Christmas Sandwich
The next item I whipped up was for lunch. Now, the book called this a “Christmas Sandwich,” only it lacked the top bun. That’s ok, seems open-faced sandwiches were very popular back in the day and so I decided let’s have a go. I assembled the ingredients, and also realized I was behind schedule on getting the rest of the dinner prepped and started and so my lovely, adorable husband proceeded to step in on the sandwich situation.
There are some good and bad points to this endeavor and one may never know the full extent of the adventure unless one is in the room watching events unfold. I must inform you of two things: 1) The food processor had met its demise several months back and has never been replaced as I generally do not do a lot of cooking that needs a food processor for chopping, which generally falls on the shoulders of hubby. 2) The blender had lost its lid, and I was meaning to replace the whole contraption but hadn’t yet.
These are very important notes to set the stage for what happened next.
For starters, the meat was to be ground up or chopped “very fine.” I don’t have a meat grinder and this is where a food processor would have come in handy, but well, let’s move on to the heart of the story. There he stood in the kitchen eyeing that blender. This is never a good sign. Some people may say you can use the blender for grinding meat, namely my husband. But the home-economics book I have states blenders for foods that are liquids or have a lot of liquid in them like peaches or tomatoes, and food processors for foods like cheeses and meats. A meat grinder is optimal, but not necessary. Now, you also have to remember that the blender was missing its lid. Anyone that has been in a kitchen knows you need a lid for a blender. Of course in the true character of my husband, he said “It’ll be alright. I know what I am doing,” as he calmly took a salad plate from the cupboard to use as a makeshift lid.
I want to go on record that one of the reasons I hate cooking is trying to find the right equipment that my mom instructed that I should use. I have 7 sons and often I have discovered knives with bent tips because they used the knife to pry something, dig something out of the ground, etc. I often look in envy at some kitchen displays and there are knives neatly in this piece of wood, people know where their sharpeners are and kitchen scissors stay in place. Measuring cups and spoons are not lost by someone just carelessly tossing them into some drawer. When you have a lot of children, not everything goes perfectly. By the way, this explains what happened to the lid for the blender.
There are other reasons I hate cooking, but that is not the story here. The story here is the Christmas Sandwich. So back to the adventure with the blender and the meat. My husband was adding pieces of the meat into the blender to grind it up. I finally spoke up “Please do not burn out this blender’s motor. It’s all I have at the moment.” To which he replied, “I know what I am doing.” This then was followed by my list of the two times he destroyed two of my previous blenders. Once was when he tried to make homemade cat food for the cats and he didn’t use the food processor, and the other time when he tried it again with leftover meats. Both of those times caused the motors to burn out and smoke curling from the blenders. It’s not that he doesn’t know his way around a kitchen, he can really cook, but the thing is he makes-do better than anyone I know. I don’t know if he is cheap or frugal or creative or some combination of the three. I have not yet figured it out. I mean I could err on the side of cheap but he tends to like really expensive name brands because reports might say that is the best way to go. I think in the meantime we have to make do while he researches the best blender out there. I just want a blender, food processor, hand mixer this will bring me some great joy. A good knife set would also make me happy, but that’s a rant for another time. Now back to the story.
Darling hubby is now holding the plate on the top of the blender while trying to get the meat ground up in the blender and all the while I am hoping I don’t smell smoke. After a few tries, he then goes to chop the meat in small amounts and smooshes the bologna with a potato masher. It took more time but eventually, he got the meat all chopped up. As he was cleaning up the blender he noticed that it needs to be replaced anyway. On a side-note, remember this was December, Christmas dinner 2020 , it is now into January 2022. Still, no blender because “We might be moving and I don’t want to have a lot of stuff to pack up,” says hubby. “Besides, I’m looking at one of the ones recommended by top chefs.” Sigh.
But back to our sandwich. After he puts all the ingredients together he realizes these are open-faced sandwiches. At this point, the story is not as exciting. He still is unsure of this lunch and the presentation, but in the end, the lunch was a hit. We all enjoyed it even though I still have lost the last blender in my house. It was worth it all.
Makings of a “Christmas Sandwich”
Now to the recipe:
Christmas Sandwich
1 ½ cups of ground bologna or ham
1 cup of sharp shredded cheese
¼ cup sweet pickle relish
¼ cup of salad dressing
1 teaspoon grated onion
3 tablespoons ketchup
¼ teaspoon salt
6 hamburger buns or English muffins we used King Hawaiian buns)
1 can of jellied cranberry sauce
Directions:
Combine the first 7 ingredients and spread evenly on one slice of bun or muffin and place them on a broiler rack and broil 4 inches until the buns are lightly browned. This should take about 6 minutes. To serve garnish with cutouts of the jellied cranberry sauce on the top of the open-faced sandwich. This makes about 12 servings and can be made ahead of time as well. I think this would also work great for other gatherings, these were also teen approved and they wanted more. We used bologna, but you can use ham if you prefer. One of the ideas for the presentation is to arrange them like a wreath on a large plate, with the cranberry cutouts cut from the Christmas cookie cutter to make a more interesting garnish. We just kept it simple and left it with thin slices of round jellied cranberry shape.
Putting it all together
