Hangover Cure

I'm pretty sure the Brits have always thought they are smarter than us Americans. Well, did you hear that they found the cure to the hangover? The bacon sarnie! The bacon what, you say? Because they have to be weird and have silly names for everything, a "sarnie" is just a sandwich, a name they made up too, but apparenly isn't good enough for them. Looking for any excuse to eat bacon, I went for it.

Ingredients:
4 slices of the best bacon you can find
2 slices bread
room temperature butter
ketchup or HP sauce, or both

Cook the bacon the way you like it. Then drain it on some paper towels. Butter 2 slices of bread. Fold over bacon slices on the buttered side of 1 slice of bread. Now cover it with HP sauce and ketchup.

Wait, what's HP sauce you say? HP Sauce has a malt vinegar base, blended with tomato, dates, tamarind extract, sweetener and spices. If you don't have it, there is no reason to go out and buy. Ketchup with do the trick. But hey, if you want to try it, Amazon sells it.

Now cover with other piece of bread, buttered side down and smush together. Slice in half and serve.

And if that doesn't fix your headache, have a bloody mary. Always does the trick for me.

Frou Frou Grilled Cheese

Forget the grilled cheese whose only prep work was to remove a little square of plastic. This sandwich takes only about 1 more minute and uses fresh delicious ingredients (what's in that square of "cheese" anyway?)

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread (a nice fresh loaf is preferred, but I used store brand wheat)
olive oil (or butter if you don't have)
tomato
fresh mozzarella
pesto (homemade is always best, but the store-bought kind works just fine)
salt & peppper

Preheat your pan, griddler, panini maker...whatever you got, on medium heat. While it heats up, you can make your sammy. Put a bit of olive oil on 1 side of both pieces of bread. Flip over and spread the pesto on both slices. Slice your tomato really thin and cover an entire side of one piece of the bread. Then slice your mozzarella and put on top of tomatoes, covering with salt and pepper. Cover with other piece of bread and grill just like you would a grilled cheese. I lowered the heat a bit to make sure that my cheese was definitely melted before the bread burned. Slice and serve when bread is golden brown and cheese is melted inside.

And put those nasty cheese squares back in the fridge....you know they'll last forever in there anyways.

(really bad shot, sorry)

The Perfect Saturday

I have absolutely enjoyed this beautiful Saturday 110%. The weather was perfect, and everything and everyone I encountered was cheerful. You have no idea how rare this is, so I took it all in and wore a smile the entire day.

The majority of my time was spent at the Red Hook Community Farm out in Brooklyn. My volunteer task today was weeding the green beans. My quads are going to hate me tomorrow, but it felt good to put my hands in the dirt and get a little sweaty. Everything was green and beautiful - hard to believe the picture below is in Brooklyn, right?

The best part of the farm is that I never go home empty-handed from a hard day's work. They have a great little farmers market where I can load up on goodies growing right where I've been standing all day. I can't even begin to put into words how delicious these tomatoes are....they are seriously like candy! I started eating them straight and finished half of the box immediately. Sure, tomatoes are in season, I know, but these seeds must be laced with crack or something - never tasted anything quite like it. Lesson of the day: Support your local farmers!!!

Since I was on a tomato-high, I bought some big boys too in order to make the best sandwich you will ever eat in your life. You don't believe me? Well, you are an idiot obviously. Make this NOW, while the tomatoes out there are so delicious.

Ingredients:

Mayo, no diet crap

2 slices bread (white bread is the best, but I didn't have any)

1/2 medium ripe tomato, thinly sliced

Freshly ground black pepper

1 BIG handful plain potato chips (i use kettle cooked because they are the bomb.com)

Spread mayo on both sides of bread....if you are on a diet, go with one, but whatever you do, do not leave off the mayo. Top with tomato sliced. Then season with pepper....keep going, keep going, yep that's perfect. Place a big handful of chips on the sammy and squash the whole thing together with your hand. Cut in half and enjoy the most delicious summer sandwich ever. Like I said, the perfect Saturday......