Saturday Sandwich 86 : The Moistmaker

Invented by the TV show Friends, this is actually a Thanksgiving leftover sandwich but we have all the ingredients for it left over from our Christmas dinner.

Ingredients: turkey, stuffing, mayo, lettuce, cranberry sauce, bread and gravy

 The gravy in a shallow bowl ready for the dipping of the third slice of bread.

 Spread mayo on a slice of bread. Top with lettuce and leftover cold roast turkey.

 Dip a slice of bread in gravy, add it to the sandwich and top with stuffing.

 Finally, spread cranberry sauce on the last slice of bread to finish off your Moistmaker.

We were really impressed with this sandwich. We've eaten plenty of leftover turkey/stuffing sandwiches but the addition of gravy soaked bread is genius. It really does keep your sandwich moist reducing the dryness of the turkey/stuffing combination. JD wasn't keen on the cranberry sauce but I loved it. JD is already a fan of bread and gravy combined since our  French Dip adventure and thinks more sandwiches should include gravy, now I'm pretty much converted too.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 4

Next Saturday - Refrigerator Buffet Sandwich

Saturday Sandwich 85: Shawarma

Shawarma is basically a kebab, meat grilled on a vertical spit and then sliced to fill a pitta bread. Tabbouleh and a tarator sauce are added to the Shawarma along with cucumber and/or tomato slices.

As we don't have a vertical spit we just grilled some lamb chunks for our Shawarma.

Here's a recipe if you want to try it yourself --> http://allrecipes.com/recipe/214029/lamb-shawarma/

Ignore the mess we made with the cous cous :D

We really enjoyed the lamb, all the marinade ingredients had made it tender and very tasty. The cous cous was a nice addition to the pitta bread filling up the gaps nicely. The tarator sauce we made didn't work out very well, it was more of a paste than a sauce and had a bitter flavour from the tahini. Overall the sandwich was good though and JD was sorry we only had one each!

Ratings: JD - 4, Emma - 3

Next Saturday - The Moistmaker

Saturday Sandwich 84: Beef Short Rib Sandwich

We're back with another sandwich and this time it's beef short ribs with pickled red onions. Sounds good to me!

Ingredients: beef short ribs, red onions, sugar, red wine vinegar, salt, white bread rolls and a sauce/marinade/glaze of your choice for the ribs (we chose barbecue).

Mix the sugar, salt and vinegar then add the sliced onion. Leave at room temperature to pickle for a couple of hours. Cover the short ribs with the sauce you chose and cook covered in foil in the oven. Uncover for the last 5-10 minutes.

 Split the rolls and add a layer of pickled onions to each. Top with the short rib meat.Consume!

The short rib meat was delicious, falling off the bone and soft with a sticky barbecue layer on top. The pickled onions gave crunch to the sandwich as well as a nice sharp flavour. JD said he would've preferred a firmer bread roll with the filling being so soft but I enjoyed the soft rolls.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 3.5

Next Saturday: Shawarma

Restaurant Food at Home: Nando's

We can afford to eat out and we sometimes do but being a thrifty family the cost of it puts us off. A family of four eating in a restaurant usually equals (if not exceeds) what I earn a day at work. Is it worth 8 hours of work to go out to a restaurant for an hour or so? We're often left thinking "We could have made that at home for cheaper!". So now it's time to test that out and see how we enjoy it compared to going out to eat.

I looked at Nando's menu and decided on the following food:

Hummus with toasted pitta bread strips

Nando's medium chicken breast with fries and corn

Baked caramel cheesecake

Iced Rooibos tea with lemon

At Nando's it would have cost us £70

At home it cost us £20 and was a reasonably easy meal to make. The chicken needed marinating in the Nando's medium peri-peri the day before and the cheesecake was a bit of a faff to prepare but everything else was quick to make and looked great once we'd plated it all up.

We all enjoyed the food but Leigh and Erin didn't like the Iced Tea. The same as going out to eat we all felt like we'd eaten too much afterwards, even more so because we had all the food at once when in a restaurant you have a gap between courses. Something me and JD weren't keen on about doing this is that we all ate the same, often when we eat out we like to try something new or different so we wouldn't have gone for fries with our chicken perhaps. It was nice to try the Rooibos tea since that's a new thing. I was surprised how nice the Nando's marinade was on the chicken, I'd never tried it before and it was really delicious if a bit spicy.

Total Saving from having Nando's at home = £50