Game Night Sandwiches

Every couple months or so, we get together with friends and have a game night.  Typically it is at our place, and typically I'm feeding a bunch of dudes. It's a pretty easy crowd to please, so long as there is cheese and meat involved everyone is usually pretty happy.  I get pretty excited about these occasions because it gives me a chance to pull some of the more ooey gooey things out of my recipe book.

I've seen many different variations of these over the years on food shows and even on pinterest.  I think anyone who has had or been to a party has had some variation of these sandwiches.  I deeply love these served with french onion soup or maybe even a corn chowder.  They definitely are not for the faint of heart, they are rich, but once you have one, you will be going back for seconds.

Most times you will see these prepared with ham, but I have a secret to tell you.  Someone in my house is not the biggest fan of ham, at least not as a lunch meat.   So these, are made with turkey, and they disappeared all the same.  Also, these are fantastic with pepper jack cheese, but since the kiddos were eating these, I used good old cheddar.

• 1- 12 count package Hawaiian rolls
• 1 lb Smoked Deli Sliced Turkey
• 6-8 (or more if you like) Slices of Cheese
• 1 stick, unsalted butter, melted 
• 4 green onions chopped
• 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire
• 1 8oz. block Cream Cheese, softened
• 1 Tbsp Sriracha
• 1 Tbsp Chives 

**Aluminum Disposable 9x13 pan if you want to make your life really easy.

Pre heat oven to 350 Degrees.  Spray a 9x13 baking pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Combine the Cream Cheese, Sriracha & Chives in a bowl.

Combine the butter, green onions, and Worcestershire in a bowl.


Take the Hawaiian rolls out of their package, and without separating the individual buns, cut the entire thing in half so that you now have a one top bun and one lower bun.  Take the cream cheese mixture and spread half of it on the top layer of buns and half on the bottom layer of buns.

Distribute the turkey and cheese over the bottom layer of buns in the pan, and place the top layer of buns on top.

Pour the melted butter mixture over the top of the sandwiches, cover with a sheet of aluminum, foil and place in the oven.  Bake for 15 minutes,
then remove the foil, and bake for 5-7 minutes longer.

Thai Quinoa Salad

I love spicy noodles in just about any form they take.  This is not spicy noodles, but you need to know that this recipe is inspired by a great spicy noodle recipe. The taste is phenomenal and I could eat bowl after bowl of it, and I assure you, I have. As I am prone to do lately, I need something just a little more healthy and nutritious, but mind you, no less tasty.  I added a ton of vegetables, swapped the quinoa for the noodles, and added some sliced almonds for crunch.

You can achieve the shredded vegetables with a vegetable peeler, shredding on the shredding blade of a food processor, or just a plain old grater.  I used my new vegetable spiralizer and had fun doing so, but don't let a lack of one stand in your way.   Use any vegetables that you want in this one, I think broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, or pea pods would be great additions, and as the spring months beginning to thaw things out around here, I'm going to be adding in all kinds of different things.

This is a huge batch of salad, it made up about four meals between my husband and I throughout the week, so if you are making it for the first time or not for such long-term purposes feel free to cut it in half.  Although I will say, go ahead and make the full recipe for the dressing, once cooled, it makes and excellent salad dressing for a spinach salad, or as a marinade for any meat you want to grill.

First we're going to start the quinoa:

6 Cups Water
3 Cups Quinoa
3Tbsp Butter

Bring the water and butter to a boil in a large pot.  Add the quinoa to the boiling water and cover with a lid.  Turn the heat down to a simmer and let the quinoa go for 15-17 minutes.  I typically stir the pot a couple of times just to make sure everything is cooking evenly and nothing is sticking to the bottom of the pot.    Once the time is up, and you can see the little white membrane on the quinoa, you are done.  remove the lid and fluff it up a little.

Next we'll make the dressing:

6 Cloves Garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Red Pepper Flakes
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
1/4 Toasted Sesame Oil
6 Tbsp Honey
6 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1 tsp Salt



To a small pan over low heat add the garlic, red pepper flakes, and both oils.  Bring this mixture just
barely to a simmer and watch it for about 30 seconds to 1 minute so that you don't burn the garlic.  Shut it off and remove from heat.  Let the oil mixture steep for as long as you can.  I usually start it right after I put the quinoa on, and then finish it up after I chop up all the veggies.



When you're ready to finish the dressing, you can strain out the red pepper flakes if you aren't looking for a lot of heat in the salad, but if you are, leave them in.  You can then add, directly to the pan if you like the honey, soy sauce, and salt.  Whisk together until combined.  Set aside until you are ready to finish the salad.

Next we'll take care of the veggies:

In a gigantic bowl add as many chopped, sliced, or grated veggies as you want or the bowl can contain, I used:


3 Carrots Spiralized
3 Zucchini Spiralized
1 Red onions, cut in half and sliced into thin half moons
1 1/2 Bell Peppers, thinly sliced into strips
1 Cup Cilantro, roughly chopped

You could also add green onions, radishes, brocooli, cauliflower, corn, peas, tomatoes, etc.  You can basically go wild.  You are limited only by what your imagination and the size of your bowl.

Assemble the salad:

Optional garnishes if you have them on hand, sliced almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds.

To the vegetables in your bowl, add the cooked quinoa and dressing, and then stir to combine.  Garnish with and and all of the crunchy options if you wish, and then put the bowl in the fridge for at least an hour to chill and let the dressing soak into the quinoa and vegetables.

SIDE NOTE:  
You can go ahead and use just plain old spaghetti noodles instead of quinoa in this.  For my purposes, next time I make it with quinoa, I'm going to shred or grate the vegetables instead of spiralizing them, the long "noodles" of zucchini didn't really synch up with the quinoa from a texture perspective.  The last time I made this with noodles, the spiralized vegetables were amazing.

Tater Tot Nachos

So Sunday nights have once again inspired a delicious winner.  Part of our ongoing family project  is what we are lovingly calling, the Year of Awesome.  We are basically having a money saving contest with ourselves.  Sunday nights have traditionally been our "eat out" night. Like clockwork, at about 4pm on any given Sunday, I would ask my husband, "What are we getting tonight?"  From there, I would hop in the car and off I would go to pick up dinner from wherever we decided on.

The Year of Awesome means that we now are eating out only once a month.  This hasn't been overly difficult, so far, especially since a major part of what we are eating right now are smoothies, so on Sunday mornings I just make up a couple, and miraculously, I have supper made too.  Sometimes though, a smoothie just doesn't cut it.  So as usual, desperation became the fount of creativity.  This recipe is a collaboration between my husband and I.

Now, I will say that most of the items used to construct these were convenience foods.  The one thing that set this over the edge was a cheese sauce that we quickly threw together.  I will not say one tiny thing to you if you choose to use a canned or jarred cheese sauce, cause if I'm being honest with you, the next time this gets made, that is what I may be using.  If you have a cheese sauce in your brain that you use, use it, this is not fancy.  My standard is a 2/2/2/2 mix, so it goes something like this:

Melt 2 Tablespoons of butter in a saucepan, add 2 Tablespoons of Flour, and you guessed it, cook for 2 minutes until the flour has cooked a little.  Add 2 cups of milk, and stir/whisk until it starts to thicken. When it is starting to thicken up, add 2 Cups of Cheese and stir/whisk until it is melted.  Now, depending on your tastes, the cheese you use, or just the whims of the cooking spirits, you may need to add more cheese or milk to get the consistency where you want it. I will just caution you to add less milk than you think or want to if you are adjusting this, you can always add more but you cannot take it back if you go too far, think tablespoons at at time, not cups.  Salt & Pepper to taste.  

1 (28 oz) Bag of Tater Tots
1 Recipe Cheese Sauce
Green onions Chopped
Tomatoes Chopped
Olives
Sour Cream
Salsa
Chili, canned or homemade

OPTIONAL:  Meat, Jalapenos, Cilantro, Avacado, basically any topping that you would put on nachos.

Bake or Fry the Tater Tots according to the package directions.

Make or warm the cheese sauce.

Put some of the Tater Tots in a Bowl or on a plate, add the cheese sauce and garnish with all the toppings that you have.

You can thank me later, I know you're busy eating.