delicious sandwich was just a disappointing experience. If you make this sandwich then use a softer bread roll and bake the sandwich with it's top off and the mozzarella on the top layer. I think it'd make a big difference. :)

Ratings: JD - 1, Emma - 1

Coming Up Next Saturday - Burrito

Saturday Sandwich 70: Toasted Cheese Sandwich

This is another sandwich that we've obviously had lots of times before. So to make it a bit different we headed to our local speciality cheese shop, The Cheeseboard to pick some new cheeses to try.

We got some Raclette, which is a swiss cheese which easily melts and some Fontina, a foul smelling Italian cheese. We already had some mature cheddar ready to use at home.

To make a toasted cheese sandwich (or grilled cheese as they call it in the USA) you make up a cheese sandwich, butter it on the outside and place in a hot pan to toast. Press down as it cooks and then flip to toast the other side. Cut in half and eat straightaway.

It's not the best looking sandwich we've eaten but it's nice nonetheless. I really liked the Raclette cheese, it'd melted perfectly and had a lovely creamy texture. The Fontina was the priciest cheese we'd got but the mature cheddar was nicer. Leigh and Erin both enjoy a toasted cheese sandwich too, Erin often makes herself one by grilling it in the oven instead. We ate ours with potato soup with JD dipping his toasted sandwich in the soup. We made them with brown and white bread but I don't really have a preference, both are good.

Ratings: JD - 2 , Emma - 3

Next Saturday - Bauru's Sandwich

Life Hacks Tested - Part Two

Here we are with more life hacks to test. I really enjoy seeing if these things work or not. I usually judge whether they will or won't beforehand and then see if I'm right.

PASS - This is pretty much the best hack ever. I love it. It looks great, you can pass someone the stuff all at once and you only have one thing to wash up after the BBQ. Although, to be honest I have never put mayo or bbq sauce in a bowl to serve it. We'd just set out the bottles which ends with no washing up. It's still great though because it looks so awesome.

PASS - JD tried this one out the last time we went to McDonalds. The little pot was a bit precarious looking after it was expanded for my liking but there's no denying it works.

FAIL - I tried this a few days ago when JD had made some hummus in the blender. As you can see by the before and after pictures, a lot of the hummus was cleaned up but it still left a lot on the blender too. Even after rinsing I had to clean it more. I felt this one would work too.

PASS - It's easy enough to make this phone tidy if you can find a bottle wide enough to use. The hard part is getting your daughter to use the thing. So it's kind of a pass because it does work but a fail for us because it goes unused mostly or the cord is still hanging out.


That's it for part two, more hacks to come later. :)

Saturday Sandwich 69: The Monte Cristo

I'd been putting off making this sandwich because it's another of those weird sweet/savoury combinations we're not keen on. A toasted meat and cheese sandwich with an icing sugar and jam garnish. I feel even less like it today too because I was ill all yesterday. Today is the day though, no turning back. :D

Ingredients: White bread, butter, ham, turkey, cheese, icing sugar, egg, milk and blackberry jam.

Start by making up a cheese, ham and turkey sandwich. Then add another layer of sandwich on top of that with the same filling.

Mix an egg with a splash of milk and dip the entire sandwich in it. Melt some butter in a pan and fry the sandwich until golden and delicious like this.

 Dust the top with icing sugar and finish with a dollop of blackberry jam.

Putting on the jam and icing sugar felt like ruining a fantastic looking sandwich but I have to admit I enjoyed the end result. You can taste the saltiness of the meats in each bite but occasionally you'll also get the sweetness of the jam too and they go really well together. I should realise this being a salted caramel anything fan! I loved how soft the whole sandwich was to eat, the cheese had melted really well  and the butter in the pan had made the bread soft too. Really a very nice sandwich.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 4

Coming up next Saturday - Toasted Cheese Sandwich