Cuban Sandwich

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I love pork. So it should surprise no one that I love Cuban sandwiches. It's hard for me to find foods that I like prepared exactly as they were intended, and the Cuban sandwich is no exception. However, the Cuban sandwich comes much closer than many in that the only change/omission I make is leaving off the pickles. In fact pickles make my top 5 most common ways to ruin a sandwich list. That list goes:
1. Mayonnaise
2. Pickles
3. Onion
4. Tomato
5. Any combination of 1-4 (Note: I completely avoided cole slaw and sauerkraut as those are too obvious)
Now, lettuce is also a good way to ruin a sandwich, but a sandwich with lettuce on it is usually not irreparable, though shredded lettuce does mean a bit more work in clearing the sandwich. When it is cleared though, there is usually not much hint that lettuce was ever on the sandwich, unlike onions. Everything else is on the list because it leaves behind some sort of liquid which ruins the sandwich. This list should not be construed as "complete". It only covers the most common mistakes I have encountered in sandwiches.

For a sandwich so nearly perfectly suited for The Newtster, it is sad that I can probably count the number of times I have had a Cuban sandwich on two hands. The Mid-Atlantic region, where I have spent nearly all of my life, just isn't the hotbed of Cuban sandwiches and I was too young to get into them when we lived in South Florida for a few years. The first time I can recall encountering this wonderful creation was at a Cuban restaurant in Virginia Beach. One of my good friends in high school was of Cuban descent, her parents having come to the United States like so many others to escape the Castro regime. I went to dinner with them one night to try a new place simply called 'Havana'. As luck would have it, before we even ordered, her parents discovered that they were from the same place in Cuba as the waiter and knew his parents back in Cuba. It made the evening much more special for them. What made the evening the most special for me though was the ridiculously delicious sandwich my friend suggested for me. That was probably 1997 or 1998.

Over the next decade, I haven't had much of a chance to have Cuban sandwiches. I have had a couple here and there, but those times are few and far between. Then, in the middle of 2008, my Mom told me about an article in Garden & Gun magazine called 'Death By Cuban Sandwich'. It's a great article from a great magazine and it created a strong desire for me to have a Cuban sandwich, a desire which has gone unfulfilled until now. After watching numerous CSI: Miami re-runs this past weekend and learning that the Wake Forest basketball team will be losing....errrr..... playing in Miami to start the NCAA tournament at the end of this week, I determined that the time was right to attempt to make this simple sandwich for myself.

The start to any good Cuban sandwich is Cuban bread. Perfect. I can't get any here in DC. Cuban bread is apparently similar in nature to French bread, except it is made with lard for added moisture. Knowing that I could not get any Cuban bread, I settled on two nice loaves of French bread from Harris Teeter.

The next ingredient is yellow mustard. That's easy. After the mustard comes ham. My choice of ham happened to be the variety of Virginia baked ham that was on sale in the grocery store. I probably should have gone with some sort of glazed ham for sweetness but the baked ham was just fine.
Next comes the roasted pork. Based upon some research, one way to prepare Cuban roasted pork is by marinating the meat in a mojo sauce. After seeking out some recipes, I discovered that Goya makes a Mojo Criollo sauce. I bought a small pork shoulder (just under 2.5 lbs), poked numerous holes in it with a fork, and marinated it for a few hours in the Goya mojo. Let me tell you, the sauce smells fantastic. If I had the foresight to marinate this thing overnight, it would have been better but it still gave the pork a nice flavor, at least on the outside. I roasted it in a 350° oven for 30 minutes per pound and it came out nice and tender. Unfortunately a lot of the meat was darker and fatty but it did yield a good amount of tender meat for the sandwiches.

After the roasted pork comes the Swiss cheese. Again, I went with what was on sale, which was Finlandia. Traditional Cuban sandwiches, as I mentioned earlier, are topped with pickles. I did actually buy some hamburger dill chips for Julia's sandwich since I knew she wouldn't mind them. After some more mustard on the top piece of bread, the sandwich was complete.

The last step in preparing a Cuban sandwich is toasting it in a sandwich press. While we don't own one of these, we do own a George Forman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine. Close enough. I brushed some butter on both the top and bottom pieces of bread and put it in the Forman, pressing down on the top to collapse the bread and toast it faster. After five minutes or so, the bread was toasted and the cheese was all melted.

The result came out pretty nicely. To accompany the sandwich, I finally bought a mandolin slicer and prepared some fresh baked potato chips in the oven. We were both pleased with the results.

I'm Still Eating

I have received some concerned messages from my loyal readers. Please rest assured that despite my lack of blogging thus far in 2009, I am in fact still eating. I will try to get some more stuff up here soon, but in the meantime I will try to bring you up to speed.

After spending the early part of January in Roanoke with my family, Julia and I went to Winston for the UNC game, which was a great time. While in Roanoke, I cooked a few times but nothing special, just spaghetti once or twice and some jambalaya. Since the jambalaya had both chicken and rice, that was another one for the counter. And since Mandy inquired, the counter has also gone up as the direct result of eating Mexican (chicken quesadillas with rice and chicken tacos with rice) and Chinese food once. I also cooked some jambalaya back here at home for yet another notch on the counter, bringing the total to 12.

We hunkered down at home during the inauguration so I did cook during that time, but again nothing special and nothing that you haven't seen on this blog before. We have also seen 4 movies at 4 different theaters over the last week or so. We saw Gran Torino, Doubt, The Wrestler, and Slumdog Millionaire. I thought they were all good and am disappointed that Gran Torino was shut out from the Oscars. Oh well. Julia and I also quietly celebrated our 10 year dating anniversary last week, which is pretty crazy to think about.

In just over a month from today, 4 blogs will collide in New York City. Stayed tuned as it should be fun.....

A Look Back At 2008

This picture was taken somewhere in Louisiana in April and I think it provides a good backdrop for what this post is all about, namely a look back at some of The Newtster's favorites from 2008. These generally fall into two categories: sights and foods. I am undertaking some effort to remain somewhat anonymous here so I had to make sure that my pictures do not blow my cover. Please also keep in mind that these were taken with a point and shoot camera so while the photo quality may not be spectacular, these captured the moment pretty well.Let's first start with all the places I have been this year, in chronological order by date of first visit. While I did not physically see each of these signs, you can tell below which ones I did personally visit.


In keeping with the chronology, I will attempt to keep my favorites in order by the date they were taken.

02/08/08 - Lincoln Memorial - Washington, D.C
Taken at dusk before catching a flight to Boston to celebrate the end of a friend's chemotherapy treatments. There was a great sliver of moon just above the building that I tried to capture.











03/30/08 - Sunset Over The Gulf of Mexico - Marco Island, FL
There were quite a few pictures from this trip that I had to choose from, but this was the most unique. The beach if huge and there is a little marshy area which you see in the foreground.









04/18/08 - Ray's Drive In - Lufkin, TX
Since this is ostensibly a food blog, here is the best burger of the year. This was taken during the road trip with Joe to Texas and Louisiana. The burger was spectacular, as was my vanilla milkshake, which unfortunately is not pictured here except for the top of the straw at the very bottom of the picture.







04/19/08 - New Zion Missionary Baptist Church Barbeque - Huntsville, TX
This fantastic plate of food included 3 different meats. The brisket was the best, followed by the sausage and then the ribs. They didn't have any chicken on the day we were there. All in all, a great stop.








04/20/08 - Oil Derrick - Outskirts of College Station, TX
After hoping to see one since entering Texas two days before, we finally saw one. Great photo-op.










04/21/08 - Bourbon Street - New Orleans, LA
This was the first trip to New Orleans for both Julia and Joe. A great time was had by all. Joe and I volunteered with Habitat For Humanity for two days and we managed to get in a Mavs vs. Hornets playoff game for good measure.









04/25/08 - Bristol Motor Speedway - Bristol, TN
It took a few steps for me to actually get up on the window because I'm not so limber. This was also taken from some sort of construction site.










05/14/08 - Sunrise at Pine Tree Overlook - Milepost 95 on the Blue Ridge Parkway
After road closures thwarted an attempt to get to this overlook in March, I managed to make it for a sunrise in May. You can just barely see the sun peeking over the mountain. The tree to the right was crazy looking. I only saw one other car while here. It was super serene.







05/25/08 - Pierce's Pitt Bar-B-Que - Williamsburg, VA
The world's greatest barbeque and barbeque sauce.











06/23/08 - Rainbow as seen from the window of our condo - Alexandria, VA
This followed a severe storm. There was actually a double rainbow but it did not show very well in the picture.














09/05/08 - Blockbuster Video - Alexandria, VA
Discovery that Planter's Cheez Balls are finally back, but only at Blockbuster.












11/02/08 - Sarah and Jonathan's House - Richmond, VA
Baxter, Sarah and Jonathan's miniature dachshund, demonstrates his unique ability to sit like a "tall boy". He will reportedly sit like this for very long periods of time. He is also showing off his new Wake football jersey in this picture, which clearly needed to be altered in order to fit his T-Rex legs.












11/20/08 - Tinker Mountain - Roanoke, VA
This is a view of Tinker Mountain, which if you have been by Roanoke on I-81 before you have no doubt noticed. When I was young and went to visit my grandparents in Roanoke, my Granddad always took me to the Roanoke Regional Airport to watch planes land. I loved it. If the planes were landing on one of the runways, they flew right over the upper right corner of the mountain. I spent countless hours watching this mountain and think about it every time I see it.

That's it for this year. Thanks for stopping by and making it a hugely successful debut this year. See you in 2009.

Gameday Chili

Wake Forest football wrapped up its largely disappointing 2008 campaign on a high note last Saturday with a convincing 29-19 win over Navy, avenging its earlier loss to the Midshipmen. The inaugural edition of the EagleBank Bowl started at 11 AM in the morning. Needless to say, we were glad when both the game and the season were over. It's too bad the most successful senior class in school history did not get a better sendoff game.

While the game was going on, I had a slow cooker full of chili cooking to greet us when we got home. I used a recipe called "Colleen's Favorite Chili" from the Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook as the basis with a few minor variations. Here's what went in.
- 2 medium yellow onions, chopped
- 1.5 lbs ground beef, browned and drained
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 3/4 cup green pepper, chopped
- 29 oz. canned diced tomatoes
- 30 oz. canned light red kidney beans, drained
- 8 oz. canned tomato sauce
- 1 heaping tbsp chili powder
- 1 tsp. ground cumin
- 1 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning
- 1 tsp. dried basil
- 1/4 tsp. Beau Monde Seasoning
- Ground pepper and sea salt to taste
- Pinch of allspice, cinnamon, garlic powder and cayenne pepper

I browned the meat with some of the diced onions the night before the game and chopped the rest of the onions and green pepper to save time in the morning. Make sure you remove the seeds and membrane from the pepper unless you want quite a bit more heat. Everything went into the slow cooker for 8 hours on low just before 8 AM. The picture above is what it looked like before cooking.

By the time we got back from the stadium, it was just about ready to eat. Everything breaks down quite nicely and leaves a good hearty chili with tons of flavor and not too much heat. Everyone seemed to enjoy it so I will definitely make it again. I forgot to take a picture of it before people started grabbing some so here is what it looked like minus 4 or so bowls of chili. Also pictured is Sally's prepared bowl.

Pasta and Meatballs - Part 2

Before heading out of town last week, I did prepare supper on Tuesday. I used the same meatball recipe as previously detailed in my Pasta and Meatballs post. However, this time, I went with a garlic and olive pasta with diced tomatoes. The recipe is super simple. It contains:
- 2 cups of uncooked elbow pasta
- 3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
- 6 or so cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 4 tbsp. dried parsley
- Pepper to taste
- 14.5 oz. can of petite diced tomatoes, drained

I usually chop the garlic and add it to a skillet with the olive oil and let it sit for as long as practical, usually as long as it takes to put the meatballs together. I then heat the oil and garlic over medium heat for a few minutes until the garlic starts to show color and then add the salt, parsley, and pepper and stir it all in the skillet before pouring it over the pasta. Don't let the garlic brown and get bitter, just make sure it has a bit of color to it. After adding the mixture from the skillet, I add the canned tomatoes and stir it all up. The result is unintentionally quite festive looking and super tasty. Since the olive oil will inevitably settle to the bottom of the pasta, make sure you stir it well just before plating it up.

Holiday Treats

I have been away for a few days so I have not been cooking much. Instead, I will share with you some holiday treats. Not to tread on anyone else's 25 part series, "Is the chocolate in my Advent calendar worth eating?", but above are two Advent calendars currently present in The Newtster's household. One came courtesy of my Mom, the other courtesy of the good folks at Harris Teeter before I knew we would be getting one courtesy of my Mom. We originally started with Julia eating the one of the left, which proclaimed it contained "high quality" chocolate. However, one day we both decided to try one from the other calendar. I thought the "high quality" one had a hint of nuts to it, which might not be a good thing for Julia. Therefore we switched calendars. The calendar on the right is the variety that I remember from my childhood. While neither of the two calendars offer anything approximating great chocolate, I am apparently not as snobby about my chocolate as Mandy as I found the cheaper calendar on the right had better tasting chocolate, whereas Mandy flatly rejected both. I have noted though that if I should ever need a gift for Mandy, it should not be chocolate as she will undoubtedly not like it. Chocolate covered buffalo chicken strips? Maybe. But that's probably the only way to deliver a successful gift of chocolate to her.

Also present in the picture is the first bag of Mint M&M's for this holiday season. This treat has been with me for a number of years. Much to my dismay though, the size of the Mint M&M's changed last year. They are now slightly larger than they used to be and are approximately the same size as Peanut Butter M&M's. They were previously the same size as Milk Chocolate M&M's and had just the right amount of mint flavor to enjoy a large amount of them in one sitting. The larger size now packs much more mint flavor and means less snacking on them at one time. As far as health and weight are concerned, that's probably a good thing, but in terms of mashing multiple bags of these during the Christmas season, it's going to be less fun. Maybe the folks at Mars, Inc. will read this post and make the switch back, especially since that would increase their sales for at least one dude in Virginia. On second thought, there's no way that happens. Thanks guys.

And saving the best for last, the final item pictured above are brownies prepared by Julia's co-worker Mary. I am currently involved in the great "Burn 8 Years Worth of Mary's Emailed Foreign Travel Photos To a CD" effort and these brownies constitute my compensation in the matter. Trust me, this is a completely fair trade, especially since the brownies were delivered even before I have delivered on my end of the bargain. The brownies contain fresh pecans, apparently from Stone Phillips' home garden, or something close to that. I have never had such fresh pecans. They were quite soft and made the brownies moist and delicious, even above and beyond what Duncan Hines, or should I say "Duncan Haines" could do. I think Mary also realized that had she chosen to compensate me with rum balls, I might not be able function well enough to undertake the project. Many thanks to Mary.

Not pictured but worth mentioning are Hickory Farms' Original Cheese Balls. These have been a staple of Christmas in our family as long as I can remember, except they are difficult to locate in our area. We don't really have any Hickory Farms locations in the mall near us so I am forced to go with whatever brand cheese ball is stocked in the grocery store when I am there. Let me assure you, none of them comes even close to being as good as those from Hickory Farms. I even once mistakenly went into a Pepperidge Farm outlet store in Maryland and asked if they had the cheese balls there or if I needed to go to the mall to get those. The woman looked me squarely in the face and said what is probably the only appropriate answer to that question: "I think you have the wrong farm." She knew exactly what I was talking about though.

The Newtster's Turkey Burgers

After the chicken and rice feast earlier in the week, we enjoyed a taco night courtesy of Sally from Cupcakes and Coriandoli. The tacos were great and were a welcome diversion from cooking on my own but still getting to enjoy something homemade. Thanks Sally.

Before Sally's dinner invitation came on Thursday, I had prepared some turkey burgers on Wednesday and stuck them in the fridge in anticipation of having them on Thursday. One more day in the fridge was not a detriment to the burgers and may have even given it some more flavor. Who knows...

I went for quite a few flavors on this one since ground turkey has virtually no flavor whatsoever. In addition to the 1.3 lb package of ground turkey, I added the following ingredients, roughly in descending order of amount:
- Milwaukee Avenue Spice
- Back of the Yards Garlic Pepper Butcher Rub
- Minced Onion Flakes
- Herbes de Provence
- Parsley
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Jack Daniel's Horseradish Mustard
- Tabasco Chipotle Pepper Sauce, splash
- Red and Green Pepper Strips (one of each)

Since the turkey was 99% fat free, I also added a bit of extra virgin olive oil and margarine to the mixture to help it not dry out so much. I mixed everything together in a bowl and then divided it into four burgers. The Milwaukee Avenue Spice was the predominant dried spice and gives a nice "smokiness" which was balanced by the garlicy goodness of the Back of the Yards spice. The onion flakes were purchased at the Lancaster County Dutch Market and have much more flavor than any other brands I've purchased in the supermarket. As for the curious total of 2 pepper strips, I always keep a package of frozen pepper strips on hand for a quick short cut and thus was able to select only 2 for this concoction.

The burgers went into the grill pan for roughly 18 minutes total, 9 minutes of each side. I covered them with a top from one of our pots to keep the heat and moisture in. We added a piece of Safeway Lucerne 2% American Cheese Food, which is the best tasting "plastic cheese", as Julia calls it, on the market. For a side, I went with Alexia Sweet Potato Julienne Fries. For dipping the fries, I added a side of Montebello Kitchens Curry Ketchup, which I found at Whole Foods.

The meal was great. The burgers came out with great flavor and were not overseasoned, which I was a bit worried about when I wrote down the list of ingredients. I was particularly worried I had added too much margarine, but you couldn't taste it and the burgers were not too dry. Julia and I both agreed that we would eat them again with the same list of ingredients. The fries, which were recommended to me earlier in the year by my Mom, were good as always and were accompanied quite nicely by the curry ketchup. I was very pleased with the entire finished product.

I'm Back

I'm sure you have all been checking multiple times each day to see what I've been doing. Well, since my last post, we have been to Chicago for Thanksgiving and Julia's 10 year high school reunion. I took the picture above the morning of our return flight. It wasn't a lot of snow thankfully, but the first real accumulation of any sort we have been witness to this year. I was happy I got to see it for the day but then was able to return to my snow free home and not deal with it. As promised, I also snapped a picture of my great aunt's painting I mentioned in my Dark N' Stormy - Part 2 post.

Since I kept you all waiting for so long for new material, I decided to give you exactly what you want....more chicken and rice!!! During the trip I stopped by The Spice House in Evanston to replenish some of our spices. I also picked up some King Creole Seasoning, which is a new blend for us. I sprinkle it three chicken breasts and baked them in the oven for 35 minutes at 375°. They turned out great. The seasoning had good flavor and didn't seem to have as much heat as some of the other creole seasonings I have purchased in the grocery store. For the rice, it was ladies choice and Julia selected Zatarain's Cheddar Broccoli Rice. Please note that the decision to purchase this was made of my own volition. I figured the broccoli flavor wouldn't be too strong and I was correct. In fact, it didn't seem to have too much flavor at all despite being both cheesy and broccoliy. It also took significantly longer to cook than it said it would on the box. I had to add plenty of salt to it despite the already high sodium content and some of the King Creole Seasoning. It wasn't bad, I just expected more flavor.


The counter continues to rise. However, I think since I have an audience for my culinary endeavors now, I feel the need to prepare things other than chicken. I will work to see that we get to double digits pretty soon.