Fresh Bread

Does anything smell better than bread baking? Nope - nothing. And after a gloomy, chilly few days I decided that what my house needed was a nice loaf of freshly baked bread. Sounds like a great idea - except that I have never been able to execute a sucessful loaf of yeast-based bread. After several past attempts yielded a wheat brick, I came to the conclusion that, while I am a pretty good cook, I may not be cut out for baking. But that was years ago. Maybe another try is in order.

I got a recipe, followed it to the letter. I even broke out the thermometer. I was completely dedicated to NOT having a wheat-brick this time. And guess what - it worked! I didn't kill the yeast. It actually rose - twice. And it filled my house with the lovely smell of baking. Mission accomplished. But as my bread cooled all I could think was SANDWICHES. I WANT SANDWICHES. Not one sandwich. A variety of sandwiches. Here's what I made:

Turkey & Brie melt with spicy olive tapanade

Roast Beef & Sharp Cheddar melt with balsamic caramelized onions & horseradish sauce

Tarragon Chicken Salad

BLT

It was a sandwich weekend. Of the four above, my favorite was the Roast Beef & Cheddar sandwich. The onions made it. But my favorite use of the bread was not even a sandwich - it was the first slice, hot and buttered and perfect.

My successful loaf has inspired me to keep baking. I'm going to try some different recipes, make up some new sandwiches - my house will smell fantastic.

Double Down - DONE

I first heard about KFC's Double Down sandwich on the A.V. Club's blog. For those of you who are unaware, the Double Down is a KFC test sandwich that involves substituting the buns for fried chicken breasts. Bacon, cheese and "special sauce" is between the chicken. There is no doubt that this is a greasy, gluttonous mess of a "sandwich", but an abomination? I don't think so. I was very disappointed to read that the author of the A.V. Club's post could not even keep his down. Fried chicken, bacon, cheese - how could this be bad?


Since I do not live in one of the two cities testing the Double Down, a friend and I decided to craft our own Double Down from scratch. Since I didn't see how I would ever be able to fit two stacked fried chicken breasts into my mouth, chicken breast tenders pounded thin were used. Then we seasoned them with a cajun spice mix, breaded them in panko, and fried in canola oil. After the top and bottom "buns" were fried and salted we put three pieces of bacon per sandwich (up from two in the KFC version - why not?) and melted colby-jack cheese on top under the broiler. The KFC version calls for pepper jack and swiss so we took a little poetic license there too. I have no idea what a KFC "special sauce" is, but my special sauce is bacon gravy served on the side for dipping. Delicious. We had a lot of gravy so we served the sandwich with mashed potatoes.



Now for the moment of truth - the first bite... Crunchy, cheesy, bacony with just a hint of spice. In a word - PERFECTION.

This sandwich is EVEN BETTER than it sounds! Had it not been for the scrumptious, albiet waste of space, mashed potatoes I could have had another. Soooooo good.

If you don't live in Providence RI or Omaha NE I encourage you to make your own Double Down at home. It's very simple and worth the effort. Enjoy!