Best F***ing Sandwich You'll Ever Eat

I say this phrase almost every day:

"When it comes to sandwiches, I don't f***ing mess around, ok?"

Sometimes I say it loudly. You know, when I get excited or I feel like yelling. Sometimes I say it softer. Eyes down, in a kind of a menacing, barely perceptible whisper, until the "ok," when I lift my head and look straight into their soul...

People choose either to be offended or intrigued by this, but I don't let it faze me. I just continue to make f***ing amazing sandwiches, mostly to spite the people who believe that a sandwich is a creation solely for carnivores.

Allow me to explain:

Many feminists have decided to take back words like c**t or p****y or b****h (If you don't know what the *'s stand for, ask your older brother, or maybe it's time to leave your cave). I think in a society in which almost all institutions, societal and linguistic structures, and social norms have been crafted by white males, this is a legitimate undertaking in order to subvert some of these oppressive linguistic structures.

In the same way, I think the creators of the sandwich were most definitely carnivores, and as a vegetarian, goddamnit, sometimes I feel f***ing oppressed!

It's ok, I tell myself. Calm down. A sandwich is just a rubric...a structure within which you can place almost any f***ing thing you want. A sandwich is a man-made creation, not a historical imperative. Hah!

So why not take back the sandwich?

If you're someone who's demanding an alternative to meat that's almost surely come from animals who've been bathed in their own shit, been systematically tortured, and been shot up with antibiotics by transnational agribusiness corporations...the residual effects of which ultimately end up polluting our countrysides and waterways...then this sandwich is for you.

If you're someone who is tired of mediocre attempts at a vegetarian option at a sandwich shop (thing dry, flaky veggie burgers), then this sandwich is for you.

If you want to stop systematic racial, ethnic, and economic discrimination; if you want to stop industry from polluting our bodies and our earth; if you want to close the income gap, stop global warming, create healthy, supportive communities, and save the whales, THEN THIS F***ING SANDWICH IS FOR YOU!!!!

Ingredients:

Homemade pesto:
poo-load of basil (2 cups, chopped and packed)
1/2 c. parmesan
1/3 c. almonds (normally, pine nuts should go here, but pine nuts are way too expensive. Why are they so f***ing expensive? That makes pesto into this elistist yuppie, inaccessible spread, and that's unfair. So use almonds or even peanuts because you're an equitable human)
1/2 c. olive oil
poo-load of garlic (3 gloves, or 4 if you f***ing love garlic)
salt and pepper to taste

Bread (2 slices. duh, it's a f***ing sandwich!)
Cheese (brie or goat)
Sliced green pepper
Sliced tomato

A note about this recipe. Don't skimp on the ingredients. Get fresh basil for the pesto, and get fresh bread. For example, I have a bakery next to my house called Canto 6 that has the most amazing 7-grain bread of all-time. I also recommend "When Pigs Fly" Bakery's bread in Somerville. For those of you outside of Boston, I'm sure you have some awesome bakery close to you. Go there and buy the bread. This sandwich is worth it.

Ok, so here's what you do:

1. Make the pesto by putting everything in a blender and blending
2. Smear that shit all over two slices of your tasty bread
3. Put on the cheese and the sliced veggies
4. TOAST or put in a Panini press
5. Enjoy the best sandwich you'll ever eat
6. Enjoy even more the fact that you just made a sandwich that challenges the very fabric of the universe of sandwich-dom and you've just stuck it hard to our carnivorous sandwich-making forefathers who sought to undermine universal access and enjoyment of sandwiches by all people.

Apple-Butternut Squash Soup

Some days you wake up in the morning and want to rock the "it's fall in New England" thing so hard it hurts. On those days, you may want to eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ingredients:
1-2 butternut squash
2 apples
1 can veggie broth
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 tsp salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup light cream

1. So the first thing, actually, is to figure out how much squash you have. The recipe I was working from called for about 3.5 lbs of squash, so I've been guesstimating their weight using a set of hand dumbells for comparison. I made a full recipe with a ~3 lb squash, and a 3/4 recipe with a slightly greater than 2 lb squash, and those were both good. When I made the smaller recipe, I still used the full can of veggie broth and decreased the water.

2. Cut onions (small), peel and cut apples (small slices), peel, cut, and de-seed squash (1/4 inch pieces). Butternut squash, incidentally, are Not Fucking Around as a vegetable--that's some seriously laborious chopping.

3. In the bottom of a 4 qt saucepan, sautee onions in vegetable oil for 10 mins.

4. Add everything else. Cook for 30+ minutes.

5. If you have a blender, you could pull out some of the mix and blend it, but who has a blender really? I used a strainer and a fork to mash up some of the bigger squash bits. It will be pretty textury soup, but that feels right to me.

6. Eat. Serves 8 if you made a full recipe. I recommend eating it with other summery tropical dishes like potatoes and brussel sprouts.

I've realized that I write recipes tailored to people who have the exact same stuff in their kitchen that I do (strainer but no blender, hand dumbells but no scale). (Technically the hand dumbells aren't usually in the kitchen.) I'm okay with this.

Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes with ZUCCHINI!?: Are you f***ing crazy!?

The subtitle for this post ("Are you f***ing crazy!?") is geared towards people like my roommate, who, this morning awoke to the sweet, sweet smell of fall (cinnamon, nutmeg, apples) creeping into his room. He entered the kitchen, leaned over the pan where I was flipping my flapjacks, and remarked about how incredibly delicious my f***ing pancakes looked. He then inquired as to the ingredients of said flapjacks.

When I told him that zucchini was one of the main flavors of the dish, he wrinkled his nose and exclaimed boldly (I thought, since I was cooking him breakfast, goddammit!) that the pancakes were ruined and that I shouldn't have ruined good pancakes with zucchini and that I was an idiot and possibly a jerk.

Despite the rudeness (I excused him because he looked tired and maybe a bit disoriented), I served him four of these pancakes, and I'm proud to say that he f***ing loved them. Maybe because I'm a really f***ing good cook, and he should thank his lucky stars that he has such a cool roommate who spends an hour making him brunch and then doesn't bat an eye when he openly insults his painstaking efforts to deliver nutritious, scrumptious food every Sunday almost precisely at noon, which is obviously the best f***ing time to eat brunch.

Anyway, here's to zucchini, and here's the recipe. Enjoy, and don't let the naysayers bring you down!

Apple-Zucchini Pancakes

Wet ingredients:

1 c. milk
1 egg
2 tbsp maple syrup

Dry Ingredients:

1 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 zucchini, grated
2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl, then fold in wet ingredients. Mix until smooth, but as a general rule, pancakes are better if not overmixed. Let mixture sit until you see bubbles on the top. This means that the baking powder is doing its thing and the pancakes will be fluffier.

Heat up a skillet or griddle and coat with vegetable oil. Get it good and hot, then add 1/4 c. of the mixture for each pancake. As per usual with pancakes, the first couple will be shittier than the last. This mix should make about 12 solid-sized pancakes.

One thing to note about this recipe is that it's CHUNKY and MOIST, which is great but can pose some difficulties for the novice pancake maker. I would just follow the rule of waiting until the edges of the pancakes start getting hard and testing the bottom of the pancake with your spatula to make sure they're fully-cooked before flipping.

Serve with maple syrup and butter, or just straight-up. They're incredibly delicious either way...

P.S. (Do you have to P.S. in a blog post, or can you just keep typing?), my friend Joost from the Netherlands told me an interesting story last night about nutmeg. Nutmeg is indigenous to Indonesia, which used to be a Dutch colony. Thus, old Dutch people put nutmeg on f***ing everything! Another interesting tidbit is that, if used in excessive quantities, nutmeg can be a powerful hallucinogen, lasting up to 72 hours...If used in even more excessive quantities, nutmeg can be downright DEADLY.

Anywho, recently, an old Dutch couple accidentally spilled an entire jar of nutmeg onto their mashed potatoes. Nutmeg is a standard way to spice up mashed potatoes in the Netherlands, apparently. Instead of scooping out the excess spice, or scrapping the entire dish, as most people would do, according to Joost, "because they were old," they decided to go ahead and chow down.

And, you guessed it, they croaked.

If you're as interested in nutmeg as I became after this story, read on.

Cornbread: The Shot Glass Way

How many times have you said to yourself, “Self, what would I do if my only cooking implements were a shot glass, a bowl, and a cast iron skillet, and I really wanted to make some cornbread? Would I be fucked, or what?”

Thanks to the revolutionary method of cooking cornbread you are about to learn, the answer will now be “or what,” although to be honest life is probably not so good for reasons having nothing to do with cornbread if you find yourself in this situation. The way this revolutionary method works is, you measure things with a shot glass instead of with a measuring cup. Note that when I say a shot in the recipe, I mean a big shot class filled to the brim—one of those 2 fluid ounce ones, which is a quarter cup.*

Ingredients:

• 5 shots flour
• 3 shots cornmeal
• 1 shot sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder**
• Hefty dash of salt
• 4 shots buttermilk
• 1 shot vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

If you’re going to be drinking while you cook this, you should probably use a different shot glass for that, or wait until you finish using the main shot glass for measurements. I don’t know what whiskey does to cornbread.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Or so. Why are gas ovens always so hard to calibrate?
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. Beat the egg. Add the buttermilk and vegetable oil.
4. Grease the living shit out of your skillet (or pan, if you prefer) with butter. I’m talking like three coats of butter all over that sumbitch. This is how the goodness gets in the crust.
5. Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. SPECIAL BONUS TIP: Don’t do this until you’re ready to put it in the oven. Once you mix them the baking powder starts doing its thing, and if you let it sit around for a while it’ll go flat. I used to have this happen when I would pre-mix a second batch while the first cooked, until my old landlady Laura set me straight.
6. Put the goop in the skillet, put the skillet in the oven.
7. This nominally takes 20-25 minutes to cook. If your oven sucks as much as mine, you just gotta be on your toes. Check it starting at 15 minutes or so—you’re going for that point where a fork comes out clean from the middle. Err on the side of caution.
8. De-oven, de-heat, de-skillet. Breakfast for a week!

Also, just in case you wanted them, here are the results of some of my experiments with this recipe.

• The half-flour/half-cornmeal variant: This is the one with four shots apiece of flour and cornmeal. Some recipes recommend it, and I used to do it a bunch cause it kind of seems more authentic (corn bread oughta really be about corn, you know?), but I just don’t think it’s as good. Kind of grittier, and tastes less sweet.
• The milk/buttermilk decision: Your standard cornbread recipe is going to call for milk instead of buttermilk. Why you would ever use milk when you could use buttermilk totally escapes me. Plus I used to make it that way, and it is definitely better with buttermilk.
• The vegan edition: You can substitute some banana for the egg. I did this once, and nothing disastrous happened.
• The maximum butter option: In general, if you want to make things better, add more butter. In this case, you can replace the vegetable oil with melted butter. Personally I don’t do this much because it’s a pain in the ass to melt the butter, and also I’m worried about getting addicted.
• The forgot-to-add-salt mistake: Why is salt so forgettable? I know, most recipes say it’s optional. But cornbread just ain’t the same without it. I throw salt onto the cornbread when I eat it if I forget about this.
• The more baking powder way: imagine if your cornbread was carbonated. That’s basically what happens, texture-wise, if you go with the three tsp of baking soda that some recipes recommend. You might be into that.
• There are ways to make sweeter cornbread. Personally I’m a bit fearful about mucking with the sugar : grains ratio, but other bolder souls might want to try some experiments.
*For those who prefer non-shot measurements:

• 1 ¼ cups flour
• ¾ cup cornmeal
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Hefty dash of salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

**I know, I didn’t mention any teaspoon. That’s because it sounds less cool. It is a non-canonical teaspoon.

Also, I broke the fonts and they won't get un-broke. Oh well.

Rob's Mother f**king Bean Salad

My buddy Rob is in Philly this summer and has absolutely no time to post this fabulous recipe on our blog, so I'm doing it for him.

Rob, during our brief foray as roommates, survived on a simple diet of this bean salad and cornbread. He claims that when the black beans are combined with cornmeal, it makes a perfect protein. Sounds like a bunch of pseudoscience bullsh*t to me, but Rob's a smart guy, so I trust him.

I'll make Rob post the cornbread recipe when he gets back.

Anyway, I've made this recipe about twenty times this summer and I never get tired of it. Try it. You'll like it.

If you don't like it, please don't post stupid comments saying you don't like it because you probably just f**ed up the recipe and you should probably just blame yourself for f**ing up such an easy recipe.

Ingredients

15 oz black beans
2 ears of corn (boiled or roasted, kernels cut off the cob)
2 avocados
2 whole diced tomatoes (or 15-20 cherry/grape/sungold tomatoes)
2/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2/3 cup red onions
Feta cheese (optional)

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, chopped
salt to taste
1 tbsp ground cumin


Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the dressing separately and pour in. I like mixing it so that the avocado blends to become part of the dressing, but if you like the avocado pieces whole, just toss the salad together lightly instead of mashing everything.

This salad is so freaking tasty. I serve it with toasted bread that comes from the bakery next to my house, Canto 6, but you can serve it with rice, quinoa, couscous, or any other kind of grain. Makes a great main course, but certainly could be a side-dish for a BBQ.

Best part, if you refrigerate it, the herbs/spices have more time to soak in and it makes the salad even tastier.

Enjoy that sheezy!

John's Motherf**ing Gazpacho

So I got really into gardening this summer, and it just so happens that the vegetables that I'm growing in my garden coincide almost precisely with the essential ingredients of a good gazpacho (Spanish cold tomato soup).

I was first introduced to gazpacho when I was 17 and spent a summer in La Coruna, Spain, which is in the northwest corner in the province of Galicia. The mother of the family I stayed with, "Loli," an adorable woman who my mother still keeps in touch with, was, typical of most Spanish families, also an amazing cook.

To my credit, I was an amazing guest, and was open to any and all new Spanish foods that she could serve me, including a dish called "Chipirones en su tinta," or mini-squids in their own ink (I remember it being delicious, but it sounds pretty raunch).

Gazpacho, ironically, was the only thing that Loli didn't make from scratch. In Spain, it came in a carton like milk or orange juice (Don Simon was the brand), and you would just pour it out and add a garnish. However, I liked it so much that I asked Loli to teach me the recipe. It was way better fresh.

In any case, during that summer, and during all summers since, I love a cold gazpacho on a hot day. Nothing more refreshing, and it's full of delicious, fresh ingredients that typically grow during the summer. I feel like it was probably invented when a Spanish farmer threw a bunch of his summer vegetables into a pot, and just added some vinegar and olive oil to make it tastier because that's all this recipe is.

So here goes:

Ingredients

4 fresh tomatoes (I used the ones in my garden - Roma and Heirloom)
1/2 large bell pepper
1 cucumber
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic
herbs/salt/pepper to taste

Garnish:

Any of the ingredients above, diced
Corn
Bread crumbs
Goat cheese

All you do to make gazpacho is put all of the above ingredients into a food processor and liquefy. Pretty simple. If you want it more liquid-y, then you can add V8 or tomato juice, but I prefer mine thick. You can also add more of any of the ingredients or change the proportions to alter the flavor. For example, I like it with more tomatoes and vinegar, but a lot of gazpachos have a lot more cucumbers than the one I've outlined above.

When I was in spain, we would always serve it with fresh bread, and we would have little dishes with diced ingredients (peppers, tomatoes, corn, bread crumbs, cheese, etc.), and you would take a little of each and put it on top of your bowl of gazpacho. Then, when you were done, you would grab a slice of bread and wipe your bowl clean. Damn that shit was incredible....

Homemade Vegetable Stock

For those of us who cringe at food waste, this is a great way to clear your conscience and clear your fridge of those squishy, sponge-like vegetables that are pleading to be thrown away.

When you find that it's make or break time with the vegetables in your fridge, it's time to make a vegetable stock. This recipe is adapted from many different veggie stock recipes, but the most basic one I found was on Allrecipes.com here.

You can also use all of the vegetable waste that you don't use during the week when cooking. Usually, I'll just compost all that sheezy, but if I know I'm making a veggie stock at the end of the week, I'll keep all those stems, leaves, tops, bottoms, cores, etc. that I would normally toss out.

So here's my basic recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Onion
8 cloves garlic
Squishy leftover veggies
Tasty herbs (I recommend fresh parsley, thyme, rosemary, and basil if you've got it. Otherwise, dried herbs are fine)
Leftover veggie stems, assorted parts
2 quarts water (or just eyeball it)
3 tsp salt (or to taste)

So first you want to create a roasty-toasty flavor in the vegetables, so you start sauteeing or roasting whatever vegetables you have + the herbs. You can do this over a stovetop, or you can slice and dice everything and put it in the oven. Doesn't matter.

You should sautee/roast for about 10 minutes. The important thing to remember is that the more surface area that's exposed, the more flavor can come out of the vegetables, so slice and dice as finely as you can. You can even just plop everything into a food processor.

After you sautee/roast, throw in the water and the salt and bring to a boil. Then simmer for a couple of hours. During this time, you can do your laundry, read a book (I'm reading "Eating Animals," by Jonathan Safran Foer right now). During this time, you'll smell an enchanting aroma wafting from your kitchen. This is a good thing and means that your broth/stock will be really freaking tasty.

Once it's simmered for a couple of hours, take it off the stovetop and strain it. Voila! Veggie broth.

So freaking simple and a great building block ingredient for many many recipes. My next post I'll dedicate to doing a recipe that requires this broth.