Sandwichspace 49 - 56

Eight sandwiches, no new ground broken.

Sandwichspace 47 & 48

47

Finally scrapple hits the sandwichspace grid. For those outside PA, scrapple is a mix of blended up pig parts and cornmeal. You fry it up crispy in oil and it's crunchy, salty, and tasty. Seems like a possible good fit for this. One big downside is that you kind of have to baby it, keeping a close eye on it as it cooks. Overcooked is very crunchy but has an unpleasant burnt flavor. Undercooked will lack that nice crunch. So I don't have the energy for this in the mornings. For this sandwich I used some I cooked the night before. It was good, and crunchy, but only like a 7/10, so I think not worth the extra effort.

Appearance 5/10, not really pretty.

Flavor 6/10. Nothing to write home about.

48

Today was just a handful of fresh spinach, sauteed down, two eggs, broken in the pan and quasi-scrambled up. Three thin slices of pepper jack and focaccia bread. The only thing I did differently was heavily butter both slices of toasted focaccia. That makes it better for sure.

Appearance 7/10. How much of the appearance is just lighting?

Flavor 7/10, I was pretty hungry, and this hit the spot perfectly. How much of this rating was that it was hot off the stove instead of sitting an hour in foil? Some. Yesterday's sandwich should not have been at least a 7, but it just wasn't as good.

Sandwichspace 41 - 46

41

Shrimp! 10/26. Was really good. 7/10

Appearance 6/10

Flavor 7/10

42

Bacon, 10/30. IIRC, I enjoyed the bacon on this one.

Appearance 5/10

Flavor 5/10

43

So I went did a 24 hour sous vide cook of a 3 lb eye round of beef. Turned out very much like a nice tender roast beef.

The color in this pic is not appetizing at all! Lol. But The beef was good and I used a slab of it on my breakfast sandwich.

I mean... I guess I did. I know I did but you can't see it at all. Anyway, the roast beef slab was good and meaty and thick and a very appealing part of the sandwich. 8/10. But a lot of work for it.

Appearance 6/10

Flavor 7/10

44

Vegetarian, the meat was hardly missed.

Pepper jack and cheddar, heavy cheese presence.

Appearance 6/10

Flavor 6/10

45

Vegetarian again? Or was there a slice of sous vide chicken in there? Who can say.

46

Ok, this one is pretty. Pepper jack, no meat.

Appearance 8/10. And the photo did it justice.

Flavor 7/10. Very good. Satisfying. I am beginning to think we have a winner. I may just run it up to 49 for the 7x7 grid combined pic, then do a final one of just the winner for number 50. I may need to round it all out with brioche and scrapple, because those need to be in the running.

Sandwichspace 37 - 40

37

Ciabatta from the freezer. Good! I think I will freeze up a dozen ciabatta buns as backup. Two slices thick cut bacon, goot but not as impressive as it is just eating it solo. Eggs with... I think this was onions sauteed in wine. Because I'm fancy like that. Two eggs, scrambled. Thick sliced deli sharp cheddar.

Appearance 7/10

Flavor 6/10. Onions in wine were ok, but not stellar.

38

So I baked up some wheat rolls. I've made wheat bread in the past but it always comes out dense and unpleasant. Saw this recipe on pinterest where the rolls looked fluffy and light, so I was intrigued. Baked them in a 9x13 pan and they blew up. Huge rolls. The recipe calls for 24 in the pan, but if I had done that they would all be like 2" x 2" x 3 inches tall. So half the batch I doubled the size of the rolls, so they are twice as long. For a couple buns I doubled again, so they are the right length and width, but 3" tall is too tall for a breakfast sandwich bun. I could conceivably pack in half as much dough but flatten it more. But I guess I am just not really in love with these anyway. I'd say 6/10. maybe if I could settle the rising issue it could claw it's way up to 7/10. But these are not the final answer for this project. I might also try with half or maybe even 3/4 white flour, but I think this is kind of a dead end. Eggs, sauteed spinach, thick deli cheddar. Meat? I believe I left out the meat here since the sandwich was already so huge.

Appearance 7/10, looks nice, but can't really see the hugeness of the bun from this picture.

Flavor 7/10, good, but the bread was just too much. I only ate half of it for breakfast. Definitely a first. I slowly gnawed away at it until it was gone before lunch. I had been fasting for a blood test, so if I hadn't been I wouldn't have finished before lunch.

39

Another appearance of the wheat bun. I've got a bunch of them, and I will work my way through them. This entrant also has scrambled egg (MY GAWD, NO SPINACH?!?!), fancy dried ham, and sous vide chicken along with thick deli cheddar. And ketchup. Ketchup makes everything a little better.

Appearance 5/10 a bit sloppy, cheese not melted well.

Flavor 7/10 good. This is one of the half sized rolls so not completely insane portion of bread.

40

Another one! Half sized wheat roll. Still too much bread. Like 3x the amount of bread in a ciabatta roll. The roll was also kind of crumbly which was unappealing. Freezer sausage, deli cheddar, and a fried egg. Fried egg was messy, not suited for this application as I have said in the past. A bit more cooked than I've had in the past, but not solid. Cooekd hard fixes the messy issue, but I find that style to be inferior to scrambled.

Appearance 7/10. I like the rakish angle of the upper bun. And the whole thing looks good. But, as usual, too much bun.

Flavor 7/10 I enjoyed the sunnyside up egg as a change of pace. Also used three sausage patties, so it was, ahem, sausage forward.

Sandwichspace 34, 35, and 36

34

This one was two eggs, scrambled with sauteed spinach, mushrooms, and bologna. Focaccia bread, toasted. A couple rounds of bologna. The bologna was ok, 4/10. A couple slices of melted American cheese, 3/10. Neither American nor bologna was very good.

Appearance 3/10, pretty monsterous looking. The melted and browned cheese on top looks like a skin condition.

Flavor 4/10, not bad, but I could see the space for improvement. One shocker, I didn't really enjoy the sauteed mushrooms!

35

Another two eggs special, with sauteed spinach. Focaccia. I don't know if there was meat, so it wasn't too memorable if there was. Possibly a frozen sausage patty or two underneath. The flecks of red are from pepper jack, which was very nice, 7/10. 

Appearance 5/10. The egg was way too big. The sandwiches are getting uglier even as I zero in on flavors that I like.

Flavor 8/10, I really enjoyed this one. Maybe it's the pepper jack. Maybe I was just hungry. Pepper jack is certainly advancing to the final table.

36

Two eggs, sauteed spinach and mushrooms. The spinach was frozen, I thawed it in the microwave. The mushrooms were not a great addition, I think they may be voted off the island. Pepper jack back for another tour of duty. And sous vide chicken breast. I'm currently having a torrid love affair with sous vide, chicken in particular, though I have done a few steaks. I buy a pack of 8 breasts, season them, put them in quart bags, then freeze until I need them. They come out so perfect and moist sous viding them for two hours at 145 F that it's crazy. My desire to eat more chicken because it's healthier has always come into conflict with my desire not to deal with preparing chicken and handling raw chicken breasts for every meal. Also previous attempts to cook them either end up tough or at least dry, or boiling which leaves them painfully bland. But these I can package a weeks worth at one go and season them to boot. It takes a long time to cook, but it's just drop them in the water and wait, so it's very easy. Anyway, I sliced two sandwich sized slabs of sous vide chicken for this one and it was very good. 7/10.

Appearance 6/10 not a super huge fan of the pale white chicken breast appearance. Looks out of place.

Flavor 7/10 good sandwich, the bread was not quite right. 

Sandwichspace 32 and 33

32

This one was great! Frozen ciabatta, which was fine. Good even! Sauteed spinach and egg. Four thin slices of deli pastrami. This was maybe the best meat yet! Gave an extra salty kick to it. 9/10. A thick slice of pepper jack on top. This was also good, 7/10. 

Appearance 6/10, looked nice but not amazing.

Flavor 9/10, it was GOOD. Pastrami was awesome. The bread was great. This was pretty close.

33

Ok, this one was very sloppy. Frozen pao de quejido was, sub-optimal. I mean it was ok, but I think it lost something being frozen. Then 2 eggs scrambled mixed with lots of ground turkey and a splash of sauteed cabbage and pepper. Definitely went overboard with the meat, the whole thing was crumbly and fell apart. Though the turkey meat tasted good. Less next time for sure! 4/10. The cheese was gorgonzola. Yum. But looked like sausage gravy which was really weird. Maybe 4/10. Again, tasted good, but the whole thing was like a sloppy joe.

Appearance 3/10. Ugly and falling apart.

Flavor 6/10, good but not an entrant in the breakfast sandwich hall of fame.

Sandwichspace 31

 Today's sandwich was a departure from previous attempts in that I used no meat at all. I vaguely intended to, I have some fancy ham, some bologna, chicken chunks, and sausage in the freezer. But just skipped it. I'd give no meat a 5/10, not bad, particularly if the rest of the sandwich is good and hearty. Bread was English toasting bread which toasted up nice. Eggs were two eggs scrambled with sauteed spinach. Cheese was gorgonzola crumbles. I sauteed them in the non-stick pan until it became like a sludge (haha, yum!). Then I poured it over the sandwich. Pretty good, 7/10 I'd say.

Appearance 5/10. I buttered the toasted bread on the side that was prettier. The gorgonzola looks like gravy, which is kinda repulsive. 

Flavor 7/10. Real good, I think meat won't necessarily be a part of the final endgame sandwich. Or at least not every time. 

Funny, I've found the egg style I really like right away. I can't wait for my kale to be ready to harvest, I hope it's as good as the spinach. I also planted spinach. I think I'll try to grow spinach next year. Also curious to try eggs with basil instead of spinach once my basil grows. And cheese I'm pretty satisfied with thick cut deli sharp cheddar, that might be the winner. A little boring, but dang it is good. Meat seems to be less important than I had imagined. It seems not inconceivable that I might not have meat in the day-to-day sandwich in the future. That seems healthier for sure. And given that no meats have really stood out as critical, I'm ok with that. I seem to have problems using up deli meat before it goes bad.

Sandwichspace 30

 30

Introduced expensive ultra thin sliced ham this time around. Just eaten raw the ham is leathery and very salty. I figured I'd loosen it up a bit by sautéing it. Good texture when done, still kind of salty. As part of the sandwich though it was pretty danged good, adds a salty tang and a tiny barely noticeable hammy flavor. 8/10. Then went sauteed spinach with two scrambled eggs, thick sliced cheddar, and English toasting bread. Went a little off script when I noticed that the remaining toasting bread was the same length and width (but not very tall). So sliced it laterally for a nice square slice of toast. That was pretty good. I think a standard toast slice is the right size for my sandwich. 

Appearance 7/10. Call me basic but the nice square sandwich sliced size bread is just right.

Flavor 9/10 there may be some wiggle room on this score, but it was really good. The bread was nice, perfect toast. Could have been a little more toasted, but very good. I really poured on the spinach for this and it was not a mistake. There was a smidge of extra water I could have squeezed out, but that wasn't too critical. The cheese I melted a bit in the microwave. 

Sandwichspace 28 & 29

28

I was hopeful for English toasting bread. There was a time that I made it fairly frequently, though that recipe is lost in the sands of time. The current recipe is new, and it worked out pretty well. It uses a smidge of baking soda to create nice nooky-cranny-y bread. I toasted up an additional piece to eat as plain toast yesterday morning and it was pretty hard. Maybe unappealingly so. So I was a bit worried. In the end it softened up a bit while wrapped in foil on the way to work. The slice was smaller than I would have preferred, but I was very happy with it in the end, 8/10. Sauteed spinach and shallots mixed up with two scrambled eggs were good, but I'm not sure how much the shallots added, so I won't score them. Thick sliced deli cheddar and Canadian bacon rounded it out.

Appearance I dunno, 6/10 I guess. Not shockingly attractive. A larger, squarer slice of toast would be nice.

Flavor 8/10 the bread flavor was kinda nothing to write home about, but the texture was perfect. The rest was all good stuff. Maybe not quite as perfect as focaccia, but maybe a smidge fewer calories for not much loss of flavor.

29

This one was English toasting bread, sauteed spinach and egg, roast pork, and a new entry, thin sliced gruyere. The gruyere was maybe too thin to really be too noticeable, so 6/10.

Appearance 4/10. I mean, look at it.

Flavor 8/10 still good stuff. I think it's not worth the expense for gruyere, or the effort for that matter, I had to buy it in a wedge.

Sandwichspace 26 and 27

 The first 25 sandwiches!

26

So I made pao de quejido, a Brazilian cheese bread that uses tapioca flour. Typically I make it into little balls. So good! But I tried making like a sort of bun with it. It was good, but the texture was not ideal.

Possibly a little undercooked as well? Pretty good though. I think the bread was a 5/10 or so. Fantastic for a gluten free option, but probably not in the running. My first sandwich had sous vide scrambled eggs. Delicious, very custardy. They almost tasted cheesy without any cheese. But there was zero structural integrity, so these utterly fail for this purpose. 2/10

Cat hair on the plate, -10 points.

You can see how the egg just fell out of the sandwich. For meat had some leftover bits of rib steak from the previous night. Taste was good, texture was good, but I didn't feel it was a good fit for this breakfast sandwich that I'm trying to perfect, 6/10. Thick sliced deli cheddar, melted nicely.

Appearance 4/10, the bread looks underdone. The structural failings of the soft, custardy egg made for unappealing aesthetics.

Flavor 6/10, I mean, it tasted pretty good, but overall a fail on this one.

27

More cheese bread here. Some deli sliced roast pork, sauteed on the stove a bit for some browning. 6/10, I liked it, but not a huge standout. Perhaps a thicker slice would improve it? Mushroom omelet with two eggs. Surprisingly not a fan. Just call me Spinach Boy. Texture was not great, flavor was ok, otherwise cooked fine, just not feeling the shrooms. 5/10. Deli cheddar. PdQ bread.

Appearance 8/10, Bun looks good, pork looks amazing peeking out. Very nice look.

Flavor 5/10 unfortunately, the pork looked better than it tasted. Egg and cheese was fine. The bread was somehow too dry? What the hell? Not sure how that was even possible.

So Brazilian cheese bread was shockingly disappointing. Next up, English toasting bread.

Sandwichspace 25

 Lazy Saturday. So I decided to make one of the most time consuming breakfast sandwiches. I scrambled 4 eggs in the double boiler. It's a really good method. The eggs turned out light and fluffy as expected. But not a lot of structural integrity. So, a good method for cooking eggs, but not really ideal for this endeavor. So maybe like a 3/10. On taste alone, way better, maybe 8/10, but not so much better as to warrant the extra time and effort and OMG what a pita to clean the pot of the double boiler. Another fantastic innovation, I tried the frozen ciabatta rolls. They were fine. I would not have been able to tell they were frozen. Perhaps freezing makes them a smidge chewy but this type of roll is already chewy, so who knows! Will have to try freezing other types of bread. The meat was Canadian bacon. It was good. I microwaved it. Yes, a strange mix of lazy and industrious. But it was fine. Not as good as fried a bit to get some nice browning, but maybe fine, maybe not worth the effort there. Cheese was thick sliced deli sharp cheddar.

Appearance 6/10, it was nice looking.

Flavor 5/10 tasted good, but truly kind of fell apart. Cheese not well melted either, doh!

Sandwichspace 23 & 24

 23:

Nothing new here, focaccia, sauteed spinach and two scrambled eggs, thick sliced deli sharp cheddar, and the last of the pancetta. Man, the pancetta is so salty.

I seem to have a habit of putting the ugly side of the focaccia on top, lol.

Appearance 6/10 it's alright I guess.

Flavor 6/10 

24:

Digging into a new meat, this time, Canadian bacon. Sauteed it up a bit. Flavor was great, I think the thickness was pretty good. Not my favorite, but better than I expected. 6/10 The rest was retreads, focaccia, spinach scramble, and thick cheddar slices. Melted nicely on top of the Canadian bacon.

Appearance 7/10 I think it's appealing. The circular Canadian bacon is aesthetically appealing and convenient.

Flavor 7/10 pretty good. All of it really well done. Maybe would have browned the meat a smidge more.

Sandwichspace 22

 Today was a good breakfast day! Sauteed spinach and scrambled egg, two glorious thick slices of deli sharp cheddar, four super thin slices of pancetta sauteed up a bit, and toasted focaccia. Nothing new here, but it kind of felt great having the focaccia again. I don't know if it's the easiest type of bread for my needs, but it sure feels easy. Hands on time is really rather minimal, though admittedly there is lots of waiting time. I should try making it start to finish and see how much I can minimize hands on time. Almost for sure < 10 min.

My gawd that seems like an obscene amount of cheese. Although it is only 2 thick slices. 

Appearance maybe a 6/10 because I'm loving that melty gooey cheese.

Flavor 7/10, maybe oversalted a bit. But great sandwich. 

Sandwichspace 21

 So I stopped at a famrers market Wednesday and bought a croissant wrapped in cellophane. $5, quite pricy, but I tend to feel good about spending money at a farmers market. And I had plans. Today is Sunday, and those plans came to fruition. With the croissant as a base, I threw the traditional sauteed spinach and scrambled egg, then mixed it up with 4 thin slices of pancetta. I cooked the pancetta for a bit, then put two thick slices of deli sharp cheddar on top. I cooked it until the cheese melted. Pancetta was nice, but I'm glad I used 4 slices as it was almost overwhelmed by the rest of the sandwich. 7/10. The croissant was so damn good, 9/10.

Appearance was really great, 8/10. I didn't like how tall it was, but it was so delicate that I crushed it down and it was perfect.

Flavor was top notch. Maybe the best yet. 9/10. The problem is, croissants are a huge pain in the ass to make. And this one was professionally made. Mine are, well, not that good, my best was about like this:

So although fantastic, I don't think croissants are the solution for a regular thing.

I note that at this point I have kind of settled in with sauteed spinach and scrambled eggs for my egg style. I will try other kinds or cooked eggs, and other add-ins as well. But I'm enjoying this for now, so I will keep at it. I am growing kale, but it's teensy tiny at the moment. I think even once I'd found the ideal sandwich, which seems like it will almost certainly be scrambled eggs, the ad-ins will vary from time to time. I haven't microwaved the eggs much, maybe at all during the sandwichspace testing, but that will likely be a go-to method of cooking.

The second component I keep returning to is thick-sliced deli sharp cheddar. I have tried many different cheeses over the last 55 years, and some are better than others. But I keep returning to sharp cheddar. It's just so good. And it melts nice. I'm not sure this will be the final choice cheese, but it sure seems like it.

So we're down to meat and bread. So far the meat has been less important than the rest. And too often lost in the mix flavor-wise. The best one so far has been thick frozen sausage patties maybe? But I definitely have more to explore. Possibilities - fried bologna, scrapple, pork roll, pepperoni, possibly various other lunch meats. Or maybe no meat at all if I'm convinced it doesn't add much except calories.

Bread is of course a big deal for me, I've made lot of different types, and just off the top of my head - pao de queijo, tortillas, English muffins, English toasting bread, brioche. 

Sandwichspace 20

 Today's go was scrambled eggs, sauteed spinach, and cubed Spam with Tovino.On top a slab of Spam with Tovino, and some melted (partially) Super Sharp Provolone. The Spam was just terrible. 1/10.. Spam has a texture that is, well, frankly unpleasant. I think that could be improved by frying the fuck out of it. But still, no bueno. And the Tovino flavor was pretty bad. Like, sweet and a bit tangy. Like General Tsos a little bit. Which was utterly, utterly unwelcome on my breakfast sandwich. The sharp provolone was pretty crummy as well. In that case the flavor was great, but I think meltiness is pretty critical. I got one little fragment to melt by putting it right on the pan. Pretty tasty and nice and melty. That is too much effort I think.And finally, the bread was my last butter roll. I will miss them, but I'm not sure I will make them again.

Appearance 4/10. The top was too pale. The orange of the meat is staring at me reminding me of that not good meat. Prov was a little melty tho, that was nice.

Flavor 3/10. The meat really killed it. Rest was decent.

Sandwichspace 19

 Another day, another butter bun. Scrammy and spins, turkey, and a new entrant, 2 new smoked gouda deli slices. The gouda was good, 6/10

Appearance 7/10. I think these buns are pretty.

Flavor 7/10. Good eats.

So many butter buns. Although they are so good I will undoubtedly blaze through them. Next up? Hmmm, maybe pao de queijo.