Saturday Sandwich 95: The Schumwich

This sandwich is apparently the favourite lunch of New York Senator Chuck Schumer. He's picky about how it's made giving his aides specific instructions on how to construct it.

Ingredients: roast beef, dill pickles, tomato, bread roll, red onion, mayo, mustard, pickled jalapenos and a bell pepper

Spread one side of the roll with mustard and the other half with mayo. Then just layer all the ingredients up. 

The best thing about this sandwich compared to lots of other sandwiches we've made was how simple it was to make. There's no cooking or making a sauce. You just chop and slice most ingredients and add them to the sandwich. I really enjoyed all the flavours in the Schumwich, you could taste the beef with red onion, mustard with dill pickles and all the different ingredients went really well together. Charles Schumer has pretty good taste in sandwiches.

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 3

Next Saturday - Torta Ahogada

Saturday Sandwich 94: Souvlaki Pita Bread

A Souvlaki is a grilled pork kebab with a yoghurt sauce wrapped in a pita bread. We're looking forward to this one :)

First you make the meat filling. Diced pork, garlic, oregano, mint, lemon zest and juice, red wine, olive oil, salt & pepper all go in a bowl. Mix them together, cover and leave in the fridge for a few hours.

Slice an onion and some cherry tomatoes ready to make the sandwich then make the tzatziki sauce. You mix up plain yoghurt, pinch of sugar, squeeze of lemon juice, mint and finely chopped cucumber.

Grill the pork and lightly toast the pita bread. Then fill the bread with the pork, vegetables and tzatziki.

This is a really good sandwich! The pork is tender and flavourful, the vegetables give a nice crunch and the tzatziki adds a tart moistness to the whole thing. We enjoyed this sandwich a lot but we'd made ours with a flatbread which made it hard to eat (not technically the sandwich's fault though). We opted for that instead of a pita because the only pita we could find were tiny :D

Anyway, a delicious sandwich enjoyed by all (me and JD).

Ratings: JD -3, Emma - 3

Next Saturday - The Schumwich

Saturday Sandwich 93: Dill, Shrimp and Egg Smørrebrød

A Smørrebrød is a Scandinavian open sandwich on dark rye bread. 

Is an open sandwich a sandwich at all? Many would say not, including me! But it's in our sandwich book so make it and eat it we must.

Ingredients: dark rye bread, shrimp, dill, boiled eggs, butter, lemon juice and mayo.

Mix the shrimp, dill, lemon juice and mayo in a bowl.

Butter the dark rye bread and add a layer of boiled egg slices. Top with the mayo shrimp stuff and serve with ice cold schnapps.

This is the worst sandwich I've ever eaten. I'm not a big fan of shrimp anyway but combined with the foul rye bread and the dill flavoured mayo it made me feel sick. I managed a couple of bites before throwing it away and making this peanut butter and jam sandwich instead.

JD also threw away his Smørrebrød after eating half of one. The texture was the worst part followed closely by the taste. we won't be eating these again. We didn't lie the peach schnapps either. :(

Ratings: JD - 0, Emma - 0

Coming Next Saturday - Souvlaki Pita Bread

How I Learned To Love My Face in 30 Days

Today I took my last selfie of the month. I've been taking pictures of myself every day for the past 30 days to try to like how my face looks more. There have been times that I've cried over how I looked in a photo.

And I can honestly say it's worked. I've looked at my face more this month than I have for a long time. I can see how my face has aged in the last few years, I have creases under my eyes and lines on my face that weren't there years ago. But in looking at myself more and forcing myself to take a picture a day I've come to like what I see. I see me, as I am most days with no filters or effort to make myself look better.

Some days I didn't feel like taking a picture, I felt tired or my hair was a mess. I took the pictures anyway. Usually those pictures would never see light of day, they'd be deleted and never shown. But those pictures represent the real me, me as I am every day. Sometimes I look good to myself and sometimes I don't but that's ok.

I feel pleased that I've managed to change my attitude. I want to feel more content with who I am and how I look instead of changing how I look like we're encouraged to do by society and the companies selling beauty products.

 Here is my 30th photo, I feel that I look considerably happier about taking my picture than the first one :D

 I'd just washed my hair and I haven't even combed it before taking a picture, success!

Saturday Sandwich 92: Pork Belly Mantou

A mantou is a steamed bread roll from Northern China. This mantou is filled with stir fried pork belly and looks delicious!

Here's the recipe if you want to make one ---> http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/02/pork-belly-mantou-recipe

I felt really worried that we wouldn't be able to make this roll but it was quite simple to make. Once we had made it I was then worried how it'd taste, it looked like a loofah. I worry too much!

The whole process of making this sandwich was quite long and during the cooking of the pork belly it didn't smell too appetising.

The finished sandwich was great. The plain steamed mantou went perfectly with the sticky, sweet sauce on the pork belly. The mantou wasn't too spongy at all, it was light and soft. The pork belly was really tasty and tender. We enjoyed the finished product but felt it had been a lot of work to make it.

Ratings: JD - 4, Emma - 4

Next Saturday - Dill, Shrimp and Egg Smorrebrod

Saturday Sandwich 91: Bratwurst

German Bratwurst this week which should be a popular one with Leigh and Erin, they love hot dogs usually. In German brat means chopped meat and wurst means sausage. There are apparently over 50 varieties of bratwurst to try. We were happy to find some in Asda after looking in a few other places first.

Erin was in charge of making them so she opted for cooking the bratwurst in the oven. I usually have a combo of tomato ketchup and mustard on my hot dog but this recipe insists that only mustard is the best.

Ingredients: Bratwurst, bread buns and mustard.

Bake, grill or fry your wurst, enclose in a bread bun and serve with mustard.

I have to admit that they're right, mustard on it's own is far more delicious topping for hot dogs. I really liked the thick skin on the bratwurst (probably from oven baking them) but that was something Leigh didn't like about them. They were tasty sausages for a hot dog though and we all enjoyed them. There was a small debate about whether a hot dog is a sandwich, JD isn't convinced since he thinks a sandwich must have two separate pieces of bread to make it a sandwich. I disagreed but I feel like we've had so many different sandwiches now that I can't define them any more. It isn't a debate unless someone disagrees anyway so I'm sticking with it. :D

Ratings: JD - 3, Emma - 4, Leigh -3, Erin -3

Next Saturday - Pork Belly Mantou

Can I Grow Accustomed To My Face?

That might seem like a stupid question. I'm 43 years old today and I've had my face all my life but still when I have my picture taken I often feel unhappy about how my face looks. Lots of people are the same way, I know because I've asked around. People take selfies over and over to get one they think is good enough. People untag themselves from pictures on Facebook because they don't like how they look. Plenty of people don't even use a picture of themselves on Facebook to avoid the pressure of it. People go on diets to change their face shape or even more drastically have plastic surgery. It seems really important to lots of people that they present the best picture of themselves for everyone else to see. Including me!

Any other person might decide to do something about changing how their face looks. I'm going to try change my attitude about my face and grow to love it instead.

I'm going to take a selfie every day for a month. Just one picture a day and even if I don't like how I look I'm going to post it anyway. No excuses, no getting out of it.

In fact I've already started 10 days ago in preparation for this post. The first picture was terrible. My eyes are closed, my neck looks fat and my hair isn't how I like it to be. Usually this photo would never see the light of day. Delete delete delete.

Here it is though:

I cried when I saw it because I was starting off my challenge with a terrible photo. It's exactly the point of the challenge but still I wanted to delete it and take a better one. The ridiculous thing is that many people see me like this every day but having a still photo seems to make it worse. We all want control over how we look in pictures so we can portray our best selves. The thing is that I sometimes have my eyes closed, I do have a fat neck and my hair isn't always how I'd like it to be. That's my reality and I'm quite happy to wander through life looking that way. So why does a photo like this upset me?

I carried on through the next ten days taking more photos in various places, one at work, one at the bus stop and one with Erin. I put them in this handy collage.

The first few I can see in my face that I'm annoyed to be taking a selfie but as the days went by I do actually look happier with taking the pictures. And that seems to improve how I look to myself.

This is my latest one:

So far I'm not sure if I like how my face looks more or if I've just got better at taking pictures of myself. So I'll carry on for 20 more days and see what happens.

Do you like how you look in photos?