See what I did there?

Sometimes indecision can lead to greatness.

For example, I love John Stewart’s Indecision election coverage. He always makes it very clear how much of a hot mess politics can be on both sides of the old aisle.

I’m not so indecisive about politics though.

I’m more indecisive about sandwiches.

On this occasion I was torn between making a grilled cheese sandwich or a club sandwich. My indecisiveness led me to just smack them together and call it good. And trust me, it was really good.

Grilled Cheese Club

Yield: 1 sandwich

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pieces of bread
2-3 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated or sliced
1 chipotle pepper, diced
1 tablespoon salsa
1/2 avocado, sliced
2 slices bacon, crispy
Cilantro
Butter

Directions:

1) Butter two pieces of bread. Slice or grate the cheese and dice up the chipotle. Cook bacon either in a pan until crispy or on a wire rack in a 350 degree oven until crispy, about 15 minutes.

2) In a small skillet, add one piece of buttered bread, butter side down. Top with cheese, pepper and salsa. Top with other piece of buttered bread, butter side up.

3) Cook grilled cheese over medium heat for about 6-8 minutes, flipping occasionally until bread is browned and cheese is well-melted.

4) Toast other piece of bread. Top with bacon, sliced avocado, and cilantro.

5) When grilled cheese is done, add entire sandwich to the top of the open-faced part of the sandwich.

6) Slice and serve immediately!

A Tex-Mex Flair

When slapping together a grilled cheese sandwich and a club sandwich, almost any toppings will work. This is more a post about a simple idea rather than an exact recipe.

I decided to go with a tex-mex version though with chipotle peppers, cilantro, avocado, and salsa. Feel free to adapt to your tastes.

Some of my personal favorite flavors.

The Grilled Cheese

You might ask why I wouldn’t just shove all the ingredients into one grilled cheese sandwich.

The answer is two-fold. First, I don’t think they would all easily fit. Second, things are just better when they are stacked. Take my word for it.

The grilled cheese sandwich itself is pretty basic. I always recommend buttering the bread for a grilled cheese, but you don’t necessarily have to go as heavy on the butter as I do. I have a heavy butter hand – no question.

Butta that bread.

Add one slice of bread, butter side down, into a small skillet and then top with cheese, diced chipotle pepper and salsa. If you want to not have it be super-spicy, leave out the chipotle and just use some salsa.

Also, your cheese will melt easier if it’s grated. I didn’t grate mine on this occasion because I just plain forgot.

Some spicy stuff.

Cover this with the other piece of bread (butter side up) and cook it over medium heat until the cheese is melted and the bread is nice and brown. It’ll probably take about 8 minutes.

The key with cooking a grilled cheese is not to cook it over high heat. If you do, the bread will brown before the heat has time to transfer through to the cheese and you’ll end up with a burned sandwich.

Just keep it over medium heat and flip it every few minutes and you should be good to go.

The Club Section

I just couldn’t make a club sandwich without bacon. It’s not to say that you couldn’t, but I couldn’t.

I like to bake my bacon in the oven on a wire rack at 350 degrees so it gets nice and crispy.

The only way to do bacon.

Toast your third piece of bread and then add your bacon to the bread.

You’ll also need to slice up some avocado and grab a few cilantro leaves. I went heavy on the cilantro because I wanted a lot of herb flavor, but use it to your tastes which for some people is not at all.

Sandwich building 101.

Stack the avocado slices and cilantro right on top of the bacon. Notice that I didn’t put down any mayo or anything. You don’t really need it for this sandwich because the avocado has a creamy texture to it and there’s lots of cheese in the grilled cheese half.

Half of a sandwich.

Putting it all together

This isn’t rocket science, but I was pretty giddy while making it.

When your grilled cheese is done, it’s as simple as plopping it right on top of your club sandwich half.

Stacked up!

Slice it up so it’s easier to eat and you’re good to go.

I just love the layers in this bad boy. It was really good.

This worked.

This might be a bit more complicated than a normal grilled cheese, but it’s also more filling and has some really complex flavors which I liked.

The thing that takes the most time for the recipe is actually cooking the bacon. If you’re rushed you could leave it out or sub it with deli meat or something.

While indecision created this lovely thing, you should be decisive about making it as soon as possible.

Hello veggie burger!

One of my ongoing quests is to find the perfect veggie burger.

Here’s a hint: It’s definitely not in the freezer section of your local supermarket. Unless, of course, cardboard is your idea of perfect.

In my opinion, the perfect veggie burger should be really filling and have a substantial texture (like meat). It should have lots of flavor and spices and should leave you not missing meat.

Honestly, I try a lot of different veggies burgers and I rarely post them because I find them to be kind of blah.

To date, my best veggie burger attempt, in my opinion, was the beet burgers I made over a year ago.

I still like those burgers, but I think this brown rice burger might surpass it as my favorite for one simple reason: it’s a lot easier to make! You can use leftover rice and have a very delicious burger in no time.

I’m not kidding at all when I say that I would take one of these instead of probably 95% of beef burgers in the world.

Brown Rice Burgers

Yield: 4 burgers.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups brown rice, cooked
1/2 sweet onion, sauteed
1/4 cup cilantro, minced
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 large egg
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/3 cup oat flour
Salt and pepper
4 large buns, toasted
1 avocado, sliced

Mango-pineapple Relish:
1 cup pineapple
1 mango, cubed
1-2 Serrano peppers, with seeds

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor for relish

Directions:

1) For relish, combine ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth. If you don't have a food processor, you can also just dice everything very finely.

2) Cook brown rice according to package and let cool or use leftover rice.

3) Sautee diced onion in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until the onion is translucent, but not browned, about 5 minutes.

4) Mix onion, cilantro, and garam masala with rice. Crack in an egg and combine well. Stir in oat flour. You might need a bit more oat flour. Your rice should be firm and stick together if you press it into a ball.

5) Form 4 large burgers with the rice mixture and season each burger with salt and pepper.

6) Cook the burgers in a heavy pan over medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the pan. Cook until browned evenly on both sides, about 4-5 minutes per side.

7) Toast buns and serve rice burgers on bun with relish and topped with sliced avocado.

Hello Mango

The other nice thing about this burger is that it’s actually incredibly healthy for a burger. No cheese or mayo or anything. For the sauce, I just pureed a few really flavorful ingredients into a spicy relish that was very delicious.

Great flavors.

Ideally, just cube up these ingredients and add them to a food processor and pulse them until it’s mostly smooth.

I used one Serrano with the seeds and I thought it was pretty spicy, but if you wanted to up the heat level even more, you could use two.

If you don’t have a food processor, don’t fret. Just dice up the ingredients very finely and you’ll have more of a salsa, but it’ll still be really tasty.

Some chunks are okay.

Making the Burgers

The one down side of these burgers is that brown rice does take a while to cook. While you could use white rice for it, I worry that the burgers would end up being a bit bland. Brown rice has a nice nutty flavor that really adds to the burgers.

In an ideal world, you could save a few cups of leftover brown rice for a separate meal and then use it to make these burgers. That would cut your prep time down to just minutes.

Leftover rice would be great.

Once you have your rice, add to it your sauteed onions (just cook them over medium heat in a drizzle of olive oil until they soften). Also add the minced cilantro and stir this all together.

Cook the onions first!

At this point, the burgers have a great texture and some good backbone flavors going on, but I thought they needed a hit of a good spice.

Enter garam masala! This was the perfect spice for these burgers. These days you should be able to find this spice mixture in most supermarkets.

If you’ve never used garam masala before, it’s a pretty popular spice mixture for Indian food. It normally has a pretty large list of ingredients in it, but almost always has some cumin, cardamon, cloves, and various peppers. It’s good stuff.

Spice is nice!

The Binder

Now our burgers should be pretty tasty, but there’s no way you’ll get this rice mixture to stick together as is. So crack in an egg and mix in some oat flour.

You can easily substitute all-purpose flour for oat flour, but the oat flour does add a little bit of extra flavor to the finished burgers.

The binder!

Making and Cooking

Make a test burger to make sure that the mixture sticks together well. If it seems really sticky, add in a bit more flour.

Once it’s a nice firm consistency, make four large burgers out of the mixture.

4 big burgers.

Season these burgers with salt and pepper and then cook them in a large heavy skillet over medium high heat with a drizzle of olive oil (about 2 tablespoons). Cook them for about 4-5 minutes per side until they are nicely browned.

I didn’t try it, but I think you could grill these guys. They were pretty sturdy actually and I think as long as you didn’t mess with them much on the grill, they would hold up just fine.

Any pan will work really.

Serving the Burgers

As always, I’m a fan of a toasted bun for my burgers so I definitely recommend that. Then add a good slather of the relish to the bottom bun.

Check out that color!

Love that color!

Stack on a burger and a few slices of avocado and you’re ready to go!

The 'cado is key.

The avocado acts like a creamy element for the burgers. It’s very essential in my opinion.

Betsy and I both gave these guys two thumbs up and fought for the extras for lunch the next day.

She w0n.

Just a great burger.

Now, if you are completely set on sabotaging my veggie burger recipe, you could make a beef burger and slap it between this relish and some avocado and still have a pretty tasty thing.

But try it with rice. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Whoa man.

Warning: Some people are going to read this post and think that either A) this requires too much work or B) sweetbreads are gross.

That’s fine.

I pretty much guarantee though that if I were to sell you one of these for $5 out of my street cart you would say it’s the best sandwich you’ve ever had. That’s because sweetbreads are delicious and maybe the most under-rated offal of all time.

Much like the oysters that are typical for a po’ boy, these little bites just melt in your mouth. And for those of us who live in the mainland and can’t get fresh oysters easily, sweetbreads are a wonderful (and much cheaper) substitute.

Sweetbread Po' Boys

Yield: 4 sandwiches

Prep Time: 30 minutes + soaking time for sweetbreads

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Sweetbreads:
1 pound sweetbreads
1 quart buttermilk
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 quart vegetable oil, for frying

Pickled Slaw:
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and chopped
1/4 red onion, diced
1/4 red pepper, diced
1/2 cup carrots, grated
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Pinch of salt

Walnut Mayo:
1 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
1 lemon, zest and 1/2 lemon juice

Other Sandwich Ingredients:
4 Hoagie buns, toasted
Lettuce
Sriracha hot sauce (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Mini Food Processor for mayo
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

1) Soak sweetbreads overnight in cold water.

2) Poach sweetbreads in simmering water for 4 minutes. Remove and cool.

3) Slice sweetbreads into 1 inch bites. As you go, discard any tough tendons on the sweetbreads.

4) Soak sweetbread bites in buttermilk for at least a few hours.

5) When ready to make sandwiches, heat about 1 inch of oil in a large high-walled frying pan or in a heavy pot. Heat to 350 degrees.

6) Toss all-purpose flour with paprika, salt, and pepper. Drain sweetbreads and add to flour mixture. Coat well with flour.

7) Fry sweetbread bites for about 4-5 minutes until they are golden brown. Remove and let drain on a paper towel. Add sweetbreads to sandwich while still warm.

To Make Slaw:
1) Combine slaw ingredients in a large bowl. Toss with vinegars and oil and season with salt.

2) Ideally, make this a few hours before so the ingredients have some time to pickle. You could make the night before without a problem.

To Make Mayo:
1) Toast walnuts in a dry pan for a few minutes until fragrant.

2) Pulse with lemon zest and juice from 1/2 a lemon and mayo. Pulse until smooth.

3) Store in the fridge for up to a week.

To Make Sandwich:
1) Toast bread and slather with walnut mayo. Add a piece of crispy lettuce.

2) Top lettuce with fried sweetbreads. Add slaw to top of sweetbreads and drizzle with hot sauce if you want.

3) Slice the sandwich in half and serve immediately.

Planning and Prep

Unfortunately, this isn’t a sandwich that you’re just going to toss together on a whim. It requires a bit of planning.

For starters, the sweetbreads which we’ll get to in a minute, require at least a day of prep. You need to soak them overnight to clean them well.

Besides the sweetbreads, I also recommend making the slaw for the sandwiches in advance as well. The quick pickled slaw will just taste better on day two.

So, while none of the individual steps for this sandwich are super-hard, it does require some planning to pull it off.

If I can do it, you can do it.

The Slaw

The sweetbreads and mayo on this sandwich are really buttery and creamy so I thought it would be a good flavor addition to add something acidic. This quick slaw that I came up with was literally from leftovers in my fridge. It worked great though.

Basic stuff.

Just dice up all the ingredients pretty finely and toss them in a bowl with the vinegars and oil. Season this with a pinch of salt and let it sit for at least an hour or two.

Like I said, it would be best if you could make this the day before, but it’s not completely necessary.

The day before would be good...

Walnut Mayo

Any good sandwich worth its bread will have some sort of dressing. I started by thinking that a spicy mayo would work well with this sandwich. I still think that it would. So if you wanted to make a chipotle mayo like this one, it would also work well.

I ended up going a slightly different route though. For this mayo, I just toasted a handful of walnuts in a dry pan until they were fragrant (about 3 minutes), then pulsed them with some lemon zest and lemon juice and mayo until it was relatively smooth.

This is really good stuff and would be awesome on a bunch of different sandwiches actually.

Not bad at all!

Ok. Enough with the condiments. Let’s get down to business.

The Sweetbreads

Sweetbreads, if you’ve never used them, are from the thymus gland or pancreas gland of a cow. The ones I’m using for this post are the pancreas.

While they look intense, they have a super-mild flavor. Once they are fried, they melt away in your mouth. Like butter.

One of the hardest parts about sweetbreads is just finding them! Most likely, your grocery store won’t carry them. They just aren’t popular enough to keep in stock. You’ll have to ask around at butchers and farmer’s markets and you can normally get your hands on some.

The good news is that they won’t be very expensive if you can find them. They are, after all, a gland that most people just throw away…

I was pretty nervous about prepping these guys, but it turned out to be pretty straightforward.

To start, soak the sweetbreads in cold water overnight. This will help flush out any blood or liquid in the glands. It’s probably a good idea to change the water at least once also. (top left)

Next, you need to lightly poach the sweetbreads. This really just makes them easier to work with because they firm up a bit when they are poached. I cooked mine for about 4 minutes in simmering water.

After the sweetbreads are poached, slice them into 1 inch bites. While you do this, remove any tough tendons that are attached to the sweetbreads. It’ll be pretty obvious what you should be removing as it will be very tough while the actual sweetbread material is very tender. (top right)

Once the sweetbreads are soaked and poached, soak them in buttermilk for a few hours. You could do this a day or two ahead of time though if you wanted. I just soaked mine for two hours before frying them. (bottom left)

When you’re ready to fry, drain the sweetbreads and toss them in the flour mixture (all-purpose flour, salt, pepper, paprika). Now they are ready to fry!

Frying the Sweetbreads

You don’t need a lot of oil to fry these guys. Just about an inch of oil in a large pan with high edges is more than enough.

I did a test run with just one sweetbread bite to make sure these were going to work.

I can’t really explain how delicious this was. Golden brown and slightly spicy on the outside with a really creamy and delicious center. So good!

Testing testing...

I fried my sweetbreads in two batches at 350 degrees.

As always, I highly recommend using a deep fry thermometer to make sure your temperature is in a safe range.

Just a few minutes will do the trick.

The setup.

When the sweetbread bites are done, let them drain briefly on a paper towel.

I can’t get over how good these were.

Very good.

Making the Po’ Boys

Ok. Now for the easy part.

Toast your sandwich bread and slather both sides with some of the walnut mayo (or spicy mayo if you went that route).

Then lay down a piece of crispy lettuce and add a good thick row of the fried sweetbreads.

Pile it on.

Top with the slaw and, as an optional step, add a good drizzle of sriracha hot sauce.

How could you not want this?!

Had to do the hot sauce.

These sandwiches are messy, but man are they good. I sliced mine in half to make it a bit easier to eat.

Adventurous, but delicious.

This is an adventurous meal. No doubt about that.

But the payoff is awesome. Definitely one of the most unique and interesting sandwiches I’ve ever made.

If you love sweetbreads, hate sweetbreads, or have questions about sweetbreads, leave a comment!

Good lookin' wrap!

“I think I’m good on cookies for a while.”

That’s what Betsy told me a few days ago and I couldn’t agree with her more. After a full week of nothing but cookies and sugar, I’m ready to move back into the land of the savory.

Heck. I don’t even have a sweet tooth really so I’m very excited to post something without sugar in it.

This quick wrap is something that Betsy and I have been eating recently. I love it because it works great for a lunch dish, but is also good to have if you want a lighter dinner option. It’s pretty healthy actually and jam-packed with flavor.

Baja Chicken Wraps

Yield: 4 wraps

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken breasts, grilled and chopped
Lettuce
Avocado
Ranch Dressing (homemade is good)
Hot Sauce
Large tortillas

Chicken Marinade:
2 limes, juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

1) Mix together marinade ingredients. Add chicken breasts and let marinate for a few minutes.

2) Grill chicken over high heat for about 8-10 minutes per side until they are cooked through.

3) Slice chicken thinly.

4) In a bowl, mix together chopped lettuce, a drizzle of ranch dressing, and a dash of hot sauce.

5) Lay out a large tortilla and put down a layer of the lettuce mixture.

6) Top with about 1/4 of an avocado and a layer of chicken. I recommend about 4 ounces of chicken per wrap.

7) Top with a drizzle of ranch and an extra dash of hot sauce and roll the wrap up.

8) Slice and serve!

Prepping the Chicken

I decided to grill the chicken for these wraps even though it’s December. I’m a year around griller, but if you don’t want to venture out in the cold just to grill a few chicken breasts, you can definitely just sear these in a pan for a few minutes a side and then finish them off in a 350 degree oven.

Whether you grill or not, I recommend giving the chicken breasts some serious flavor with a quick marinade.

Tasty marinade.

I just whisked together some spices with some lime and olive oil and then tossed in my chicken breasts.

You don’t need to marinate these guys very long to give them some flavor. Even 10 minutes in this mixture will do the trick.

All mixed up.

So, like I said, you have two options for cooking the chicken in my mind.

1) Grill them. Pretty straightforward, just toss them on a hot grill for about 8-10 minutes per side until they are cooked through.

2) Sear them in a sturdy pan. Cast iron would work well, but any pan should do the trick. After you sear them for a few minutes over medium-high heat, stick them in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes to finish cooking them. If the pan you sear in isn’t oven-safe, just transfer the breasts to a baking dish for the oven cooking.

The reason you will probably want to finish the chicken breasts in the oven is because they might burn if you keep them over high heat for too long. Finishing them in the oven solves that problem and still gives you a nice sear on the outside.

I just tossed mine on the grill though. That’s easiest and best way to cook chicken breasts in my opinion.

Who says you can't grill in the winter?

Once the chicken breasts cool a bit, slice them up!

Keep in mind that we’re going to be adding these slices to a wrap so try to keep the slices pretty thin.

Thinner the better.

The Lettuce

I love lettuce in wraps, but I wanted to use the lettuce as a flavor vehicle also.

So I ripped up some lettuce (a few cups) and then tossed it with a few tablespoons of homemade ranch dressing and a few dashes of hot sauce. Of course, you don’t have to make homemade ranch dressing for this, but the homemade version is really packed with flavor.

Hot sauce is very important.

Mix this all up really well and you’re ready to make a wrap!

Making the Wraps

You should be able to get about 4 wraps out of one pound of grilled chicken. Of course, that largely depends on how big you make your wraps…

I use the biggest tortillas I could find just so I could really stuff them.

Start by laying down a nice layer of the lettuce. Then add about 1/4 of an avocado that’s sliced up.

Don't skimp on the 'cado.

Top that with some of the grilled chicken and maybe give it an extra drizzle of ranch or hot sauce.

Then you’re ready to roll.

Get it?

Fold the ends toward the center and just roll the wrap up tightly.

While you don’t have to slice this in half, I think it’s a little easier to eat in two pieces. Plus it looks good.

That's a wrap!

There’s a lot of good flavors here. The lime marinade goes perfectly with the rich avocado. The lettuce gives it lots of good crunch and flavor because of the dressing and hot sauce.

If you didn’t want to use chicken, I actually think you could sub tofu for this without too much trouble. I would still marinate it and grill it just like I did with the chicken.

If you’re looking for a really tasty wrap, give this a shot. I thought it was absolutely delicious!

Ice cream in winter? Sure.

All this week on Macheesmo I’m making cookies! Be sure to check out the full list of cookie recipes on Macheesmo for even more cookie ideas.

As you’ll learn if you stick around for this full week, my definition of “cookie” is pretty broad. I should’ve probably called it “Dessert-that-you-can-eat-with-your-hands week”, but that doesn’t have the same flair.

Some might be shocked to see an ice cream based recipe in December, but I’m just not one of those guys that only likes to eat ice cream when it’s warm outside.

In fact, I’m up for eating ice cream pretty much any time. I could have hypothermia and be lost in the Canadian wilderness and probably still be up for a double scoop.

Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches

Yield: 24 sandwiches

Prep Time: 1 hour + ice cream resting

Total Time: 2 hours + plus freezing time

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Makes 48 small cookies.
8.5 ounces cake flour (2 cups minus 2 Tbsp.)
8.5 ounces bread flour (1 2/3 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces chocolate chips

Vanilla Ice Cream:
Makes about 1 quart.
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3/4 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
2 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Helpful Equipment:
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Ice Cream maker (I used the kitchenaid attachment which works okay.)
Mesh Strainer (for straining ice cream custard)

Directions:

1) For ice cream, slip vanilla bean in half and scrape out seeds into a medium saucepan with milk, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat immediately, cover, and let sit for one hour.

2) Whisk together yolks in a bowl. Bring milk mixture back up to heat (not simmering, just hot). Once hot, whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture slowly into the yolks to temper them. THen whisk yolks back into milk mixture.

3) Cook over low heat, scraping regularly and stirring with a heat-resistant spatula. Cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula, about 5-6 minutes.

4) In a separate bowl, add cream and set bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (ice bath). Once custard is thick, strain into cream. Stir well to combine and cool, then stir in vanilla extract.

5) Chill custard overnight or until thoroughly chilled. Then add to ice cream maker and churn according to instructions for your machine. Freeze ice cream until it's solid. I like to stir mine a few times while it is freezing solid to remove ice crystals.

For cookies:
1) Mix together dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda). Set aside.

2) Cream together butter and sugars. Then mix in one egg at a time, slowly. Once all the eggs are incorporated, stir in vanilla.

3) Slowly stir in dry ingredients. Once dry ingredients are mixed in add chocolate chips and stir just until they are evenly distributed. Try not to overmix.

4) At this point you can chill the dough for up to 2 days if you want.

5) To bake, scoop tablespoon sized balls onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 48 cookies out of the batch. Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned, but still somewhat soft.

6) Let cookies cool completely (preferably on a wire rack).

Making the sandwiches:
1) Once your cookies are made, transfer them to a large container and freeze them for about an hour.

2) Scoop a few tablespoon of ice cream and sandwich it between two cookies. Eat immediately or transfer to a freezer safe dish and freeze for up to 2 months.

Cookie recipe adapted from NY Times. Ice Cream adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe.

The Ice Cream

The most obvious shortcut that you could take for this recipe is just to buy ice cream from the store. You could sandwich almost any ice cream between these cookies and be in good shape. Since I figured I’d be snacking on these for a long time, I thought it would be worth it to make a really rich and delicious vanilla ice cream.

Any good vanilla ice cream recipe has to start with real vanilla beans. They are expensive, but the flavor is hard to beat.

Anytime you’re working with vanilla remember to split the bean and scrape out all those tiny vanilla seeds. Lots of flavor there!

Caviar? Nope. But still expensive.

If you’ve never made homemade ice cream before, it isn’t really that hard. You basically just make a custard and then chill it.

So start by combining your vanilla, sugar, salt, and milk in a saucepan. Bring this to a simmer and then let it sit, covered, for about an hour. This will infuse the milk with all that vanilla flavor (top left).

In a separate bowl, whisk together your egg yolks. Then heat up your milk mixture again (not simmering but hot). Then slowly whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture into the whisked yolks. This will bring them up to temperature and then you can whisk the warm yolks back into the hot milk mixture without worry that they will cook.

Cook this mixture over low heat until it thickens enough to coat a spatula. Be sure to stir this constantly and scrape the bottom of the pan to make sure it isn’t sticking. After 5-6 minutes, it should start to get very thick (bottom left).

Then strain this mixture and whisk it into your heavy cream. Add the vanilla and cool this as quickly as possible. I like to do this by putting the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (bottom right).

This might seem like a drawn out process, but minus the hour that you have to wait for the milk to infuse, it’s really only about 10 minutes of work.

Let this custard mixture chill thoroughly before making the ice cream. I recommend chilling it in the fridge for at least a few hours.

The Leftovers

A good vanilla bean will probably cost you $3-4. So don’t throw it away after you’re done with it in the custard mixture. There’s still tons of flavor in that bean actually. I like to cut my bean into a few pieces and add it to a dish with a few cups of sugar. Seal this and shake it up and after a week or so you’ll have some delicious vanilla sugar that you can use for a ton of things.

Still lots of flavor in those beans.

Making the Ice Cream

Depending on your ice cream maker, there will be different instructions for actually churning the ice cream.

I used my KitchenAid attachment which works pretty well. If I were buying an ice cream maker today though, I think I’d get a stand alone model.

Churn it!

Once your ice cream is churned to a nice soft serve consistency, you can scoop it into a dish and let it freeze solid in your freezer.

I actually like to take my ice cream out and stir it every hour or so just to make sure large ice crystals aren’t forming in the ice cream.

Soft serve.

The Cookies

I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail on the chocolate chip cookies that I made for this. I used the same recipe that I used for my pretzel chocolate chip cookies. You can also check out the printed version of this recipe for thorough instructions.

Instead of making 18 huge cookies though, I made about 48 smaller cookies.

The cookies are pretty straightforward. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream together butter and sugars. Stir in eggs and extracts. Then slowly mix in flour followed by chocolate chips.

At this point you can chill the dough for a few days, but I just baked them immediately on this day. For the cookies you want to shoot for large tablespoon-sized cookies and should get 12 per baking sheet.

I recommend using parchment paper to make sure they don’t stick to the baking sheets.

Pretty straightforward.

Bake these cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. They should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the middle.

Let them cool completely.

Building the Sandwiches

The only trick to making these sandwiches is that I would recommend freezing the cookies quickly before actually making them. I just stacked all of my cookies in a large casserole dish and then froze them for about an hour. That will make them more firm and easier to work with.

Chill these guys first.

A few tablespoons of ice cream smashed between two cookies is all you need for a really delicious dessert.

These are a bit of work, I won’t lie, but they make a bunch and keep perfectly so your work will pay dividends. You could also take some shortcuts if you want like using store-bought ice cream.

So good.

There’s a couple of things that I love about this treat. First, it combines my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and my favorite vanilla ice cream recipe. So yea. These are good.

Second, I love that since you freeze these, they keep for a really long time! This recipe makes about two dozen ice cream sandwiches and eating more than one at a time is a feat. So they keep for a while and you’ll have easy access to a quick frozen dessert should the urge strike you.

Even though I made these about a month ago, I’m still snacking on them and they are basically as good as they were on day one!

Awesome lunch.

If you’ve been a long time Macheesmo reader you’ll know that Betsy and I are on a crazy hunt to find original and fun lunches to eat during the week. There’s always a few qualifications for these lunches.

1) You need to be able to make them in bulk.

2) They need to be fairly economical and also keep really well for at least five days.

3) They need to be somewhat healthy.

This hunt has led us to some awesome lunches like this pesto quinoa salad. In general though, it keeps us both out of the fast food lines and generally saves us a few bucks a week also.

I do think I’m starting to get fairly good at the weekday lunch because Betsy’s co-workers have actually offered to pay me to bring them lunch during the week. I haven’t actually taken them up on it, but I happily direct them to this here website where they can find almost every lunch I’ve made for us.

The latest iteration of this hunt took the form of a classic Middle Eastern meal: Falafel and Tabbouleh.

A Middle Eastern Lunch

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Tabbouleh:
1 cup quick cooking bulgar
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/3 cup fresh mint, chopped
3 scallions, minced
1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes (drained)
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt

Falafel:
2 16 ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 large egg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup fresh parsley, minced
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, minced
1/2 white onion, diced
2 Teaspoons baking soda
1 Teaspoon cumin seeds
1 Teaspoon paprika
1/4 Cup Sesame seeds
Pinch of salt and pepper

Mini Pitas
1 quart oil for frying
Greek Yogurt

Helpful Equipment:
Food Processor
Deep Fry Thermometer

Directions:

For Tabbouleh:
1) Cook bulgar according to package. This will most likely mean letting it steep in hot water for about 20 minutes.
2) Chop other ingredients.
3) Once bulgar is soaked, mix with veggies and add in olive oil and lemon juice.
4) Season with salt and store for up to a week.

For Falafels:
1) Pulse onion, garlic, and sesame seeds in food processor.
2) Add chickpeas and pulse until combined.
3) Remove from processor and stir in breadcrumbs, egg, herbs and spices.
4) Heat frying station up to 350 degrees.
5) Make about Tablespoon-sized balls from the chickpea mixture.
6) Fry balls in oil for about 3-4 minutes until they are a deep golden brown.
7) Let drain and serve with pita and greek yogurt.

Getting Bulgar

Tabbouleh, if you aren’t familiar with it, is an awesome side dish that just a mixture of bulgar wheat and lots of fresh vegetables and herbs.

You can find bulgar in most supermarkets and grocery stores these days. Look out for the quick cooking variety. It works great.

Love this stuff.

Besides the bulgar, you just need a lot of veggies. I like crunchy stuff like scallions and cucumbers in mine along with lots of fresh herbs like parsley and mint. I also drained a small can of diced tomatoes and added those to the mix just for good measure!

Lots of good flavors here.

Preparing the bulgar is really straightforward. You should read the instructions that come with your bulgar but basically it will involve soaking the bulgar in hot water for about 20 minutes.

Then it will turn nice and fluffy!

After a soak.

Mix all this stuff together and season it with some lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper and you’ll be all set.

As with most stuff like this, tabbouleh gets even better if you let it sit in the fridge for a day or two. All the flavors start to mingle and it’s really very delicious, not to mention healthy.

It gets better on day two.

The Falafels

It’s pretty hard to make a meal out of just tabbouleh so I decided to make a big batch of falafels that would go well with it.

Honestly, this was my first time ever making falafels and I was pretty impressed at how easy they were to make.

I started out by pulsing my onions, garlic, and spices in my food processor until they were minced finely. Just a few pulses will do the trick.

A food processor is your friend.

Then add your drained chickpeas to the food processor and pulse them a few more times. You should end up with a rough paste. Remove that from your food processor and add in all your other ingredients!

My mixture was already smelling really good so I knew I was onto something here!

It's like a batter-dough thing.

Frying the Falafels

Once you have your falafel batter ready, just set up your fry station as you normally would. As always, I highly recommend using a deep-fry thermometer to make sure you don’t overheat your oil.

Once your oil is at 350 degrees, just start adding your falafel batter in large tablespoon sized balls. They should only take 3-4 minutes to fry up and turn really nice and brown.

Nice color on these guys.

These were really flavorful. Perfectly crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside.

Chomp!

I was worried about the falafels keeping okay. After all, fried food tends to be best right out of the fryer.

It’s true that the falafels were best right away, but they kept fine also. You could microwave them or I thought they were fine cold.

A few falafel balls plus a cup or so of tabbouleh and some greek yogurt and pita made for a great lunch.

All packed up!

If you can find a way to cycle in some semi-healthy foods for lunch during the week, I think you’ll be shocked at how much more energy you have in the afternoon. If I eat something like this, I find I have way more juice than if I chow down on a huge cheeseburger or something.

While it is a bit of work to make these two things, if you can find time to do it on a lazy sunday, you’ll be all set for lunches for the entire week!

Now. That's a sandwich.

I had a bit of a Twitter tantrum last week because I’m just plain sick of hearing about the amazing McRib sandwich from McDonalds. Apparently the word on the street is that it’s just so disgusting that it’s somehow good.

That really doesn’t make sense to me.

That said, the idea behind the sandwich is a great one. I nice big pork patty on a hoagie bun with BBQ sauce, pickles, and onions? Sounds good to me!

So I decided to make a homemade version of the sandwich. The recipe I came up with is really simple and actually cheaper than buying the sandwich from McDonalds. Plus, now I have a bunch of them frozen so it’s faster for me to make one now than driving to McDonalds.

So let’s all please stop talking about the McRib and start talking about the NickRib.

The Nickrib

Yield: 6 sandwiches

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

2 Pounds pork butt, ground
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
2 Teaspoons black pepper
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
2 Teaspoons coriander, ground
2 Teaspoons cumin, ground
1 Teaspoon red pepper flakes (opt.)
1 bottle (16-18 ounces) BBQ sauce
Pickles
Onions
Hoagie Buns

Helpful Equipment:
Food processor

Directions:

1) Cut pork butt into cubes. Try to separate fat and meat so you can grind them separately.

2) Grind or process pork. Do the fat first and grind it much finer. Then grind meat and mix the two together.

3) Add in spices to mix meat together.

4) Form six patties from the meat weighing about 5.5 ounces each.

5) Sear patties in a hot pan, over medium-high heat, for about 4 minutes per side.

6) Layer all patties in a baking dish and slather with BBQ sauce. Bake patties at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

7) Add a patty to a hoagie bun and top with extra BBQ sauce, pickles, and sliced onions.

8) Once patties are cooled, you can freeze these by putting each patty individually into small plastic bags with extra sauce. Then put all those small bags into a large gallon sized freezer bag. To reheat, just cut off the plastic from one patty and microwave for about 2 minutes.

The Original

Must to my dislike, I figured that I should probably swing by Mickey D’s and see what all the fuss was about before I tried to recreate this sucker.

I noticed a few things.

1) It costs $3. That means six would cost $18. My six homemade sandwiches cost me $13 to make.

2) It made my car smell like a BBQ sandwich farted.

3) It was much smaller than I thought it would be and didn’t look very appetizing.

This costs $3.

I did try this sandwich though and wasn’t really impressed. Obviously, the patty was super-moist because they inject it with all kinds of stuff to preserve it. The BBQ sauce tasted like chemicals. The best part of the sandwich was the pickles and there were only two.

A Patty Problem

I did some research before I jumped into this sandwich. There were a bunch of other people that thought it would be a good idea to make their own versions of this sandwich. I immediately noticed a problem with some of the homemade versions.

The versions I saw were either amazing and complex like this awesome BBQ pork belly sandwich that takes about 5 hours to make and requires 3 pounds of pork belly. On the other end of the spectrum, there were people who actually took the time to post on just microwaving frozen pork patties and putting BBQ sauce on them. That takes only 2 minutes, but you end up with basically the same thing that McDonald’s makes.

I tried to find some middle ground. I wanted a good patty, but I didn’t want to have to braise pork belly for 6 hours to get it. So, I decided to go with pork butt. For one, it’s a really economical cut of meat so I knew I’d be able to keep my costs down (even the best pork butt will run about $2.50/pound). Secondly, pork butt has a lot of fat in it, so I knew it would keep my patties nice and moist.

The process I used for making my patties is pretty straightforward. If i had a food grinder, it would’ve been even easier, but I just used my food processor. First, I cut my pork butt into fatty pieces and meaty pieces. I wanted to grind/process them separately. The fat needs to be a lot finer then the meat. I ground my fatty parts until they were almost a paste and then just pulsed my meaty parts until they basically resembled ground pork.

Shortcut: You could definitely use ground pork to make these. I might recommend adding in some processed bacon to up the fat content a bit if you do use ground pork though.

The Spices

Of course, the nice thing about making your own patties is that you can actually mix in some real flavor. I stirred in some coriander, cumin, brown sugar, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper.

Might as well spice it up.

Making the Patties

Since we’re going to be putting these guys on a hoagie bun, you want to make the patties kind of oblong. Each patty should be about 5.5 ounces and be about six inches long. It’s okay if they are pretty thin, they will shrink up as they cook.

I went ahead and made all of my patties and just sat them on wax paper until I could cook them.

About 5.5 ounces.

Searing the Patties

Cooking these bad boys is a two step process. It works like a charm to make a really moist and tasty patty. To start, just sear each patty in a hot pan over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side. This should almost completely cook the patties because they are so thin.

The important part though is that they get a nice sear on them.

Get a good sear on these guys.

Baking the Patties

Once you get all your patties seared, add them to a large oven-safe dish and slather them with your BBQ sauce. If you have a really thick BBQ sauce, I recommend adding about 1/2 cup of water to it to thin it out a bit. It’ll thicken up again as it bakes.

This was a good idea.

Just completely coat all the patties in BBQ sauce and then bake them at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes. This will completely infuse the patties with that delicious BBQ flavor.

This will smell good.

The Toppings

I kept the exact same toppings as the original: onions and pickles. I sliced my onions pretty thin though and use way more than two pickles.

Same toppings. Just more.

Finishing the Sandwich

As far as the bun goes, you can toast it or leave it soft. It’s good either way. Pile a patty on the bun with some extra BBQ sauce and then top with onions and pickles.

Done deal.

You can spring for more than two pickles.

Freezing the Sandwiches

These patties actually freeze really well. This means that you could double the recipe and have great sandwichs for a long time. I froze mine by making sure they were completely cool and then putting each patty individually in a small plastic bag with a few spoonfuls of extra sauce. Then I put all of those small bags in a large freezer safe bag.

When you want a sandwich, just cut the plastic off the patty and microwave it for about 2 minutes. Slap it on a bun with some extra BBQ sauce, onions, and pickles and you’re all set. I thought the re-heated version was just as good as on day one.

That's a real sandwich.

I was really happy with how these turned out. They cost a fraction of the original sandwich and now that they are made it takes me less time to make one then it would take for me to drive to McDonalds and buy one.

Most importantly, it isn’t even a competition when it comes to flavor.

If I wanted to make this post super-popular, I guess I could take a play out of the McDonald’s playbook and take it down for a few months and then BRING IT BACK!

Or I could just ask you all to share it. When you hear people raving about the McRib, let them know about the NickRib.

A simple little thing.

Sometimes I have these dreams of opening a restaurant that’s only open for breakfast and happy hour.

I would make awesome breakfast/brunch dishes and cocktails.

The place would be called The Before and After.

Then I wakeup and remember how much I would absolutely hate my life if I ran a restaurant.

But if The Before and After was a real place… I would sell these for $3 a piece. Or $7 for three obviously.

Breakfast Sliders

Yield: 6 Sliders

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

6 Hawaiian savory butter rolls
6 strips of thick bacon, crispy
4 eggs, scrambled
2 Tablespoons cream
4 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated

Directions:

1) Bake bacon on a wire rack over a baking sheet at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until bacon is very crispy.

2) Whisk eggs with cream and cook on medium heat until fluffy, about 4-5 minutes.

3) Cut open rolls and toast them in a 350 degree oven until they are nicely browned, about 3 minutes.

4) Add grated cheese to one side of each roll and return to oven for another minute.

5) Add bacon and eggs and serve immediately!

The Rolls

When it comes to slider rolls, it’s hard to beat the soft rolls that come in packs of twelve in the deli section of most grocery stores. You could make your own definitely, but these are just so tasty and easy, I just use them.

I have a strange addiction to these things.

Bacon and Eggs

I didn’t want to get too fancy with these sliders. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t. You could put almost anything that goes well with scrambled eggs in with these sandwiches.

For me though, on this day, bacon and some cheese is all that I wanted. If you were at The Before and After, this would be called The Original.

Hard to go wrong here.

If you’ve been a Macheesmo reader for a while, you’ll know that I really only cook bacon one way.

I lay it out on a wire rack over a baking sheet and bake it at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. This makes perfectly crispy bacon that stays in really nice strips which is great for stuff like sandwiches.

The only way to do bacon!

For preparing the eggs, just whisk together the eggs with the cream. Add the eggs to a small nonstick pan over medium heat and stir the eggs as they start to cook. After five or six minutes, they should be light and fluffy. Try not to cook them rock hard. They will keep cooking for a minute after you kill the heat.

These guys are perfect.

Easy peasy.

Building the Slider

Whatever breakfast stuff you want to shove in your slider, the most important part is toasting the little buns. Just cut them open and lay them cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 3-4 minutes and they should get perfectly toasted.

A must-do step.

Then pile your grated cheese on one half of each slider bun.

Return the tray to the oven for another minute just to melt the cheese a bit.

Blam!

Then stack on your bacon!

One strip per slider is perfect.

Slider building 101.

Add a heap of scrambled eggs and put the top on the slider and you’re ready to go.

These were super-delicious.

Fast and delicious!

I don’t know why it is that sliders are somehow tastier than a full sandwich. But it’s true.

So just make these.

Or, if you happen to open or work in a brunch restaurant, stick these suckers on the menu. People will be busting down the doors.

Whoa. Cool.

Ever since I was experimenting with (read: eating a lot of) my PB & J sushi last week, I’ve been on a huge peanut butter and jelly kick. I’ve eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day of the week for the last ten days or so.

Call it sappy, but it really does remind me of my childhood. These days I leave the ends on, but other than that it’s the same old sandwich.

Of course, I can’t help myself when it comes to thinking of ways to ramp up something that I like that much.

So I figured it would be fun to make an actual bread loaf with peanut butter and jelly rolled right into it. Then any slice of toast is, like, an instant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

How could you not like that!

Peanut Butter and Jelly Loaf

Yield: 9 Inch Loaf

Prep Time: 15 minutes + 16 hour rise time

Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups bread flour, plus some for dusting
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 Teaspoon instant yeast
1 Cup + 2 Tablespoons cool water
1/4 Cup unsalted smooth peanut butter
1 large egg
1/3 Cup seedless jam
1/2 Cup peanuts, chopped and divided

Egg Wash:
1 egg + 1 Tablespoon water

Helpful Equipment:
Loaf pan
Wire Rack

Directions:

1) Mix dry ingredients (flour yeast salt) together in a large bowl.

2) In a blender or food processor, pulse peanut butter together with water and egg until mixture is smooth.

3) Add wet mixture to dry stuff and stir to combine. It should be a pretty wet, sticky dough.

4) Cover dough loosely and let rise for 12-16 hours.

5) Dust dough with flour after it rises and dust a clean surface with flour as well. Turn out dough onto surface and shape it or roll it into a large rectangle (about 8x12).

6) Spread jam all over surface of dough, leaving about 1/2 inch around the edges.

7) Fold the bottom 1/3 of the dough over and then continue to roll the dough up to form a jelly roll of sorts.

8) To prep your loaf pan, butter it well and sprinkle the bottom with half of your peanuts.

9) When jelly roll is finished, tuck the ends under and place it seam-side down in your loaf pan. Cover it and let it rise for another hour.

10) Brush the loaf with egg wash and sprinkle the rest of the chopped peanuts on top.

11) Bake loaf at 450 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Remove from pan as soon as possible and let cool on a wire rack.

Adapted from My Bread.

Starting the bread

The nice thing about this loaf is that it’s based on a no knead bread recipe from Jim Lahey.

Which means that it takes almost no time to make, but it does require about 12-16 hours to rise.

Normal stuff plus awesome stuff.

Ingeniously, Jim recommends mixing the peanut butter in with the no knead dough which gives it a really nice peanut butter flavor and also a soft texture.

Unfortunately, it’s kind of tricky mixing peanut butter into flour. The easiest way to do it is to blend your peanut butter, water, and egg together to make a sort of slurry and then mix that together with your dry ingredients.

This will smell really peanuty which is good!

Dough is gonna rise.

Once your dough is mixed together, it should be pretty moist. Just stir it together until everything is mixed. No need to over-mix it.

Then cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit at room temperature for 12-16 hours. It should double in volume.

Forming the Loaf

Once your dough has risen, dust it well with flour and also throw some flour down on a clean surface. Then scoop out your dough onto the floured surface and lightly roll it into a large rectangle.

You’re shooting for a rectangle that’s about 8×12 in size.

Then spread your jam all over the surface of the dough!

Needs a bit more jelly...

Try to leave about a 1/2 inch around the edge of the dough.

Fold the bottom third of the dough up and then continue to roll the dough away from you to form a tight jelly roll of dough.

Roll 'er up!

To prepare your loaf pan for baking, butter it liberally so the dough doesn’t stick and then sprinkle about 1/4 cup of roughly chopped peanuts right in the bottom of the pan.

See what I did there?

Once you have your loaf rolled up, fold under the ends to form a nice even loaf. Then just plop the roll right into your loaf pan with the seam-side down. That’ll prevent most of your jelly from exploding out of the loaf.

Loosely cover the loaf and let it rise for another hour or so. It should again double in size.

Then brush the loaf with a light egg wash (1 egg + 1 tablespoon water) and sprinkle on another 1/4 cup of chopped peanuts.

This guy is ready for the oven now!

Ready for the oven.

Bake the loaf in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for about 50 minutes. The loaf should be really nice and golden brown. If it isn’t, then bake for another 10 minutes.

Check the loaf halfway through and if the peanuts are browning really quickly (mine were) then cover the loaf pan loosely with foil which will keep them out of the direct heat.

The final loaf is a thing of beauty!

This will smell amazing.

Two things to note about this loaf:

1) It’s inevitable that some jelly will escape from the roll. When you pull your loaf pan out it might look as if a lot of jelly has cooked out of it. Have no fear. It’s probably fine as long as you rolled it tightly and cooked it with the seam side down.

2) When you pull the loaf out of the oven, immediately invert it on a pan or wire rack to get the loaf out of the pan. If you let it cool in the pan, it’ll turn really soggy. Ideally, you can cool it on a rack, but whatever you do, take it out of the pan as soon as possible.

This was my final loaf. As you can see, some jelly escaped, but it was still delicious.

Cool it down.

Getting Crazy

As soon as I cut open the loaf and saw the cool jelly swirl, I knew this was a keeper of a recipe.

Of course, I had to take it to the next level as soon as possible and make a double peanut butter and jelly!

Double PB & J Slam!

What do you think about that?!

There’s a very important caveat to note before I get started with this post:

I do not have children.

I have a cat and a dog and they are more than enough for me to handle at this point in my life. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t COOK stuff for kids right?

I’ve been watching the last season of Food Revolution (sound) on Hulu during my lunch breaks and it’s pretty devastating to see what is called “lunch” at some schools in the U.S. How we expect kids to learn and grow while feeding them bad food is a mystery to me.

What you put in is what you get out.

But, I understand that it must be hard to feed children. I wasn’t a picky eater when I was a kid, but my sister definitely was and I remember watching my mom struggle to get a vegetable into her mouth.

At the same time, I think kids eat first with their eyes. If something looks fun, they are a lot more likely to try it out. So I came up with three fun ways to spice up the normal packed lunch that might make your kid more likely to, say, try a carrot.

This is all about presentation. It’s all the same stuff in a normal sandwich, but if your kid will only eat peanut butter and jelly this might be a way to get them to try out some other things.

It’s a scientific fact that food is more fun when it’s on a stick. That applies to sandwiches also! This takes about the same amount of time to make as a sandwich and just looks fun to eat. You could include a few little containers of ketchup and mustard for dipping sauces. Also, almost anything would work on these sticks.

Note: Betsy made the very astute observation that kids might not be allowed to have pointy sticks at school. If that’s the case, I think you could break off the pointy ends and be okay.

This one is a leap of faith really. My hope is that it looks so fun, that kids will want to eat it. It has lots vegetables in it though, which I hear is like arsenic for most children.

All you need for the sandwich is a tiny cookie cutter and some green, orange or yellow, and red veggies. Then just strategically place them on the sandwich and you’re all set.

You can put other stuff on the sandwich also (cheese, turkey, etc.), but just make sure the veggies and the bread with holes in it line up.

Easy!

I got this idea from a site called Planning with Kids and I thought it was just really fun.

I would’ve loved to open my lunchbox as a kid and see this sandwich.

The right way.

OK. Let’s talk about dessert.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is one of my favorite treats to this day. I still frequently have one for dessert.

I like to think of them as dessert instead of as a meal though which is why this sushi recipe works so well. You can include four or five little bites along with something really healthy and hopefully convey to the little ones that they are supposed to eat them last.

These might look tricky, but they are pretty easy to make actually. There are three keys to making these work:

1) Cut off the ends on the bread. It just makes it roll easier. I’m sure your kids will like this.

As I always asked my Mom growing up, “Mom, why do they even make bread with ends on it?”

2) Roll the bread thin (Upper right photo below). It’ll be easier to roll if it isn’t all puffy.

3) Go light on the PB & J. Otherwise it’ll just be messy. A very thin layer of both is more than enough.

Be sure to roll up the rolls pretty tightly so they stay formed and, if you have one, cut the rolls with a serrated knife so they cut cleanly.

These are just super-fun.

From above!

I ate all of these for lunch as I made them and I liked all of them!

Of course, that’s not the test though. The test is children. I figured it would be kind of creepy for me to go handing out my lunches at the local elementary school so none of these have been officially tested.

If you have kids, leave a comment and let me know if you think your kids would actually EAT any of these! If you try one out, even better.

School lunch photo by Chidorian.