Any Man's Favorite Sandwich

And these women, too.

Several weeks ago, we made Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich (p. 88). We weren't sure what to expect since we hadn't really had cube steak sandwiches before. And let us just say from the get-go, that...You. Must. Make. This.

We started by slicing onion and sauteing it with butter in our large skillet. This was set aside.

Next, we sliced three pounds of cube steak into small strips, cutting across the grain. This was seasoned with pepper, Lawry's seasoning salt and lemon pepper.

We added more butter to the pan, in true P-Dub style, and placed half of the meat in the skillet. We browned both sides evenly, repeating this process with the remaining half of our meat.

All of the meat and onion were returned to the skillet adding more of our fatty friend, butter. This was further seasoned with Worcestershire sauce and several good dashes of Tabasco.

We followed Ree's directions and let this simmer for about five minutes to reheat the meat and onion and to allow the sauces to thicken. It is at this point you should be able to serve these as sandwiches on toasted buns. We, however, were waiting for guests to arrive. In order to keep the dish warm, we stuck it in the oven at 250-degrees, for what ended up being about 45 minutes. Little did we know that we had opened Pandora's box of deliciousness for this dish by letting the meat continue to slowly cook. By the time we served it, the cube steak was so tender it practically fell apart. Some of our guests even topped their sandwiches with blue cheese crumbles. We served up the sandwich with Ree's Onion Strings and a blue cheese coleslaw.

We were satisfied. And this sandwich has been requested multiple times, since then, by our husbands.

Happily full,

Balls of Meat. Really, that's what they are.

We are literal folk.

A couple weeks ago we made P-Dub's Comfort Meatballs (p. 172). Sometimes meatball recipes can be quite involved, but this recipe is rather simple and produces very tasty results.

We combined ground beef, oats, milk, salt and garlic powder. Ree's recipe called for minced onion, which we did not have on hand, and garlic powder is our go-to substitute. Out of celery seed? Try garlic powder. Out of seasoning salt? Try garlic powder. Out of sugar? Try garlic powder. It's like magic, really. Did we mention we're a literal folk?

Next we rolled the meat mixture into small balls, placing them onto a baking sheet. We put this into the refrigerator to chill. The chilling helps the meatballs hold their shape for the upcoming steps.

Later, we dredged them in flour and placed them in a large skillet to brown. At this point, you do not have to cook them all the way through, as they'll finish the cooking process in the oven.

These were transferred into a large baking dish.

Next we mixed together our special sauce which included ketchup, sugar, more garlic powder, white vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and several dashes of Tabasco. And, really, we did use sugar and garlic powder. Again, substituting garlic powder for minced onion.

The sauce was spooned over the waiting meatballs. The dish was put into the oven at 350-degrees for 45 minutes.

We highly recommend this recipe. It definitely lives up to its name for comfort food.

Happily full,

Humble...We mean, Crumble Pie

Many moons ago, we made Ree's Flat Apple Pie (p. 216). We are just now getting around to telling you about this delicious concoction. If you have her book, and you compare her photos to ours...oh my. You will find that our crust is much more crumbly than hers. Thankfully, it tasted very good.

We started by rolling out a frozen pie crust. This crust was the remaining half from Ree's Perfect Pie Crust, which we somehow made quite imperfectly.

Next, Uncle He-Man impressed us with his manly apple-peeling skills.

The apples were diced into smaller pieces.

They were mixed with lemon juice, flour, white and brown sugars and salt.

We then attempted (used very loosely) to fold the edges of the crust up and around the apple mixture. Instead of neat folds, it looked more like a tiny bulldozer had moved miniature boulders to create tiny piles of dough and apple. The perfectionists in us were absolutely miserable, but it was so ridiculous-looking, we had to laugh.

Our Quasimodo was placed in the oven at 375-degrees for approximately 30 minutes. While our little hunchback isn't a beauty, he still tasted good. He was just rustic, and just right.

Happily full,

Funeral Food

Well, in all seriousness, this recipe really was prepared to accommodate our relatives following a family funeral. We just could not think of a better title.

Our dear Papa Bob passed away unexpectedly in January. We spent several extra days after the funeral baking and cooking for the relatives living in his hometown. We relished the time we were able to spend with our family by relaxing and helping through our cooking.

We decided Ree's Chicken Spaghetti (p. 130) would be the perfect comfort food to prepare. We had been busy cooking all day, so this dish had to wait until about 10:00 p.m. We'll just say that's the reason we didn't use a whole chicken...it was late...not that we're squeamish about handling a whole chicken. It was late. Got that? Good.

We began by dicing very un-threatening chicken breasts, and sauteing the meat in a skillet.

Next we diced green pepper, a small onion and added a small jar of pimentos to the mix.

We prepared our pasta.

Once the pasta was done, we placed it in a dish and mixed it with two cans of cream of mushroom soup and a whole lotta cheddar cheese. That's how much: a whole lotta.

See the red spoon in the above photo? Yeah, we broke it. How? Well, it was just a left-over large, plastic spoon you might use at a picnic. We are starting a "Replace Queenie's Spoon Fund" if you would care to donate. Queenie is Jo's mother. And we love her dearly. She is an incredibly organized and put-together woman, yet she doesn't care a lick about cooking. She does a fine job at cooking; she simply doesn't care about replacing a plastic, red spoon.

Next we added our veggies to the pasta mix. Also added was the cooked chicken and chicken broth.

The entire dish was seasoned with salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning. Ree's recipe calls for cayenne pepper, of which we did not have on hand, so Old Bay came to the rescue. This was stirred together, and we oohed and ahhed over the pretty colors. Maybe we were just a little delirious from being tired, but it really is a colorful dish.

All of this was poured into a rectangular baking dish and topped with more cheddar cheese. This baked at 350-degrees for approximately 40 minutes. We highly recommend trying this dish, whether you use a whole chicken or wimpy chicken breasts, like we did. And, boy, did it make for a really nice snack at 11:00 p.m.

Happily full,

Why did we put this one off so long?

For the past six months we've been meaning to do P-Dub's Oatmeal Crispies (p. 227), but we just finally got around to doing the recipe in the past couple of weeks.

This has become one of our new, favorite cookies. We would even rank it among our top ten favorites. And that's saying something. These are our vehicle of choice for ice cream at the present time. And, they make the house smell like a cinnamon sugar candle. Yum.

We began by chopping pecans with a large knife.

Next we mixed granulated sugar, brown sugar and shortening.

We beat two eggs and a smidgen of vanilla. The egg mixture was added to the sugar.

We combined our dry ingredients of flour, baking soda and salt. In a moment of inspiration, we decided to add a dash of cinnamon. You can't go wrong with cinnamon in this recipe. We gradually added the flour mixture into the sugar concoction.

Next, we folded in our oats and pecans. Don't you just want to eat the dough right now? We wanted to, and we did.

We formed two logs and wrapped them in Saran wrap, placing them in the refrigerator to chill.

When we were ready, we cut the logs into cookie-sized pieces. Note, these cookies do expand quite a bit, so make your log of dough long and thin if you'd like smaller cookies. Ours, however, became monster cookies. Not that we're complaining.

These were baked for approximately 10 minutes at 350-degrees.

And we were so excited to eat them, we do not take a final picture of the baked cookies. Please trust us when we say that they were delicious and make for great ice cream sandwich cookies. Hopefully, the following picture of The Bean will suffice.

The oatmeal crispies are like oatmeal raisin cookies, but with pecans instead. We all agreed, between bites, this cookie was a great variation off of the classic oatmeal raisin cookie.

Happily full,

Roasted Corny-ness

With the extra-mild winter weather we've been experiencing, our men had the itch to smoke some meat. So they did. Uncle He-Man and Lou brought some baby back ribs to share. Mmm...tasty.

The task left to Lou and Jo was to decide on what dishes to serve along with the wonderful ribs. We decided upon Katie's Roasted Corn Salad (p. 26).

Since the grill was being occupied by the ribs (Hallelujah! - corny style), we began by roasting our corn on the broiler pan in the oven. It was prepared with olive oil and roasted for approximately 10 minutes.

Next we sliced red onion, red bell pepper and yellow squash. These were prepared for roasting, with olive oil, just as the corn was.

We sliced two roma tomatoes while the veggies were roasting.

Next we made our dressing. We mixed oil and balsamic vinegar.

We cut basil leaves - chiffonade style (we were wearing our fancy pants). This is done by rolling a stack of basil leaves length-wise, slicing the leaves width-wise to form long strips. See? We really were wearing our fancy pants.

To the dressing we added salt and minced garlic. All the ingredients were whisked together.

We sliced the corn kernels off the cobs.

We diced the remaining vegetables.

Once these were combined, we drizzled the dressing over the mixture. This was thoroughly folded into the salad.

We chilled the salad for a short time, allowing the flavors to mingle and marry. Katie's Roasted Corn Salad is good by itself or served with tortilla chips.

Happily full,