Pinterest Win: Italian Chicken Sandwiches

There really isn't a good way to photograph this sandwich that truly does it justice. I mean, chicken is kinda a boring food to look at anyway, so add white on top of white on top of white, and well...it's pretty visually non-stimulating. But this sandwich is incredible!

Recipe here

Italian Chicken Sandwiches

Recipe by: beyerbeware.net

Ingredients

2 lbs of chicken breast, thighs, or combination
12 oz jar of pepperocini rings
2 envelopes (.7 ounce each) of Italian Salad Dressing and Spice Mix
hamburger or hoagie buns
1/2 lb provolone cheese

Instructions

• Put chicken in the bottom of a crock pot. Pour pepper rings with juice over chicken. Sprinkle Italian mix over chicken. Cook on low for 8+ hours or on high for 4+ hours.
• After chicken has cooked, remove any bones or skin and shred. Keep on low till ready to eat. Add chicken broth or water if chicken seems to be drying out.
• Pre-heat oven or toaster oven (I prefer the toaster oven for just a few sandwiches)
• Put some of the chicken on a split bun and top with the provolone slices
• Put it in the toaster oven until the cheese is melty and bubbly
• EAT IT!!!

Pinterest Win: Crockpot Italian Beef Sandwiches

I first experienced this incredible sandwich when I was home on the farm visiting my Mom, sister and her family for a weekend, and ya know what? Enjoying THIS sandwich was what made me finally say, "Okay, maybe I need to make the jump to Pinterest".

It's not so much that Pinterest came up with this recipe or anything, it's that it helps you find recipes and ideas that you would never have thought of before. Like this one.

My mouth is literally watering right now just thinking about this sandwich, and it is one of those meals that Mark gets a little excited about too. But truth be told, he gets nowhere NEAR as excited about food as I do. But then again, I actually blog about what I eat, so I think that was a given haha :)

So let's talk about how much you need to make it really soon, okay? :)

It is seriously THE easiest recipe to get going. You throw a hunk of seasoned beef in the crockpot, pour in the rest of the ingredients and walk out the door.

I've found that for just the two (sometimes 3, if I didn't add too many pepperocinis and my toddler will eat it) of us, I always do the toasting/melting cheese part in the toaster oven as opposed to the oven: It's way faster.

I discovered this recipe off this link from MommySavers.com, and it is an instant classic for my family. It makes a ton, so it would easily feed a family of 4 or maybe even 6 if you had something as a side. We can make 3 or 4 meals out of it for the 2 of us, depending on how hungry we are, and it freezes and reheats awesome!

Italian Beef Sandwiches

Ingredients

For the crockpot:

• Beef bottom roast, 4-5 lb.
• One packet onion soup mix
• 2 tsp. basil leaves
• 1 tsp. oregano
• 1/2 jar sliced pepperoncini with their juices
• 3 C. water

For the sandwiches:

• Hoagie rolls or buns***
• 1/2 stick butter or margarine, softened
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• Provolone cheese

***We have tried with both, and hamburger buns are nice for a smaller sandwich, but not as easy to dip as the hoagie rolls. Both taste about the same.

Directions

Rub the beef roast with dry ingredients and place in crock pot. Add water and pepperoncini, along with their juices. Cook on low all day 8-10 hours in the crock pot, until beef falls apart.

To assemble the sandwiches, combine softened butter or margarine with garlic powder. (Note: I have accidentally skipped the butter/garlic spread, and the sandwiches were delicious even without) Spread on hoagie rolls and bake at 350 degrees until the rolls have browned. Remove from oven.

Place Italian Beef on one side of each roll and top with Provolone cheese. Put sandwiches back in the oven to melt the cheese. Serve with juices from the crock pot to dip sandwiches.

Stromboli for Me, Stromboli for You

For some really odd reason, I was reminiscing about my high school years back in Warsaw, Indiana. Perhaps it was the recent addition to my youth pastor's family (congrats, Ben and Misty on precious little Thaddeus!), but I started thinking about them, and this one particular youth group retreat where we had the most incredible stromboli ever!

Mark hasn't ever really been a big fan of stromboli - mainly because he's never had THIS stromboli. But I figured I needed to find a recipe similar to that of Misty's in order to really "wow" him! Of course, with Misty having JUST had a baby, I didn't think it was probably a good time to bother her with a recipe request, so I took it to the interwebz and found THIS little gem from AllRecipes.com, courtesy of Jude Mulvey of East Schodack, NY. It mainly stood out because it had the 4 ingredients I most remembered about Misty's stromboli: Salami, Ham, Pepperoni and Provolone cheese.

My first thought when I saw this recipe was, "Oh crap - it's already 2:30pm, and if I need to get frozen bread dough, I've got to have some time for it to thaw and rise by 6pm, which isn't much time - CRAP!! So I made a short list and hurried to HyVee to pick up the meat and frozen bread dough. I used the speed method to thaw it, which involved turning the oven on to 200, then turning it off, and adding a pan of boiling water on the lower rack, with the frozen bread loaves on the upper rack. It worked! Just remember to turn the oven off!!


I did nothing for the next 3 hours then, which was nice :)

Once 5:25pm hit, though, I was in full action! We had friends coming up at 6pm, and they didn't really know they were my guinea pigs, so I didn't want it to be late, cold and well...bad lol

I punched each roll of dough down separately, then tried to get it to roll out flat into a pseudo-rectangle, which wasn't easy.


Then, I covered it in layers of the meat and ham, beginning with Salami...


...and then ham...


...and then pepperoni...


...then provolone...


...and mozzarella...


...and then parmesan...


...and then topped it all off with the other spices (garlic, oregano, parsley and pepper).


I then took an egg and pastry brush, and brushed along all the edges to make sure they were sealed.


I then rolled it up, jelly-roll style,


then placed it on a prepared pan, brushed the top with egg, and stuck it in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes or until it was golden brown.



During the baking process, sometimes this happens, and you get a sneak peak at what's coming:


It was a HIT! Between 4 people, we finished about 1 1/2 rolls of the 2, and Mark and I finished off the other half for lunch today. This recipe was almost exactly like Misty's (I'd be interested to see her recipe, actually, to see how close they are!) I'm pretty sure this will become a Johnson staple from now on - YUM! But only a couple times a year, because my goodness - there was a LOT of cheese in there lol

So I leave you with the final product:



Thanks, Curt and Nancy, for being good sports! It's always fun to test out new recipes with friends :)