It starts like this:
And the screen looks like this:
As a warm up, I made this:
And then this:
Kinda like an Etch A Sketch 
only way better.
If you are not satisfied, you can click on this and begin again:
Curves are tricky. Spacing is awkward. What you have in mind and what you create are not identical, not by any means. Hard as you try, as many times as you “clear bread”, the result is a surprise package. Not unlike a sandwich, or daily life, or the future.
This post ran Thanksgiving 2012. We are reprising it here at The Lunch Encounter in 2013 in celebration of a year for which to be thankful indeed.
Watershed moment at The Lunch Encounter. A recipe.
Do we need any more recipes? No we do not. That said, I’m feeling strong about posting this one.
Last Thanksgiving I was thinking about the ubiquitous turkey-cranberry sauce-stuffing sandwich and had an aha moment.
Do you like that stuffing in the sandwich? I do not, although the taste is good. What we need here is my brilliant idea – Stuffing Bread! I’m so excited about this that I can’t shut up. Toss a turkey leg into a crowd and you will hit one of my victims. Poor thing had to listen to me gaggle on and on and on about my brilliant idea.
Last year Thanksgiving and the leftover turkey got away from me. Stuffing bread was back-burnered. This year however – woo hoo – we did it. I’m all puffed up like the Tom himself.
Tell you what, stuffing bread is brilliant. I think so anyhow. Here’s how to make it yourself.
Stuffing Bread
Makes 2 9×5-inch loaves
2 cups finely diced celery, about 4 ribs
2 cups finely diced yellow onion, about 1 large
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
(This picture is only enough for one loaf. You will need double of everything for the full recipe.)
Put the butter, onion and celery into a medium sauté pan and set over low heat. Stir to coat the vegetables evenly with butter, then let cook slowly until very soft, about 10 minutes. A little browning is okay, but watch that they don’t get dark.
1 quart unsalted turkey or chicken stock, 1/4 cup set aside
Add the stock to the vegetables, turn the heat to high and bring the stock to a boil. Let boil until the liquid has reduced to what looks like 2 cups. It need not be exact, but it must be 2 cups or less, not more. Remove from heat and pour into a liquid (glass pitcher style) measuring cup. Add cold water to make 2 cups, if needed. Let the mixture cool until it is tepid.
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon minced fresh sage
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme
Add the herbs to the stock mixture.
1 package active dry yeast (I like Hodgson Mill Fast Rise)
1 teaspoon sugar
Put the reserved 1/4 cup stock into a small bowl, add the yeast and sugar and stir until the yeast is completely wet. Set aside for 5 minutes.
5 cups all-purpose white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
Put 4 cups white flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, the stock mixture and the yeast mixture into the bowl of the standing mixer. Using the hook attachment, blend until a dough begins to form. Add the remaining cup of flour and let it spin for a minute or so. The dough should be soft and not sticky.
This can all be done by hand, too, of course.
Water, as needed
If it is dry, add more water a couple tablespoons at a time.
1 tablespoon salt
Freshly ground pepper, black or white
As the dough is mixing, add salt and a generous grinding of pepper.
Knead the dough, by machine or by hand on a lightly floured surface, until it is smooth and elastic, adjusting with flour or water if necessary.
Butter a bowl, put the dough in it, cover with a tea towel and set in a warm place to rise for about an hour. It should double in size.
When it is twice its original size, punch the dough down. If you have time, cover it again and let it rise a second time. If not, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and shape it into two loaves, pinching any seams together tightly.
Grease two 9×5-inch loaf pans and set the dough in them, seam side down. Cover with the tea towel and let the dough rise again until it is almost double.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Bake the loaves in the center of the oven for 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and bake for about 30 more minutes. The bread should be nicely browned and sound hollow when you tap on the top.
Let cool on a rack. Turn out and let cool completely before slicing.
Really tasty toast, too!
There. Hap hap happy. We dignified that bird.
Posted in Holidays, Recipes, Sandwiches, Thanksgiving
Tagged Recipes, Stuffing Bread, Thanksgiving, Turkey
Hey, I’m posting a recipe. For Passover. Or another time.
Second Helpings, Please! was given to me by a super lovely client. He had talked about it – cause this book is beloved in Canada and was written by the mother of a longtime family friend of his in Montreal. I had shown enthusiasm, he generously sent me a copy, I felt obliged to cook from it. Obliged in a good way. Do not need nor want anymore cookbooks staring me down to COOK FROM THEM. So I did.
Checked the index for sandwiches and there it was, Baked Matzo Sandwiches. Have you heard of that? I had not. Bingo! Exciting. Thank you, Eric, for giving me a reason to cook something new.
I had fun in the kitchen with this unusual – to me anyway – sandwich. I cooked. From a book. With embellishments. The original recipe calls for matzo, ground meat and onions. Plus salt and pepper and a couple other incidentals. So there was lots of room to improvise and I did. With lamb, pinenuts, escarole, garlic and… I thought of yellow raisins and will add them next time.
This sandwich was pretty good. Actually, I loved it. The matzo gets crispy, but is soft on the inside, and the flavors were so nice together, as were the textures. While cooking from this book the web that connects me to the world before us, behind us and within us filled my mind and heart.
Toasted Matzo Sandwich of Lamb, Escarole and Pinenuts
1 matzo, broken in half
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
4 ounces ground lamb, veal, turkey, chicken or combination
1/4 medium onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped escarole leaves, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon toasted pinenuts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
A nice option: The addition of some yellow raisins. I did not add them, but will next time. Also, the escarole could be replaced with spinach, arugula or watercress. 
First get out all the ingredients. 
Put the matzo in an 8×8-inch dish and cover it with water. Let it sit. 
Chop the onion, garlic and escarole. Turn the matzo dish sideways over the sink and gently press out the water with your hand. Try to keep the matzo intact. Pour the beaten egg over the matzo and season it with salt and pepper. 
Put about 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small, non-stick saute pan and set over medium-high heat to warm. Add the lamb and brown it nicely, stirring with a wooden spoon to break it into little pieces. Spoon the lamb out into a bowl, turn the heat down to low and add the onions.
Let the onions cook slowly until they are soft and sweet, about 5 minutes. Stir them often, let them brown, but not burn.
Add the garlic and cook for a minute or two, until the garlic softens. Add the escarole, turn up the heat to medium high and stir until the escarole is wilted.
Remove from heat, stir in the lamb and pinenuts. Taste and then season with salt and pepper if you feel it is needed.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a large, non-stick, oven-proof (no plastic handles) saute pan with a thin layer of olive oil and set it over medium heat.
With a thin, flat, metal spatula lift one piece of matzo out of the egg carefully. Try not to break the matzo too much (it will be kind of a mess but that’s okay) and put it in the saute pan. If the matzo is broken just spread it into a nice flat rectangle as best you can. 
Spoon the filling onto the matzo and spread it around gently. Lift the second piece of matzo out of the egg with the metal spatula and lay it over the sandwich filling. If it is in pieces, just patch it together and proceed. Not to worry.
Let the sandwich crisp up on the stove for about 4 minutes, then move it to the oven for 10 minutes. Use the spatula to turn your sandwich over and put it back in the oven for about 10 more minutes until it is brown and firm and crisp.
Slide the sandwich onto a board, use a serrated knife to cut it in half and eat it up. 
I ate (most of the sandwich) with a fork and knife, although it could be picked up easily. Fork and knife saved the laundress a bit of napkin washing. Sunny weekend lunch with panache.
Posted in Cookbooks, Holidays, Passover, Recipes
Tagged "Second Helpings, Baked Matzo Sandwich, Matzo, Please!"
Love turns bread into buttered toast. And love is heat. And heat is the science of toast. 
Is love simply science? Methinks yes. It’s the KISS principle. 
Yes, do keep it simple, stupid. Love is so stupidly simple.
Toast, on the other side, the buttered side, is not. Or is it?
About one-seventeenth, no more, no less. Simple. Now get on out there and spread the love, from F41 F to F441 in 0 to 60.
a+b=love respectively
Posted in Holidays, Toast Poast, Valentines
is the egg.
By Miriam Rubin
At sundown on Friday, April 6, Passover will begin as Jews all over the world gather around dining tables. They’ll light festival candles. They’ll read ancient prayers and passages from the Haggadah. They’ll sit at tables set with gleaming silver, pressed linens, Grandmother’s china, or maybe just a hodgepodge of plates. Each place will have a wine glass, because drinking wine or grape juice is an essential element of the ceremony. Read on here.
And for all of us, celebrating Passover or not, the surging renewal of spring is upon us and the egg is triumphant.
Posted in Eggs, Holidays, Miriam Rubin, Passover, Sandwiches
Tagged ADA, food, Hardboiled eggs, Miriam Rubin, Passover, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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