Cuban Sandwich

Cuban Sandwich

Ann and I have been discussing Cuban sandwiches a lot recently. César used to make great Cubans on bread he would bake daily at Sweet Sunset Bakery, but it's been years ago now that he closed up shop and moved back to California. We have heard about good Cubans at Throx Market, but haven't had the time to get there. So, today, I took matters into my own hands.

It was a hell of a long day at work (especially since it is in theory a day off), getting all my ducks in a row for the upcoming New Year's Eve circus and by the time I got ready to leave, it was late in the day and I was tired. I needed something I could make quickly and I didn't even ask Ann for suggestions. I just grabbed what I would need to make Cubans and got home as quickly as I could.

Easy, delicious, and what a classic sandwich! I made six. Ann and I split three; Carter ate three.

A Clean out the Refrigerator Sunday

Sunday the 28th was mercifully without plans. I wanted to rest; I needed to rest. The mental logistics of bringing off a 7-course tasting menu for the entire restaurant on upcoming New Year's Eve were really sapping my energy. Physically too, I needed to rest for the upcoming marathon that is New Year's Eve dinner service.

Strange as it may seem, resting for me involves cooking. There is something restful and mindless about standing at the cutting board and plowing through mounds of mise-en-place. I know that most people see this as work and something to be minimized; for me, I find it very relaxing.

What makes it even more special is if Annie joins me and we can spend time in the kitchen together, which is what we did on Sunday after sitting around in the sun room having our morning coffee and watching the juncos and other birds on the feeders. She wanted to make a batch of white chili for dinner and after helping her prep that, I threw together a quick pasta for lunch.

Garganelli Mise en Place

I combed through the refrigerator and found all kinds of bits and pieces of things, some of which went into Ann's chili and some of which went into the lunch pasta.



Garganelli with Sage, Tomatoes, and Tapenade

For the pasta, I sweated a lot of slivered garlic with sage in butter and then tossed that with the garganelli, sliced tomatoes, and some leftover tapenade. I also added a half a cup or so of the pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce a touch and topped the pasta with grated pecorino.


Ann's White Chili

As for Ann's chili, while she sautéed chopped onions and ground chicken, and then rinsed the cannellini, I prepped the odds and ends that I found in the fridge and ground spices. A bit of cilantro stems, a mangy half poblano chile, a few shriveled green onions, some unwanted tomato sauce, and so forth: it's in there! After a few hours in the slow cooker, Ann added some pasta to make it chili-mac. And we thoroughly enjoyed it for dinner!

It's always good to plan a clean-out-the-refrigerator day once every couple of weeks and if I can do it with my beloved Annie, that's double joy for me!

Risotto Cakes

I admit it. I put no forethought into what we would eat over Christmas break except to bring home some caviar and sparkling wine for our Christmas Day celebration. So, we get to Christmas Day dinner with nothing planned, not much in the refrigerator, and no stores open. Failure to plan: I will own it.

I'm pretty good at scrounging in the refrigerator and pantry and coming up with dinner like I did the night before when I concocted risotto from nearly nothing. That dinner yielded plenty of leftover risotto for the refrigerator and so risotto cakes were a no-brainer. To top things off, I found a few mangy snow peas that had been in the produce bin in the fridge for nearly way too long. And hey presto! Dinner.

Saffron Risotto Cakes with Snow Peas

Christmas Day Bubbles and Caviar

Caviar and sparkling wine is something of our tradition for Christmas. This year, I scrambled some eggs and made some crostini to use as vehicles for shoveling caviar into our faces. Eggs are a delightful foil to salty caviar.

Virginia Bubbles

Crostini, Eggs. Bubbles, Caviar

Eggs are the Perfect Foil for Caviar

From Virginia to New Mexico

Christmas Eve Dinner: Risotto Milanese

How unprepared were we? All I can say in my defense is that I was focused on spending my Christmas break with Ann and not worrying about food for once. We ended up on Christmas Eve with no supplies in the house and nothing planned for Christmas dinner. Call it poor planning but I didn't really care.

That morning, while scavenging the pantry, I found a half a kilo of Arborio rice and that's about all I need to make dinner. We had a little grated pecorino in the fridge, some mangy onions in the pantry, a scrap of butter on the counter, and a few shrimp in the freezer.

After watching the third and final part of The Hobbit trilogy at the theatre, we dropped by the restaurant and scored a pinch of saffron, the final ingredient for our risotto milanese. And so for our solo Christmas Eve dinner, we had wonderfully rich, creamy, and decadent risotto.

Risotto Milanese with Shrimp

In deference to the Italian in our family who likes her risotto more cooked than I like mine, I left it to sit for a couple of minutes before serving to soften up just a bit more. It was awesome and who better to share it with than my Annie?

Panino

On the way home from lunch, somehow we ended up at the grocery store scavenging ingredients for panini. While Ann headed for the bakery to find a reasonable loaf of bread, I went to the deli counter where I was able to get fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, mortadella, capocollo, prosciutto, and a couple kinds of hard salame. I will never forget the face that the girl behind the deli counter made as she was slicing the prosciutto. "This stinks," she said, while pulling a face. Her partner agreed. I guess if your only frame of reference is pink loaf "ham," then perhaps smelling a real ham is very different. But since when does it stink?

Ready for the Press



Pressed and Grilled

Here you see the sandwich layers: pesto on the bread, salame and capocollo, mortadella, prosciutto, mozzarella, peppers, and more pesto on the top bread.

How I Love Mortadella!

Special emphasis on the mortadella here because I really love it and it has been such a long time since I have had any. And because it is a chance for me to admit publicly that I was wrong and Ann was right. I was convinced that our grocery store wouldn't have mortadella. I was wrong. Ann was right. And no, she didn't make me say that! Sad to say that this would never pass muster in Italy: look how crude the fat is and how uneven the distribution. I really miss the slightly spicy, paper thin, plate-sized slices of true Mortadella di Bologna. But still, if this is all I can get, I will take it.

Mid-Day Cocktails

After enjoying our first lunch out of Christmas break 2014 at Violino, Ann wanted to have a cocktail. That's something we never get to do: go to a nice bar and have a decent drink. And there's something to be said for sitting, talking, and relaxing over a cocktail. So we stopped in at V2 where Ann had her usual, a dirty martini with blue cheese-stuffed olives. Me, I'm not a cocktail guy but I do like whisky, so I ordered an Aberlour malt.

Dirty Martini with Blue Cheese-Stuffed Olives for Ann

Aberlour Straight Up

Barkeep Ann

Back at home, some rocket scientist decided that if a couple of martinis out was good, another monster one at home would be better still. If you see her, ask her how that worked out for her!