2 posts tagged “meat”

The Vortex strikes again.

A foster-adopted-step cousin of mine is separating from her husband and moving back there.

Oh, the foster-adopted-step-cousin thing?

Yeah, I have a nightmarish M.C. Escher family tree.

Anyway, another one pulled back.

She'd been out of the place we shall not mention for better than 14 years.

I'm telling you, and myself, you have to watch these things; forever.

And they'd just adopted a two year old girl from China, as in 4 months ago.

Will China even let you keep an adopted child if you get separated/divorced?

Similarly, what were they thinking adopting a child if things were choppy?

Or was it the added stress of the kid thing that widened/exploited an existing crack?

Ain't nothing in this world for sure.

Excepting for how good hot dogs taste when slightly burned/blacked around the outer skin/casing.

Today was warm enough to open up the windows for ventilation and cook like a caveman all flame and noir style; i.e. blackened.

Smoke detector be damned, mmmwa-hahahaha.

Fire, meat (assorted beef pieces in a tube-shape), good.

I even read a book on the deck wearing only shorts and got the first official minor sunburn of the season.

Sweet.

On the first sunny day over 60 degrees F this year.

Winds a' howling.

Snows a' blowing.

Temps a' falling.

And I've got just the thing.

1/4 of a red onion, diced.
2 tablespoons garlic, minced.
2 center-cut tomato slices.  You can further slice or dice these as desired, or not; your call really.
8 oz. smoked ham, thin deli sliced.  (Alternately, gyro meat lamb slices.)
4 oz. swiss cheese, about three good slices.
2 slices of the most amazing bread you fancy.
A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Two slabs of butter, thickness depending on how heart-healthy you're feeling that day.
3 shakes of buffalo wing sauce.

Start the onions in a pan over medium heat.
Drizzle the olive oil on the onions.
Add the tomato.
Add the garlic.
Remove from heat.

Put one of your slabs of butter on one of your bread slices.
Butter side down in a pan over medium heat.
Add the swiss cheese slices to the top of the bread.
Add the ham (or gyro lamb) slices to the top of the cheese.

Add the contents of the first pan to the top of the meat and cheese.

Drizzle buffalo wing sauce on top of that.

Place your second slice of bread on top of the stack.

Use spatula, or your hand if you're feeling cave-manly, to compress the stack.

Add your second slab of butter to the top of the bread (very important you do this after you compress the stack, not before, or you will literally be a butter-fingers.)

Now use the spatula, I really recommend the spatula this time and not the hand method, but hey, if you've got the stones, more cave-man to ya; to flip the stack so that the top bread and butter are now in contact with the bottom of the pan.

Use the spatual, or your hand, but I should point out that what is now the top of the stack was once the bottom and in contact with a fairly hot pan, so keep that in mind before making your choice, to compress the stack once more.

Wait exactly one minute and forty-two seconds.

Remove sandwich stack from heat and deposit on a plate, or if you're so inclined, your lap.

I can only sanction the latter if you're wearing an old pair of denim and lack high temperature sensitivity.

Let cool for thirty-eight seconds.

Flip.

Let cool for a further thirty-eight seconds.

At this point you will have another choice.

Either cut the sandwich with knife and fork into bites, or just grab it in your cave-man hands and get neanderthal.

I will be looking forward to this myself when I return from shoveling the snow that has drifted halfway up my back door, blocking the dogs from their, ahem, restroom area.