A Grilled Chicken Sandwich for Dinner

It's always sandwich time, baby
Photo Credit: TH

My last night of making dinner for myself as a temporary bachelor involved a grill. If you're surprised by this, welcome to It's Eatin' Season and my online presence in general. Cooking food outdoors with any kind of heat, direct or indirect, is sort of a staple of my cuisine, whether self-made or otherwise. As with many stereotypical dudebros, I believe sandwiches are a perfectly normal thing to eat for any meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or the mythical fourthmeal. I also do not have the hate in my heart for boneless, skinless chicken breast, especially when it's already in my freezer and I don't have to shell out extra money for it. No, it's not nearly as naturally flavorful as a thigh or the bone-in variant or any other dark meat, but sometimes, a blank canvas will do. You can still add flavor to the hunk of meat.

What If You Put a Meatloaf in Your Smoker?

The intersection of America on a plate
Photo Credit: TH

The Recipes First
Smoked Meatloaf
- One (1) lb. 80/20 ground beef
- One (1) chorizo link
- Four (4) garlic cloves
- One (1) egg
- One (1) slice white bread, soaked in whole milk
- One-half (1/2) orange pepper, diced
- Salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste
- hickory wood chips

Place ground beef into bowl. Squeeze chorizo out of the casing into the meat. Add the egg, diced pepper, and saturated bread. Using a garlic press, crush the cloves into the mixture. NOTE, if you don't have a garlic press, chop garlic finely before adding to mixture. Season ingredients and then mix thoroughly with your hands until you no longer see large clumps of chorizo or bread within the mixture. Form the meat into a loaf and place into the smoker, using dry hickory chips as the smoke source. Set temperature no greater than 250°F. Begin checking temperature after two hours. When the internal temperature at the center of the loaf is 165°F, the loaf is finished (165°F is the safe consumption temperature of pork/sausage). Remove from the smoker, and allow to rest for at least five minutes before slicing and serving.

Breakfast Sandwich Porn: Mexican Inspiration

*Extremely Arnold voice* IT'S NOT A TORTA
Photo Credit: TH

It's not a torta. Okay, so let me back up a little bit. The above sandwich has chorizo and black beans (processed, but still there) on it. I don't want to call it a torta though. Too many times, I've seen people say they're taking an ethnic dish and they make too many changes to it so that it's only what they want to call it in spirit. I don't want to disrespect the national sandwich of Mexico like that. I will say the sandwich I made this past Sunday morning is inspired by a torta though. Sometimes, inspiration is all you need.

Bleu Cheese Coleslaw, Baby

The goods
Photo Credit: TH

The Recipe First
- One (1) bag of coleslaw mix OR four (4) cups of shredded cabbage and one (1) cup shredded carrot
- One (1) cup mayonnaise
- One (1) tablespoon white vinegar
- One (1) tablespoon lemon juice
- One-half (1/2) teaspoon ground mustard powder
- One-quarter (1/4) teaspoon celery seed
- Two (2) tablespoons white sugar
- Two (2) garlic cloves
- Three-and-a-half (3 1/2) ounces bleu cheese

Combine mayo, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard powder, celery seed, and sugar in bowl and whisk. Press the two cloves into the mixture and whisk again. If you do not have a garlic press, chop finely and fold in. Crumble bleu cheese into the dressing and mix with a wooden spoon. Add dressing mixture to the shredded vegetables and mix with wooden spoon. Let sit for at least one (1) hour before serving.

All About the Kielbasa: Big Daddyz BBQ, Folsom, PA

It's all good but keep your eyes on that sausage in the upper left corner
Photo Credit: TH

While Philadelphia and its surrounding suburban areas aren't exactly known for barbecue, it's not like places that serve good 'cue are hard to find. No one is ever going to mistake any style of slow-smoked meats and homespun sides as uniquely Philadelphian. The folks here are surly, insular, and prideful, but they're certainly not self-important like the magazine editors who proclaimed "Brooklyn BBQ" to be a thing instead of just gentrified Memphis, Texas, or Kansas City styles served in smaller portions for jacked-up prices. Barbecue isn't as plentiful here as it would be in those locales, and the width and breadth of BBQ joints pale in comparison to how many different places you can get a good cheesesteak. That being said, whether it be Sweet Lucy's or Fette Sau, you can find good 'cue in the area.

The Best Poundcake You'll Ever Eat: Stock's Bakery, Philadelphia, PA

The cake so good you'll eat it even if no one's having a birthday
Photo Credit: TH

Cake is kinda like sex or pizza. Even when it's bad, it's good. A lot of people settle for the Duncan-Hines boxed cake, and that's fine on a budget or in a pinch. Whether it's quick and easy or made by overblown Italian pseudocelebrities from Jersey City and covered in nigh-inedible fondant, cake almost never feels like an everyday dessert. It's for special occasions, because it's so moist and decadent. There's a reason why they put Marie Antoinette's neck on the guillotine for her tone deaf dismissal of the poor in France saying "let them eat" it. There's a reason why cake is almost always the food of choice when a filmmaker or television director wants to show a depressed woman trying to cheer herself up. It's reserved for birthdays, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and funerals. Bad cake is still mostly sweet and moist if flawed. Good cake though? Much in the same way that good or great pizza or sex leaves an impression, the best cake always leaves you wanting more even if you've eaten it all, or more pointedly, even if you've eaten too much of it and can't fit a single morsel more into your belly.

Cheesesteak Crawl: Northeast Sandwich Company

There's a lot of meat on this sandwich and it's all good
Photo Credit: TH

A long time ago, okay, maybe like five or so years ago, Northeast Philadelphia had a tremendous little sandwich joint on Holme Circle called Blue Duck that served up amazing burgers, the signature being a pork roll burger, which wasn't a burger topped with pork roll, but one that had pork roll ground into it. In 2018, the whole operation went belly up when the original location and two satellite locations all went out of business due to the hubris of one of the partners. The other one, chef Kris Serviss, helped found a new joint in the Burlhome section called Northeast Sandwich Company. The place, nestled on a quiet corner in a mostly residential neighborhood, has carved out a reputation for putting excellence on a roll. Nashville hot chicken sandwiches, Italian roast pork, and pork belly-topped burgers are just a few of the items on the roster that I've had. Any Philly joint, however, has got to have a cheesesteak, right? NESCO has a few on the menu. Of course, I went with one.