Turkey (And Ham) Club Sliders

We were planning to have a big Chef’s Salad for our Friday card group, but since the lettuce parasite scare was going on, we switched to sandwiches and decided to use Pam’s recent recipe for Turkey Club Sliders but when Bev advised that she preferred ham, my first thought was to make half the sliders with each.  But then I just decided to use both on all of the sliders.  I also made a double batch of the mayo and changed the slider assembly process a little but the original can be found by clicking on the above link.

Hot Dogs And Slaw For Memorial Day

The Memorial Day food question for us usually boils down to “will it be hamburgers or hot dogs for the meal and since we recently had burgers, we opted to go with the dawgs this time.  I’ve mentioned several times that I grew up in an area of West Virginia where hot dogs were topped only sauce (chili), mustard, and onion and slaw was not even an offered option (it is in most places now like the rest of the state).  But not being from that area, Bev and Pat like slaw dogs so the simple menu for just us was hot dogs and slaw.  While I never put slaw on my dawgs, I do like it as a side dish.  The key to a good hot dog is the sauce and we have played with many recipes over the years to have now settled on My Dad’s West Virginia Hot Dog Sauce  which came from the “Tried And True” blog.  Bev omitted the beef broth and changed the cooking method a lot to get the recipe below.  The original recipe and pics can be found by clicking on the above link.   

Beef Bone Broth, Gourmet Scrambled Eggs, And Cuban Sandwiches

As in the past, when our neighbors had their beef processed, I ended up with tail pieces (ox tails) and bones which I like to use to make broth and this was the day.  I had 7½ lbs. of bones and I began by roasting them at 400F for an hour.

Then I added them to my 16 qt. pot and added water to about ¾ full.

I cooked them on very low for 21 hours to get this very rich broth.  I had planned to add onion, carrot, and celery to the pot but forgot until too late.

Then I removed the bones and meat (separated it for the dogs) and let it set until the fat hardened on top and removed it.

Finally, it was strained and water added to get enough for 8 quart plastic bags.  But as we bagged it, two of the bags had a pin hole leak we could see and a third one leaked out in the sheet pan that I was about to freeze them on.  I don’t need this frustration so I’ll be buying beef broth from now on.  Since we cook chicken regularly for the dogs, I may still bag up and freeze these small batches of chicken broth.

Gourmet Scrambled Eggs

Recently, we had Creamy Lemon Garlic Salmon & Shrimp And Creamed Asparagus and we had both of the creamed sauces leftover which I used to top scrambled eggs for a delicious breakfast on two separate mornings.

Cuban Sandwiches

Remember our recent Mojo Pork meal, well we had plenty of leftover pork and opted to invite our neighbors down for Cuban Sandwiches.  I made the sandwiches as I had done previously using my yet-to-be-patented panni press.

We served it with the mojo broth from cooking and we thought they were better than the local Cuban restaurant - the mojo pork made a big difference.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

4/25-5/2/25 event dates

Ming Tree, Friend Green Tomato Sandwich, Bev & Her Boys, And Skunks

Ming Tree

Our Kia was due for it's annual service so we drove both cars to town, dropped off the Kia at the dealership, and went to lunch at the Ming Tree Chinese Restaurant in Alcoa. 

Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes, RV Update, A Good Laugh

I saw this recipe for Bacon Cheeseburger Sloppy Joes  on Kevin’s “Closet Cooking” blog and decided it would work well for our Friday get-together.  I especially like that it is a one pan meal and know that I always like Kevin’s recipes.  Since the recipe only made four servings, I tripled it to get the recipe below.

Pasta Puttanesca And Easy To Eat Open-Faced Burger

We’ve had a Puttanesca Sauce several times on fish and chicken but never on pasta until our final tasting in Sorrento and we loved it so I just had to try making it.  For the fish version, I had adapted recipes from two fellow bloggers and for the pasta version, I adapted that version plus one from “Simply Recipes” to get the one below.  The major difference is that the pasta version has more tomatoes that are cooked down into a marinara-like sauce.

Skillet Garlic Butter Shrimp And Broccoli And A Fine Sandwich

Let’s do another post about seafood and veggies.  When Pam recently posted a bunch of broccoli recipes  on her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog, one in particular caught my attention - Lemon Garlic Butter Shrimp And Broccoli since I had both that needed to be cooked.  Since I couldn't open her recipe for some reason and I’m not a fan of roasted vegetables (except potatoes), I went in search of a dish that was cooked on the stove top.  The recipe I liked was for Skillet Garlic Butter Shrimp And Broccoli  from the “Gimme Delicious” blog but I adapted it quite a bit.  I like my broccoli to be cooked moist and I didn’t want to pan fry it anymore than bake it so my adapted recipe does the cooking differently and I doubled the ingredients to ensure leftovers.

Show Him Your Badge (Humor) And Jimmy's Wrigleyville Grill San Antonio Italian Beef

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE VETERANS

Our neighbor with the cows has this sign on his fence.

Delicious BLT's – Square Bread But Round Tomatoes

When your tomatoes are large enough to cover the slice of bread, the following doesn’t apply.  But since we rarely have those tomatoes, we are faced with using smaller ones.  I like thick slices of tomato but after you slice them and lay them on the bread with the tomatoes over lapping, the middle of the sandwich gets pretty thick, making it harder to eat - solution below.

 

Spam Lite Three Ways

I’m confident you remember that in April of 2023, I conducted a Spam (Hormel) vs. Treet (Armour) taste test and my conclusion was that they were both way too salty.  Three months later  Big Daddy Dave did a post about Spam Lite which contains 25% less salt so I bought a can of it to try.

Happy Birthday To Big Dude’s Eclectic Ramblings And A Few Delicious Random Meals – Burrito, Sandwich, Quesadilla

It’s hard to believe that my first blog post was 15 years ago today and my first total post said “Well, I'm new to this blogging thing and this is my first - mostly to just see if I can do it. My next goal will be to learn to post pictures, then I'll worry about making the blog look cool.” 

Most of the folks who have been my blogger buddies through the years are no longer posting and I really appreciate those of you who still do stop by and I love to hear from you via your comments.  I’ve considered quitting a few times until I realize how much I use my blog to research our lives and recipes during those years so I guess I’ll continue until I run out of things to post about.

Delicious Then Awesome, Unique Tomato Sandwiches

I really like eating fresh, local, summer garden vegetables and we plan many meals around them.  Bev, the pups, and I made a trip to Maryville (about 18 miles) for stops at the Coning Farm Market and another market in town to get a loaf of Tellico Grains Bakery Olive Bread.  As a result, my supper plan for the day changed to boiled corn and a unique tomato sandwich.

A Collection Of Tasty Meals – Asparagus And Eggs, Creamy Garlic Chicken, Hot Dogs

Many people love asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and baked so I decided to adopt the recipe for breakfast using what we had on hand.  While we enjoy asparagus baked, sauteed, and grilled, I prefer it steamed so it stays nice and plump – the other methods cook the water out.  We had some from-our-garden asparagus in the fridge along with some eggs and country ham – prosciutto is just Italian country ham that has been aged longer and usually sliced thin.

So I steamed the asparagus, chopped and sauteed the ham, and poached some eggs to get this delicious breakfast which Bev called five star. 5/21/24

Prosciutto & Cheddar Scrambled Eggs & Latkes And Not Exactly Oklahoma Onion Burgers

Have you wondered why I'm including two dishes on most posts - even by doing this I already have posts lined up thru Jun 16.  I could post more often but like the three day interval.

I’m getting toward the end of my series on scrambled eggs (2 more) using recipes from the “The Taste Of Home’s” 30 New Ways To Eat Scrambled Eggs and now is a good time for this one as we have some country ham on hand.  Prosciutto is basically country ham (in Italian) that has been cured for a longer period (a year or so) than our normal country ham and it is normally sliced very thin.  For this meal, I used the recipe for Prosciutto & Cheddar Breakfast Biscuits from Taste Of Home, as the previous dishes have been but I omitted the biscuits.

There’s Egg Salad Then There’s This

As I’ve posted many times, we buy our eggs from a local couple so we can get the best ones possible.  Their chickens were on strike most of the winter forcing us to buy from the store but they have now began laying with a vengeance and we’re being offered 10 dozen pretty regularly.  So, this time, I found homes for several dozen and decided to turn one doz. into egg salad.  We have used several recipes for egg salad over the years including a couple of Masters Tournament clones (I’d think there could only be one), your recipes, and our normal where Bev just makes it to taste.

My Dad’s Favorite Meatloaf & My Restaurant

To My Irish Friends Out There

Bev had bought a large package of ground beef for me to make deconstructed cabbage rolls and decided that she wanted to make meatloaf from the rest of the meat.  Now I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but it didn’t take me long to realize that her announcement meant no cooking for me.  Bev had selected a different-from-our-normal recipe to try and I think it’s because it had the soffritto in it – she likes the veggies in her meatloaf.  The recipe for My Dad’s Favorite Meatloaf came from Simply Recipes.  I show the original recipe below, but I scaled up the one Bev used for our 2½ lbs of meat.

A Few More Delicious Holiday Meals & One For Luck

We had quite a bit of the prime rib left from Christmas dinner and one use was French Dip Sandwiches.  I made them by the recipe that Daughter, Kathy, uses in her café in Nebraska.  I sliced the meat fairly thin and took out the fat.  Then I piled it to the shape of the bread, topped with cheese, and gave it a 60 second nuke to warm it.

A Few Random Meals Around The Holidays

Happy New Year and thanks for stopping by my blog this past year.

Here are some meals we’ve made recently but I didn’t want to do an entire post on.  The first one is breakfast hash that was inspired by Pam’s post for Skillet Potato Hash WithMushrooms and Bacon on her "For The Love Of Cooking" blog.  I made it to use some mushrooms we had in the fridge and some leftover boiled potatoes.  I generally followed Pam’s recipe except I just used bacon grease rather than cooking bacon and I started with cooked potatoes.  I topped the hash with three small eggs for a delicious breakfast.

Bologna Sandwiches Revisited – Supper & Breakfast

I’ve been wanting a fried boloney (bologna) sandwich lately as I recalled the one’s we had about a year ago that were based on the one I had in Rugby TN,

Like theirs, I made mine with a thick piece of the meat.

Chopped BLT - A Nice Change

Maybe it’s just me, but I find a regular BLT hard to keep together when eating, especially if I set the sandwich down between bites so when I saw Kevin’s recipe for a Chopped BLT on his Closet Cooking Blog, I knew I wanted to try it.  Then I decided it would be a good meal for our Friday get-together but I increased the ingredients for the six of us.  After watching Kevin’s video and looking at his pics, I believed he used too much stuff for his two sandwiches so rather than just triple his, I used the ingredients below.  While it looks very neat to stack them up and chop them like Kevin did, I cut each of them separately and mixed them together.  You can click on the link above for the original recipe and Kevin's great pics.