Turkish Inspired Egg Salad Sandwich

June 30, 2016July 26, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

Continuing with the sandwich theme from Monday, today I’m sharing what goes into one of my favorite brunch staples. When Graham and I were living in Queen Village, we usually frequented (the now closed *sob sob*) Cafe Fulya on Second and Monroe on lazy weekend mornings when we couldn’t be bothered to cook at home or get cleaned up for having brunch out. Instead, we’d each get one of their awesome sandwiches (made with pide!) and coffees to go. Once we moved to Graduate Hospital and didn’t have an easy 2-minute walk to the cafe, I tried replicating the taste and adding my own twist at home.You’ll need…

1-2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
feta
sliced cucumbers
lemon juice (enough to flavor cucumber slices)
diced green onions
chopped fresh parsley leaves (I usually use a handful, but I’m a parsley junkie. You can also substitute with dill, but I find that parsley makes the flavor brighter, complementing the lemon)
mayo (you can substitute plain yogurt with drizzled olive oil, but I’m an American with crude preferences)
bread (ideally, pide, but if you don’t have any on hand, this is awesome on bagels, pitas, roti [pictured below] or naan)
salt & pepper

Squeeze lemon juice over cucumber slices.
Spread mayo (or plain yogurt) on both slices of bread. If using yogurt, drizzle olive oil on top.
Add egg layers to one slice.
Crumble a layer of feta on top of eggs.
Sprinkle chopped green onion over feta.
Add the lemon-flavored cucumber slices.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Add chopped parsley over cucumbers as desired.
Top off sandwich with remaining slice.

When I first started making this at home, Graham would often opt out in favor of his own breakfast sandwich (ie. egg and cheese deep-fried in butter – “It’s French cooking, Honey!”). I gave him a bite of mine one day, and now, surprisingly, he always requests one of his own.Having these for breakfast or lunch always take me back to our early stages of dating.. before he became aware of all my tics and idiosyncrasies. Luckily, when he threatened to return me to my parents a month after we got married, my mom told him his warranty on me has expired. At least he gets egg salad sandwiches out of it.

Stacy

How To Create A Perfect Ham and Swiss Sandwich… For A Fascist

June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

sandwichtrio — From left to right: open-faced cream cheese cucumber radish and dill sandwich, cream cheese lox and capers bagel, and grilled kim(chi)cheese and egg sandwich

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you’ve probably seen a lot of food pictures, and if you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably developed a lot of sympathy for Graham. Me too. Poor Graham. I’m a tyrant.. and my control freak nature comes out in full force in the kitchen. I loathe to let Graham take the reins at mealtime. He’s GREAT in the kitchen. I love it when he cooks salmon for dinner or shakshuka for brunch.. but I always have to look away. It’s better that the health nut in me not see just exactly how much oil and butter saturates the pan.

For the longest time though, the big rule in the kitchen was that Graham was not allowed to make sandwiches for me. It seems ridiculous to be so rigid about something so culinarily banal as a sandwich, but I swear there’s an art involved in the layering as well as some practicality! You want each layer to complement the ones above and below it as well as hit your tastebuds at the right time.

It’s not just in our own kitchen.. I’m a harsh critic of sandwiches whenever we go out. And burgers! Which really are just heartier sandwiches.. I will deconstruct and reconstruct a burger if possible to get the right layers together, softly whining, “Why are they doing this wrong?”. After a year of living together and playing sandwich dictator, Graham, rather exasperated, asked me what the rules were for creating a sandwich that would pass the Stacy test. I went to town with a diagram on our kitchen whiteboard which remained there until the whiteboard and us went our separate ways – us to Mount Airy, the whiteboard to the sidewalk in Graduate Hospital on trash night.

I was planning on posting my favorite egg salad sandwich recipe today, but the camera on my phone decided to be uncooperative, so I’m posting a revised sandwich chart instead..

This is for your run-of-the-mill deli sandwich. There’s variations when it comes to burgers, grilled cheese, veggie sandwiches, etc, but a lot of the basic principles still apply. I should add that these are guidelines for sandwiches I eat.. it’s all a matter of personal preference. Starting with the bottom layer and working up to the top:

Additional Info:

Bread is dry. Bread always needs a “wet” ingredient to compliment it.
Mayo should always be next to cheese.
A thin layer of mustard (if you’re using it) goes between cheese and whatever deli meat you use. Think about cheese, crackers, and charcuterie.. they always come with mustard because it goes with all 3. Note: Different rules apply to bologna sandwiches.
Pickles and tomato always stay under the lettuce. It’s visually appealing to place them on top, but think about all that pickle and tomato juice mushing up the bread.
Always place lettuce on top to safeguard against all the juices that could destroy the bread.
Mayo or dressing always goes between the bread and the lettuce because.. see rule no. 1 and also because it creates a “mini-salad” with the veggies below it.
If you’re using salt/pepper.. you add that in the layers of tomato/pickles because the liquid will ensure the spices adhere.
Once you’ve read through all the chart and additional rules and realize that your wife’s controlling nature over sandwiches remind you of another crazy Korean dictator and that it’s just too much work to make lunch, hand all ingredients over to her, put sharp objects back, and back away slowly.
Play PS4 while waiting for lunch to be made.

Stacy (Supreme Dear Leader)

Putting Away Childish Things.. Right On The Windowsill

June 23, 2016June 23, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

Dolls make Graham uncomfortable. He was traumatized as a kid when his babysitter watched Barbarella. I find it kinda funny that in the whole movie, it isn’t a half-naked Jane Fonda that makes the impression on him. Nope, it’s feral attack dolls.

I can’t blame him.

So one night, while he was on the first floor.. I did some window dressing in the bedroom:I made sure to prop up the marionette Graham brought back from Mexico for me when I asked him for “the creepiest doll you can find” as a souvenir.And now, Graham knows that you can’t leave me alone for too long because when boredom sets in, I’m just going to look for ways to antagonize him.

I now want to see if I can hunt down Polly Pocket figures and line them up on his nightstand so just as he’s about to turn off the lamp.. SURPRISE! New friends!

Oh yeah… in a hypocritical move, Graham deported the marionette last night and demanded that a wall be built around it.

Stacy

Fire Safety

June 20, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been living in our new house for over 3 months now, and that’s actually how long it’s taken for me to notice that we have one of those pet rescue stickers on our back door.

I don’t know if Graham’s aware of it being there. Regardless, I took a black Sharpie to update the information.There! Now I can sleep at night, knowing I’m doing all I can to ensure Graham’s safety. P’sh.. and my parents call me a bad wife.

Stacy

PS. I put that up on Thursday. I’m wondering how long it will take for him to notice.

Shared Experience = Positive Impact On Relationships

June 16, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

I try doing this… but it goes unappreciated by Graham.. in fact, he imposed an embargo in the bedroom on my non-fiction books.. mainly because I was reading a lot about politics, history, the military, and racial issues. I guess it got pretty annoying for him when I kept nudging him from his Bradbury book to rant about something I just read. So, when it’s time for lights out, my blood is too boiled to fall asleep.. and then I start feeling the need to share my insomnia.. and it ends up going something like this:

Guess I’m not going to be getting out of an afterlife in Jersey anytime soon.

Stacy

Subversive Design – How To Win The Battle of Home Decor Against Your Significant Other

June 13, 2016July 26, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

“Relationships are all about compromise.” In most aspects of our relationship, Graham and I have had it easy when it comes to living the adage.. except when it comes to decorating.. well.. decorating and music, but I’m going to focus on decorating in this post.

When home ownership happened in January, after a lot of vetoing and eye-rolling, we finally decided on combining mid-century modern elements with bohemian accents. Just because we agreed on a theme, doesn’t mean that all details falling in the two categories are automatically approved. Graham set some guidelines for me regarding what’s NOT permissible. For instance, this Gemma Correll print is the extent of word art that’s allowed in the house:The rules are as follows..

No dreamcatchers
No antlers / mounted deer heads
No Starburst / Sunburst decor
No Sputnik-inspired lighting fixtures
No more painting post-move
No macrame
No woven wall hangings

With the exception of the dreamcatchers (I’ve just never been a fan), this list KILLS me. But you know what? That’s okay. Because I’ve managed to get away with strategically breaking six out of seven of these “rules” through covert operations.

Antlers? Check.Oh look, antlers! This is in a corner of the living room. I was able to pick this up after begging Graham for a mounted jackalope head. He caved on the antlers. The lesson? Pick something incredibly awful so your actual choice in decor seems like a compromise.

Starburst / Sunburst Decor? Check. I dislike our bedroom because of 2 annoying flaws – the warm cream walls and the hideous light fixture that every morning makes me think I’m staring up at a gigantic saline breast implant. I really wanted to add a set of sunburst mirrors in the room to help distract me from the flaws. Graham had already said no to sunburst and starburst decor in general. I waited for him to leave on his business trip to D.C, ordered them from Amazon, hung them up, and waited for him to notice once he got home. He didn’t notice.More Painting? Check. The aforementioned offending cream wall? I complained almost every day for two months until Graham caved so he wouldn’t have to hear me say “I hate these walls” every morning and every night.. with the condition that he doesn’t have to help. So.. that’s kinda like a draw, right?

Macrame? Check.I negotiated that I would keep the macrame planter I got from etsy.. (which I’d *ahem* forgot to tell him about) confined to the studio. Once I hung it, he was surprised that he didn’t really mind it. Soooo.. I’m taking that to basically mean that it’s ok to hang another one… on the 3rd floor.. right outside his office.

Woven Wall Hanging? Check. If you decide to make one yourself, what is he going to do? Tell you that you can’t display your hard work?That was 5 rules broken. Here’s the 6th..

Dreamcatcher? Check.I know I said I’m not a fan of dreamcatchers, but since Graham said, “No,” I just kinda HAVE to do it. It came as a surprise thank you gift from an etsy seller, so Graham can blame fate.. or maybe poor judgement in wife selection.

When asked if he minded terribly the reminders of violation against his list, Graham replied, “No, if they make you happy, I’m happy. Plus, I realized it’s much less painful to agree with you.”

Stacy

Lessons In Conditional Behavior (or, Marriage, The Psych Experiment)

June 9, 2016July 26, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

A lot of people would say that marriage is about a partnership.. ours is no exception, but it’s a partnership where it’s based on psychological experiments. Actually.. maybe that’s what ALL marriages are in general.

Anyhow, you’re probably familiar with this sort of behavior conditioning, right? The stuff about positive reinforcement and punishments… like this:Or at least something like this. My last psychology class was about 18 years ago. Holy cow.. babies have been born and have graduated high school between now and when I took that course in college. Moving on..

Interactions between Graham look something like this:This has been going well for a few years now. So I wasn’t very happy the other night when Graham decided to modify his reaction.

He was playing video games (yes, again) on the first floor, and I was digging through craft boxes in the studio (yes, again) on the second floor when I came upon the still unopened glider we got from the boardwalk in Cape May after cashing in our arcade tickets.

Lessons In Conditional Behavior (or, Marriage, The Psych Experiment) — The actual toy plane

Of course I HAD to use it RIGHT NOW. I slid the squeaky styrofoam pieces together and crept out into the hallway to the top of the stairs. This is how the scene played out downstairs from Graham’s viewpoint:There was whining involved… by me.. while trudging down the stairs to rescue the toy plane from the dog. Not a flinch, or “WTF, Honey?!” as Graham tried instituting this model in our relationship instead:Joke’s on him though. What he doesn’t realize though is that that’s a false assumption. Because in reality, this is what ends up happening:That part that got cut off reads “reinforcement,” but I’ve never been very good at spatial awareness (one reason everyone should be grateful that I won’t drive).

Stacy

PS. I’d like to thank my mother-in-law for providing me with the markers for the diagrams.

UPDATE: After reading this post, Graham yelled, “YOU WEAPONIZED MY MOTHER’S MARKERS?!” Yes, that was a direct quote.

One Of The Perks Of Not Living Alone

June 6, 2016June 30, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

On June 2, I was sitting in the studio on the second floor while Graham was playing video games downstairs when I tried clicking on this headline from The Washington Post that showed up on my newsfeed:

Along the U.S.-Canada border, an invisible but hardening wall rises

Because.. well.. it seems like a pretty important article to read just in case Graham and I have to go through with Plan B in November if the election sets off a real life version of The Purge.

But, I freaked out when this message usurped by browser instead:

Really? REALLY?! I know. It was only June 2! As in another 28 days left to go! So..

I have since learned that opening your browser in “porn mode” (aka incognito) does take care of that whole limit thing, but it really kinda takes away the sadistic fun of disrupting your significant other’s quality time with Dark Souls III. Plus, I like Graham to feel needed.

Couplehood is nice.. at least for one of us.

Stacy

The Sweet Spot

June 2, 2016July 26, 2016 ~ wasabiapple ~ Leave a comment

I’m taking a big risk with this post, but I feel like I owe it to all of you who’ve faced a similar problem with a roommate or significant other. Normally, I have my husband proofread my writings before they go live to not only check for grammatical errors, but also to approve content that may be potentially embarrassing. Luckily, he’s good-natured and thick-skinned enough that it’s been a breeze to get his ok, but I can’t this time. Because once he discovers my secret, I’ll have to figure out a new defensive plan for the dilemma regarding..

WHERE TO HIDE THE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES.

The phrase, “Do you realize I only had ONE?!” has been heard often enough by Graham that he’s joked it should become my trademarked catchphrase (battle cry may be more accurate) and has been applied towards cases of ginger ale, ice cream bars, bags of gummi bears, etc. Can you tell my husband has a sweet tooth? Of course, I’ve never had to use the rhetorical question regarding foods that contain “organic,” “natural,” “whole-grain,” “gluten-free,” or “vegan” in the label. I’m betting I’ll never have to yell, “You ate all the Organic Kashi Cereal!” No. There’s been a box of Kashi Organic Promise Sweet Potato Sunshine (a double-Graham deterrent since it’s organic AND contains sweet potato) sitting in the cupboard for almost 3 months.

To be fair, it’s not his fault. Growing up in a house of males, he’s been conditioned to take the “You snooze, you lose” philosophy to heart. It’s really hard for me to keep up since I hoard in order to savor. For instance, it takes me months to finish a pint of ice cream, if I ever end up finishing it at all. Luckily, with ice cream, he hates all the flavors I love (rum raisin, green tea, all frozen yogurt) so they sit unmolested by him in the freezer until I forget their existence and have to throw out their freezer-burned remains. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.It’s not a big deal when replenishing the plundered sweets involve a quick trip to the store.. but I draw the line when it comes to Girl Scout cookies. YOU DO NOT PILLAGE GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!!! THESE ONLY COME ONCE A YEAR!!! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND ~~DEALERS~~ CONNECTIONS FOR GIRL SCOUT COOKIES?! When you don’t have kids or a regular job where your co-workers taunt you with their daughters’ order forms, it’s near impossible to have a stable supply chain. Ooh suuuure, you can stock up when you see a table set up in front of your local grocery store and hyperventilate from happy delight, but that excitement is quickly superseded by disappointment when two inevitable things happen:

You don’t have enough cash to load your arms with all your favorites (seriously, who carries cash these days?).
They are ALWAYS sold out of Samoas/Caramel deLites, Thin Mints, or Tagalongs/Peanut Butter Patties or have limited boxes on hand.

Anyhow, I discovered this defensive maneuver after my most successful hiding place of 2 years was discovered.. that being a carry-on roller travel bag layered with winter clothes stored in the basement. The bag in the basement provided me with the ability to enjoy cookies all-year-round, conservatively rationing them out to my husband. Unfortunately, it was found out while we were getting ready for our move from Graduate Hospital to Mount Airy. I winced when, as I was packing up the dining room, I heard Graham gleefully call from the basement, “Hooooon-neeeeyyyy…. I found the Girl Scout Cookies!”

Face palm.

That’s ok. Changes in environment and predatory behavior just means you learn to adapt.

Predatory behavior.

That’s when I began thinking.. where would Graham never, ever look..?

The answer was simple:With only one box of Girl Scout Cookies left, it only solves the problem for now, but that’s okay. I have a plan for hiding next year’s reserves.And if I can’t manage to chug all that coconut water in time, there’s always my other back-up plan. I found these on Amazon.

Happy hoarding!

Stacy