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.