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.

Sandwichspace 17 and 18

 So I saw this recipe online that hinted that it might produce something flaky like a croissant without all that pesky croissant effort. I have definitely tried croissants (see my efforts in March 2017!), but only a couple of times despite how tasty they were. It's just a lot of work. So these Aberdeen butteries really appealed to me, in theory at least. So I banged out a batch of them. The first thing I realized was that it takes a LOT of butter. And some lard. So probably the ridiculous calorie content is a dealbreaker right there. Ah, well. But I had gotten started at that point, had my mise en place, ok, not really, but I did have all the ingredients. So I plowed forward. The dough is difficult to knead, extremely sticky. I suppose I could have added a bit more flour to make it work better. But I figure the wetter the better. It was almost impossible to flatten into a rectangle to smear the butter/lard mix on. Eventually it went in the oven. I peaked about halfway through and it looked pretty good, puffed up nicely. Then a bit after that the smoke. So much smoke. When I finally took it out there was a pool of butter on the parchment paper. There was more on the floor of the oven. What a mess. And so much smoke. Probably because it was rather poorly laminated. But I mean, that was kind of the point, croissant characteristics without the full lamination effort. So I have to clean the oven, which is kind of a pain. And it felt like half my fat leaked out, which is not the way it was supposed to go. I had a little metal dish in there to toss ice cubes in when I need steam for my bread and it literally had like a quarter inch of grease in it. Yuk.

But the rolls. Fooking delicious. And flaky. So buttery. And they looked kind of nice, too.

Sandwichspace 17

So this morning I grabbed one of those beasts and popped it open. Egg with sauteed spinach. I know, shocker. Whole foods grass-fed sausage patty. I mean, the flavor there was good, but the texture was miserable. Next up - super sharp provolone. Flavor was ok, maybe not ideal for this purpose. And the prov did not melt for crap. I'm not ruling out some thinner sliced sharp prov or something. But for this I'd say maybe 2/10. The roll itself was amazing, but the bottom was a little sodden. With butter probably. Not a good vehicle for future breakfast sammiches unless the end goal is coronary disease. But flaky, buttery, delish. 8/10. So good that I may circle back to this and retry with like, 16% of the butter.

Appearance 7/10 loved the look. 

Flavor 7/10 undeniably good, but this is not the one.

Sandwichspace 18

This evening I was thinking about these obscenely buttery rolls. Ok, admittedly I was thinking about them a lot of the day. So I shuffled together a breakfast sandwich for dinner. Buttery beast roll, sauteed spinach and egg scramble, deli thick sliced cheddar. To mix it up a bit, for meat I used a thick sliced turkey breast (not from the deli, sold as a loaf, Kentucky Legend brand). The turkey was really great, fit nicely for the task. It was thick enough to be noticeable, easy - I just threw it on the bun right out of the fridge, and tasty. And as far as potential breakfast meats go, it has to be one of the healthier ones. I'll give it an 8/10. This one really shocked me. A couple strips of roasted green chile which sat in the freezer for like a year. Good though, a definite plus.

Appearance 6/10 Despite the utter garbage picture - at least it was blurry at full size - the look was very respectable. This particular roll was a bit thinner so it came out with some slight holes in the top. 

Flavor 7/10 Roast turkey a plus.

Sandwichspace 16

Today's effort was aBreaducation loaf, toasted, mortadella, lightly sauteed, two thick deli slices of cheddar, and two slightly scrambled eggs. The eggs were done nicely. I used my new non-stick pan, It worked great, though I don't have a good spatula to use with the pan, I ended up using a wooden spoon. I used several slived of mortadella just to finish off the deli slices I bought a while ago. Not super great.I would say maybe 3/10 again, despite browning it a bit more and using more. No spinach today, maybe I was just being lazy, maybe I wanted to give the mortadella a real chance to shine.

Appearance 7/10. Gotta say it was pretty. The melted cheese looks so good here.

Flavor 5/10, good but seemed a little lacking.

Sandwichspace 15

Today's entrant was similar to yesterday's. Toasted slices of abreaducation loaf, deli sliced sharp cheddar, 3 egg omelet with sauteed spinach, Genoa, and NM chile, three thin slices of mortadella on top. The chile was really noticeable and a nice addition. Inspired by Anthony Bourdain's favorite sandwich which uses mortadella. I made that last month. It is indeed epic. The mortadella was lost, didn't really notice it. Maybe I will try again with more 3/10. The one other thing I did here was to add ketchup to one half. It was good. This un-ketchup'd side was a bit drier, so I'd say +1 as an add-in. 

Appearance 7/10.

Flavor 7/10. Good stuff.

Sandwichspace 14

 Put my loaf from last night to work today. After scoffing at the idea that I would make a two bread slice breakfast sandwich yesterday, I made one today for lunch, sigh. I like the sustainability of this setup. The loaf is not too hard to make, but really tasty. I should get 4 or 5 sandwiches out of a loaf. Definitely a week's worth. I'd say a 7/10 overall.. Between the toasted slice I put a three egg omelet with sauteed spinach and Genoa salami.Normally I prefer hard salami. But they didn't have it. I gotta say, the Genoa was really good sliced up a bit, sauteed, and mixed into the omelet. I could taste it, very nice, 6/10. On top of that I put a couple thick-sliced slices of cheddar (thick sliced by the deli), 8/10. Thick sliced deli sharp cheddar is really the way to go. I don't have to waste precious time in the morning fiddling with cheese, and it's perfectly sized for the sandwich. Melts so nice.

. Appearance - 7/10. I think this could be better is the toasting was a bit more even. But I generally think it looks quite appetizing.

Flavor - 7/10. The bread was great. The cheese was perfect, maybe slightly more melted would have been ideal, but if it had been wrapped in foil and brought to work it would have been. The Genoa salami was a pleasant surprise, I had low expectations for that. The egg was cooked just right. This could be the combo for sure.

Bread Action

 So one of my favorite loaves to make is from a site called aBreaducation - https://www.abreaducation.com/content/lesson1-first-loaf . It was one of the first loaves I made after literally about 6 years of effort making a loaf or two a week that I really felt was just right. For a long while it was my go to loaf for white sandwich bread. And it toasted up really well. The only real downside was that it often made a kind of flat boule. Sometimes I would cook it in a bread pan to get more of a loaf shape. Today I did something a bit different. Today I cooked it in a round cake pan. And it turned out so beautiful!

We'll see how it does for a breakfast sandwich, but I'm liking the size and shape a lot. A nice slice cut in half would be just the right size. Two slices would be too big. Maybe thin sliced and toasted and the egg spread out over the toast. Going to be hard to get good meat coverage. Maybe this would be a vehicle for bacon...

Sandwichspace 13

 A couple of changes in today's effort. Thick sausage patty and the same bread as yesterday, toasted. For cheese I used cream cheese. It was ok 3/10. It beat nothing, but meh. I bet scallion cream cheese would be a bit of an improvement. For eggs I microwaved a handful of spinach, then squeezed out the water. Then a couple eggs, a pinch of salt, a dash of pepper. I have certainly made prettier microwave eggs, but they tasted pretty good, maybe 5/10.

Appearance - I dunno, 5/10. The circular eggs kinda looked weird. Bun looked nice though.

Flavor - 4/10. I mean it was ok, but not very cheesy, the eggs unpleasantly underdone and not very fluffy - kind of surprised at that. I like having microwaved scrambled eggs usually, they are nice and fluffy often. But not this time. Perhaps I'm off my microwaved egg game, have been frying on the stove so often.

Out of bread now. Will have to whip up something new for tomorrow. Also hit up Whole Foods and bought some supplies - smoked gouda, thick sliced cheddar, grass fed sausage patties, Genoa salami, and mortadella. 

GARDEN UPDATE: Kale is coming up nicely!

Sandwichspace 12

So I toasted this bad boy. This time it worked, it wasn't too hard. Onion, spinach, and scrambled egg. Thin sausage (cooked but not overcooked, did not end up leathery). Thin sliced cheddar. 

Appearance - 7/10, not bad

Flavor 6/10, decent. No new ground broken here. 

Garden Intermission

 I planted some kale a few days ago in one of the stone planters by the driveway. Nothing up yet, the seeds may be too old.

I planted spinach and basil in some windowbox planters. We'll see if I get anything before the frost. I will probably plant some more kale. I want to have kale for my breakfast sandwiches.

Sandwichspace 10 & 11

 10:

This sandwich was biscuit, shaved cheddar, fried eggs, and three thin frozen sausage patties. Again, love the sunnyside up egg for a nice picture, so good, but not really in the running for a sandwich I would not be eating immediately. And so messy. The three sausages really boosted the sausage flavor and made the sandwich much more enjoyable. I had poo-pooed the thin sausage patties before but I think I can make them work by using, maybe two stacked, maybe 6/10. Three was a bit decadent, but I was experimenting.

Appearance 8/10. Pretty.

Flavor 7/10. Not dramatically better than the last one, pretty similar.

11:

I was out of biscuits so I made like a dinner roll type bread. Soft and fluffy. Unlike the recipe, I just made a giant circular bun instead of breaking it up into little balls. Then each sando got 90 degrees of the disk. I hit that bad boy with an egg wash before putting it in the oven, which in retrospect may have been a bad idea. When I toasted it then wrapped it in foil to steam while I went to work the top become QUITE hard. Maybe no egg wash? Maybe these just don't toast quite perfectly. Anyway, bread was a 4/10. Might try just untoasted? The egg was scrambled with sauteed spinach, which is fucking amazing and I love it so much right now, shaved cheddar, and two nice slices of thick cut bacon. Nothing new with these.

Appearance 7/10. Not unpretty. Very bacon forward.

Taste 6/10. Good, but the hardness of the top crust was a bit disturbing.

Sandwichspace 9

 Today's effort was a bit simpler, sauteed spinach and egg on a biscuit. I decided to forgo the meat and cheese because I had a big dinner last night and I wasn't super hungry. Nothing new with the spinach and egg, though a quick glance back at the last four sandwiches show I used the same egg mix. Man, spinach is pretty good. The biscuit is new, and while it looked absolutely gorgeous, the taste, while good, was maybe not ideal for the job. The recipe itself suggested not to use Greek yogurt, but that's all I had, so I used it. The recipe suggested Greek yogurt would make the biscuit "gummy". I wouldn't have used that term without prompting, but I felt like I could see what they meant by it. The second and more serious issue was that it is a LOT of bread. The biscuits puffed up dramatically, which is generally a good thing. But I'm not sure that it is ideal for this application. That all said, the biscuit was soft, buttery, and delicious. But I guess I'd give it a 6/10 for this project.

Appearance 8/10. Can't deny the biscuit is pretty.

Flavor 7/10 - it was good for sure, but it was like maybe 3/4 biscuit. I could have mitigated that with meat and cheese, so this example is not definitive for the biscuit option. I may also try different biscuit recipes, perhaps something less substantial would do the trick.

Biscuits!

Ran out of ciabatta for tomorrow's breakfast. Well, that's not completely true. There was one burned one that had gone completely rock solid. And there are a few frozen ones as a fallback. It's getting late. So naturally I decided to make biscuits. https://www.seriouseats.com/light-and-fluffy-biscuit-recipe

The recipe said it made 14, so I halved it. I made them bigger than it recommended. It made... 2.

Sandwichspace 8

 Today's breakfast feast was really nice, but no major new ground was broken. Scrambled with sauteed spinach, thick frozen sausage, cheddar, and ciabatta.

Just for fun I popped the top. Not too photogenic! But does give a nice idea of the crumb of the ciabatta. 

Appearance - 6/10

Flavor - 7/10. I toasted it up, then took it to work. Not bad. It steamed up a bit and wasn't too crunchy or too soggy.

Sandwichspace 6 & 7

Sammich #6

I took the "Day" out of the title because I skipped a day already, and it's possible to double up as well.

More work with the ciabatta rolls. For #6 I did a load of sauteed spinach in a mass of scrambled egg, slices of cheddar, and the debut of a fan favorite, bacon.

Not much truly new here. The ciabatta bun was only slightly warmed. It made me think, these should be toasted more, they seem almost a bit soggy. I did butter the bread a bit. I don't think that significantly soggied the sammich, but it certainly added some nice buttery flavor. Hard to pick it out in the midst of all that egg, but I think it gives it a boost. Still, the sogginess was a downer. 5/10 The bacon, as I said, was a bit hard to pick out in the whole deal. Two folded over thick cut bacon slices. One would assume that it would be a huge enhancement to the experience. Disappointing. I will circle back to bacon again soon, but for now 3/10. Yeah, I'm shocked, too. Maybe I need 4 slices of bacon to get the flavor across. But given the relative difficulty of cooking up bacon - I have to cook it the night before unless I get up the second the alarm rings, which is nigh inconceivable - bacon does not seem like it will be a winner in this experiment.

Appearance 5/10. Bun was burned (from the original bake). Cheese unmelted and unappealing looking. Admittedly it did look better After I got to work and the cheese melted a bit.

Flavor 6/10. Mostly because the bun was soggy and the bacon was a bit of a whiff. 

Sammich #7

Toasted the ciabatta bun. It was crunchy and brittle, so a bit too far. Although I consumed this one on the spot, so if I hard wrapped it up in foil and brought it to work it would likely have steamed/softened a bit. I will have to play with this element. 5/10 on the bun. I'm worrying a bit that getting ciabatta in the Goldilocks zone between soggy and crunchy and brittle may be a bit of a challenge. I do like that the bun itself is fairly small - I don't want to be eating a shitton of bread with my breakfast. Focaccia is a lot of bread (but so tasty).

Egg and sauteed spinach. I haven't been overpowered by the spinach the last two times. Maybe that was a fluke? Cheddar slices. Reliable. And a new arrival, thick cut frozen sausage. Not leathery! And so tasty, a real meaty bite. I feel like I want to toss out the old thin frozen sausage patties. They just can't compete. I'd say 7, but the ease of prep pushes them to an 8/10. Just toss in the microwave a bit, or if time is not a factor pan fry them until perfecto. Hard to mess up. Now, I have never seen this variety of sausage patty at the store before, so it may not be readily available. Some frozen sausage patties are pretty mediocre. And raw sausage tubes that you need to fully cook are a whole different category, I will investigate those as well down the road a bit.

Appearance 7/10. Maybe a smidge less for the egg overflowing and the cheese hanging out there out of nowhere.

Flavor 7/10. The brittleness of the bread was a big disappointment. But then the sausage was a real plus.  

Sandwichspace Day 5

 I whipped up a bunch of about a dozen ciabatta rolls. I'm thinking they will freeze well and be a nice backup. Was thinking of prepping up a few sandwiches and freezing them whole, see how that works.

        

First thought, wow, this was way prettier than the focaccia. More like a traditional breakfast sandwich. I was a bit worried that the bread would be a bit too chewy. It was great though. I buttered it and then heated it in the pan for a few minutes. Not browned, but definitely warmed up quite a bit. Then heated up a frozen breakfast sausage patty and some frozen spinach. When the spinach was hot, I added the scrambled eggs. I was very careful not to overcook the eggs, and they turned out perfect. For cheese I added thin slices of cheddar to the top of the bun/sausage. When they didn't instantly melt (was I expecting sorcery?), I put them in the microwave for 33 seconds. Perfect! All in all, the eggs were almost perfect, like a 9/10. I would happily have this sandwich every morning. This spinach was a nice addition, but honestly the flavor was a little, well, spinachy (what did I expect, ha!). I think I need kale. Sadly my kale patch is wiped out. I think I'll plant some more today. The bread was way better than I imagined, maybe 7/10. I liked that it was solid and not crumbly as focaccia gets sometimes.

Appearance - 7/10. Appearance is not critical, but it is nice if my sandwich is photogenic. I think a truly gorgeous sandwich will be hard to achieve without actively working toward that end. I may try to beautify things when I zero in a bit more on what I'm looking for in the flavorzone.

Flavor - 8/10. The spinach was good, but I think I wasn't really in a spinach mood today. The sausage patty was thin and a bit rubbery. Better than no sausage, but we need improvement in the meat area for sure. Cheese looked good and tasted good. Grating seems to leave an ultra-thin layer. I think I desire a bit more thickness. I call this category "Flavor" but texture is part of it too. The eggs were perfect today and the bread was not as chewy as I had feared. This was a great sandwich.