Good morning sports fans!
Well will you look at that? We’ve got shitty preseason NFL action all weekend long! The Premier League fires up on Friday and baseball is rounding into pennant drive form. In addition Aussie Rules football is down to the last couple of weeks of regular season. This is the good shit we’ve got right here. It all almost means something.
What’s also uncanny, each team I support in each of those leagues is supposed to be relevant!
I know!
Not sure that’s ever happened before. Hell two of them are practically locks for the playoffs.
Where’s my fainting couch?
Sunday Gravy is also nearing the finish line as we prepare to return to the game day live blogs. Trust me, I know all of you are ready for that. Hell, me too! Plus I’m getting close to vacation time.
I’m fully fucking psyched!
Fear not. We won’t lose focus on the last handful of episodes. We’ve got some goddamn gravying to do!
We’re making an old favorite and quite possibly one of the greatest sandwiches of all times. The Cubano!
I am also issuing the official Sunday Gravy guide to “What is a sandwich” to end all of the insanity.
Remember, the origin story said The Earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich as a way to consume meat and other substances between slices of bread so he could play cards at the same time and keep his hands clean.
First argument: A hotdog is wrapped in a bun. That buns’ purpose is to deliver the dog and its various toppings to your goddamn mouth WHILE KEEPING YOUR HANDS CLEAN!
Ergo, a hotdog is a fucking sandwich. Period.
That’s the key. Can you eat the item with one hand while playing cards and keeping your hands clean? Boom! That motherfucker is a sandwich. Some of that other horseshit straightens itself right out after that. For instance, can you eat a taco or a burrito with one hand while playing cards and keeping your hands clean?
Try it and let me know how that shit works out for you.
It would be great research to hear how your fellow card players responded.
Today’s tasty bastard is most definitely a goddamn sandwich.
As you are all fully aware the baseline ingredients of a Cubano are roast pork, ham, swiss cheese, pickles and mustard, layered then pressed and smashed panini style. What makes today’s version unique is the prep for the pork.
Remember this shit? Back from 2016 I believe? Yes we did make a Cubano once before.
Rather than using a roast pork shoulder, like we did in 2016, I thought we could vary up the prep. Just to, you know, change shit up a bit. Basically this is me giving myself permission to make a 2nd Sunday Gravy about the Cubano because I really, really wanted one.
These fuckers are addictive like that.
Inspiration for the sous vide pork via clutteredKitchenKeto.com.
Cuban Style sous vide pork tenderloin!
2 lbs pork tenderloin two pieces
2 tbsp ground cumin – freshly toasted and ground would be lovely
1 tbsp ground oregano
2 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
black pepper to taste
2 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp lime juice – juice of 1/2 lime basically
Grab some pork tenderloin.
Not a terrible price either. As per custom, the bag comes with 2 tenderloins and they’re both going down today.
Get them in a bag. Not the first bag that they came home from the store in but another new bag. The kind you seal and soak in a sous vide.
Next we build the mojo for the marinade.
Combine the dry ingredients.
Tell you what, that freshly toasted and ground cumin makes a big difference here. Huge flavor and aroma bomb. Really hits the olfactory happy button.
Next add the orange juice and the juice of 1/2 freshly squeezed lime to the seasonings.
Pour this mixture into the bag with the tenderloin and give the loins a full and proper massage.
A sentence that most people rarely get to write.
Obviously we won’t be using standard cooking technique today. If you have a vacuum sealer go ahead and apply that fucker now.
Quick aside, as much as I enjoy the sous vide method, the vacuum sealer element is fucked. Guess that’s on me for having a shitty vacuum sealer but I think I’m going to just stick with the 1 gallon zip top bags for the sous vide going forward. This sealer shit always allows water to get in the bag and I didn’t ask for that shit!
We’re going to cook at 140 degrees for 4 hours today.
Get this fucker up to temp.
Drop the bag-o-meat into the now heated fish tank.
And well? Relax for 4 fucking hours.
Swear to god this fucking thing felt like an eternity. I was positive the timer was going to go off so I checked how much time was left.
Sonuvabitch!
When the slow motherfucker DOES eventually reach the finish point, we’re going to remove the pork from the – now soggy – bag and we’ll give that bastard a proper searing in a hot skillet.
Go hot and fast with the sear. High heat, splash of oil, just a couple minutes per side type of deal.
Remove the pork and leave that skillet out for now.
Ok time to build the beast.
One of the primary keys to a good Cubano is using the right bread. I didn’t feel like baking bread today. I thought about using a loaf of French bread but figured it would be too high of a bread – to – filling ratio.
Inside my grocery store they had a big display of freshly baked bolillo rolls.
That should work nicely.
This sandwich will not properly work without some quality mustard and pickles.
Get some.
Ready to do this damn thing?
Let’s construct!
Slice the roll and add on the mustard and pickles. Use as much mustard as you like. The final sandwich can handle quite a bit of mustard.
Get some slices of ham on there next. I like using Black Forest ham for its salt level and fairly neutral non-smokiness. You do what you prefer.
Next, thinly slice up some of our pork and layer it on. Look how perfect that pork is cooked.
Holy shit!
Next add some Swiss cheese slices to the top and slap on the top part of the roll.
Using the same pan you seared the tenderloin in go ahead and toast up that sandwich.
Here’s a trick for giving the sandwich the “Panini treatment.” Use an inverted plate and press the shit out of that goddamn thing.
Cook for about 3-4 minutes per side. Flip the thing over and repeat.
When the other side is toasted, slice the sandwich in half for service.
C’mon! You can do better than that!
Can you maybe zoom in a bit on that?
Here, have a bite.
That motherfucker is PERFECT. The pork is super tender and flavorful, then you get the salt of the ham, tang of the vinegar and pickles. Those pickles are as dilly as a ding dong day too. That bread was made for this. Bless you bolillo rolls. I’ve been searching for a good “melt” sandwich bread and this is the best I’ve used so far. These fuckers made my regular sandwich rotation permanently. The bread doesn’t get in the way but just does its job. Excellent.
Damn, grab yourself a fistful of cold ones, maybe a bag of some nice crunchy kettle cooked chips and get that Cuban party started, baby!
One of the best prepared tenderloins I’ve made to date and goddammit I’ve made a bunch.
Do this one folks, even if you don’t have the sous vide and cook the pork in the oven, this bastard is worth ALL of the effort.
Today’s “Fun” holidays courtesy of “A Bit of Good News“: “August 10 is World Lion Day, National Bowling Day, National S’mores Day, National Spoil Your Dog Day, Duran Duran Appreciation Day, Garage Sale Day and Vlogging Day.”
Fuck it Dude. Let’s go bowling.
And there you go! Enjoy the preseason games today. Keep your fingers crossed and hope all of your players stay on the field and off the PUP list.
See you again next week, OK?
OK.
Ugh, Spanos sighting.
caught him stealing your car?
Zach Wilson is #0? Huh, I guess those Truth in Advertising Laws are still in effect.
My decision to put sunblock on my face and neck but nawt my arms was partially correct
The only thing more precious to the foster dog than wifey? Any heated protein whatsoever. Bear would push my wife off a cliff if in exchange he could have a mouthful of ground beef. Wifey was pissed when I said that to her but had no rebuttal.
That sandwich dented my brain. To the bread!
yeah toasting that bread in the sandwich juices leaving nothing to waste and is such a great touch in taste and presentation
Can’t remember if I announced that my 120 Minutes project has arrived in 1988 with a motherfucking BANG. But I doubt anybody is going to object if I post this video twice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl9KQ1Mub6Q
Would like twice if I could
So a croque monsieur MIGHT be a sandwich but a croque madam definitely is not?
It depends on how you eat her
I still can’t tell the difference between a croque monsieur and an alligator monsieur.
Stronger protective armor on the underbelly?
My thought exactly when I made that comment. The Kentucky Hot Brown is definitely right out! But it’s goddamn tasty whatever it is.
Took the bus back and chatted with a great 63 yo lady who has season tickets for the first time this year. Good times!
Ya know, when I get older myself I think I’m mostly gonna miss talking to people older than me. STEP IT UP YOUNG PEOPLE!
This Clips/Saints game sure is preseasony.
Cincinnati holds on to defeat Pittsburgh 14-8. If it was Bengals-Steelers, it would be a close contest, but since it was Reds-Pirates, it was a maddening, left-arm-numbing game that is the usual norm between the two teams,
matter of time before NFL starts using AI to generate preseason overtimes, sponsored by DraftKingFakes
Oh shit, Draft Kings is going to lose a lot of money! Switch over to the AI generated game and tell it to have the game end in such a way as maximize profits!
John Jackson Jingleheimer Schmidt!
His mortal enemy is Jack Johnson
And neither is a friend of Richard Nixon.
Robot Nixon!
We’re reached the level of nadir when Richard Nixon would be a welcome alternative?
A general public that would find Trump’s actions proportionally shocking to what people thought of Watergate at the time would be enough
This guy is in midseason form!
He needs to put that boonie back on before he gets sunstroke.
He’s probably worried that he’ll blend into the desert landscape too much and people will accidentally bump into him and spill their beer.
Woo 80s!
The Yankees announcers have been openly critical of the team the last few games, and David Cone has been taking pretty obvious shots at Boone’s decisions.
I don’t want to jinx anything, but this may be the last season I have to watch that dipshit get paid $3 million to make decisions I would have laughed at if they were done in a Little League game.
All the great decision making that Boone’s Farm is known for
“What do Zach Wilson and Spaghetti Carbonara have in common?”
/They’re bland as hell and single moms love to indulge with both on their Cheat Day.
How is it “cheat day” if they’re single?
They’re cheating on their step-sons, duh.
Is that even a thing? I’m going to go use the internet to do some research and prove you wrong.
Hmm…results are inconclusive. I’ve found lots of evidence of mothers cheating *with* their stepsons, but little evidence of cheating *on* them. And as we know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Dr Quinn Medicine Ewers has entered the game
In episode 1 Dr Quinn Medicine Ewers cures the Chicago defense and secures the spot of 2 players on the practice squad
Getting some shade during halftime, and maybe will get one more very overpriced beer
As in “You’re not a licensed Doktor” or “You’re out of the direct sunlight” shade?
“Your lair is only 1.4 million square feet? That’s a starter lair in my neighborhood!”
I won’t take crap from anyone measuring their lair in anything but square furlongs
Given your love for horses I’d have guessed, “Hands”.
That’s for measuring height, you peasant!
Daystar. There’s no competition worth mentioning here
Bagent vs Wilson, a lost nation searches the skies for Scott Hanson. Though dreading how espn will inevitably fuck Red Zone up.
It’s far too much to ask for preseason Red Zone. Gods have killed people for far less, and raped people in the form of a swan as a warning about Trump being a pedophile but we didn’t listen
more likely to get Chris Hansen’s Ped Zone 7 hours of commercial free coverage
This is a lot more like real football in person! Plus I got the beer guy to give me a big piece of ice so I’ve got a cold beer and a cold shirt, sittin’ pretty!
Tua really holding his own out here vs Bagent, real shootout
and Zach Wilson enters the fray, so far showing friskiness benefitting from tutelage by the original MILF Hunter who is of course based out of Fort Lauderdale.
Random guy walking by after the announcement of third & 16 for the Bears: “sounds about right”
https://apple.news/AQbXshYdTR_-sorNdm2ZdHQ
“In trial, people lost twice as much weight by ditching ultraprocessed food”
Ultra processed basically means anything in a grocery store at this point. And, see, this is the problem. MAHA has a bunch of good points like this shit being actively harmful. But we can’t have a goddamn nuanced discussion about anything with anyone because of a small but loud bunch of, frankly, agents provocateurs.
Look at the study contraindications, they didn’t include anyone with anyone except younger adults in a normal BMI range without any dietary restrictions, so like 10% of the US population
The only reason the Trump administration wants children to grow up healthy is so they will be more appealing to molest.
The ugly ones can go pick cotton, or something.
They only need to be healthy until they’re 16 or so, they’re just gonna kill themselves after what Trump and co do to them so what’s the point of more than that?
theyre ready for nuanced debates about the age of consent and -philia subcategories and restoring dignity to women’s sports one green dildo at a time.
I feel like there’s potential for a pork belly Cubano
Absolutely.
Pork belly in the sous vide is better than you’d expect.
Do you use the Momofuku recipe? Because that’s fantastic.
No…we use the momofuku recipe for soft-boiled eggs, though!
I think people walking on a stadium concourse are the only people in the world that walk slower than people in an airport. 80 year olds on their way to knee surgery are third
Made it!
There’s an argument for the ones that mosey in the fucking crosswalk, all the time making eye contact with you, when you need to turn right.
Chicago really is the best for crude shirts supporting their sports teams
I remember multiple kids in middle school with “Green Bay Sucks, Brett Favre Swallows” t shirts.
It was a different time. That we’ve somehow gone back to and extracted the worst parts.
Saleh has a case of the yips. Damn.
And apparently every other peno taker here.
https://ibb.co/JjmY4pyW
Nice looking sammich. Think a custom made Cubano like this was my favorite sandwich from some little shop in an industrial park that unfortunately closed, even tho French Dips are a more regular goto sandwich when they are the menu.
Tried sous vide a few years ago and the vacuum packing got me out of it too. Shoulda just stuck with the gallon bags like you did here.
There was a Cuban sandwich shop across the street from us in Birmingham. The owner was the sweetest old guy, we had a piece of his 100th birthday cake! His daughters ran the place, but he was there every day. They made the best Cubans, we could smell the bread baking. It lured us in like a Siren’s song way too often.
Alright I gotta go take care of some stupid shit here. Seems like its MY JOB to unpack my one suitcase that came home with us on Tuesday.
The boys gave me a couple of these for go bag use. These are the latest assault rations. Each bag has one days meals in high energy ready to eat items. None of it needs water or heating… except the beverage powder for obvious water reasons.
Got any Chicken Tet?
Nope. Plain chicken and BBQ chicken are the only options.
That’s offensive.
This morning’s Sploitation offering? Dracula’s Sorority Sisters. Today I learned about the lovely Missy Martinez and how she’s done a huge amount of work in low budget stuff across many genres.
Huge Low Budget used to be my radio call sign.
Huge Low Budget is also a line item in Horatio’s monthly budget.
It’s funny because it’s true.
Are the Kids These Days tm into the sous vide? It seems efficient, reliable, techy, and simple. On the other hand, it’s not grubhub.
I tend to prefer my pork tenderloin a little more rare so I go with 134° and only run it for two hours. But for sandwich purposes I expect 140° is ideal.
One thing – you might want to insulate your tank some more to save a little power and keep it from adding unwanted heat to your living space. Just throwing blanket or some dish towels over it will do the trick nicely.
If you don’t have a silicone lid, use cooking balls.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQp0fhb3tw1JTE3rqgB4xptRJKchBdnF2HVvA&s
I don’t jack about this. But it’s funny .
Also, my Shark Tank idea now —
Make these balls but in a more efficient shape to still get the surface area coverage without the height
Then put like butterfly prints on them.
Sell for $90/4oz pack at Williams Sonoma (before tariffs because manufacturing is gone).
Ever wonder why the bread you buy from a lot of grocery stores doesn’t go stale after a day or two like normal bread? It’s because they use a metric fuckton of salt. Trader Joe’s sourdough takes like a month to go stale, even the pre-sliced. So it’s a good thing this baguette I bought on Friday is stale, and it’s still perfectly edible when soaked in olive oil and balsamic and burrata.
I could definitely use a good bread pudding recipe for the rest of it though
One of our sister companies distributes a protein-infused milk. It was jarring seeing the best-before date as sometime in early November.
The UHT milk on my room temperature shelf right now has a 29 April 2026 use by date. We almost exclusively use that now.
Seems like it’ll be a good fighting point for the nation when the federal government decides to talk about different kinds of milks.
Guess I’ll have to do my own research then.
Too much of the culture now factors waste into the profits or in the case of customers, acceptable loss, and that’s just wrong. We should take some time and teach thrift.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mtg-takes-break-hurricane-lies-141022873.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAI5gcd_GmA44JhbNM8815frT38BvyqZzQkXx3oz7srstWZmjFz4BT4zecHpU2u1sTWh4cdJkirCnz1wi8PkWJplGjOoEdKzD_om7morWRW3ksx9qjZ_cC5JqkLHcjSw35lj4RSSqHko6OF4LUXhxlZufSkTH6cANMtInx5AG7VOi
You’ve already got someone to sponsor it.
They don’t like to waste bread here, it’s culturally frowned upon. Stale bread gets a treatment like yours. Or it gets toasted and topped with chopped tomatoes, basil and olive oil. Or ground into bread crumbs. Once you get into the management of it, you really supplement your menu options.
The bread store near us gives away bags of croutons.
And that’s why your neighborhood is full of pigeons/wildfires.
[glances at bag of croutons that has spontaneously burst into flames]
That’s my favorite recycle. I cube old bread, mix with Italian seasoning, Parmigiano and olive oil. Toast it and it really ties a salad together…
Very interesting. Our family of 3 just doesn’t consume as things are packaged (and you’d better believe no one around here is getting us off Costco) . Waste — food waste, lost space (opportunity waste), packaging waist GOD — just all out of balance for the boy. Its whack.
I’m gonna have to go back to work at 70 because the most expensive ingredient is the one you dont use.
So in conclusion, we are western as hell and it is bad. And I’ve always noticed — typically traveling and waking up with foreigners — they are all about dinner leftovers for breakfast and it is awesome.
So question is: how do I get my family to abandon the infinite frustrations that are Service/Value Complaints During the Fall of Rome to consuming, if I understand correctly, Breadcrumb Nachos?
It might win them over if they could wake up each day smelling the fresh baked stuff. Just that simple center of the daily meal here in Europe gives you a better appreciation for food. At least that’s my take. Preparing and eating meals together is another, they tend to do that here more often than not. When you better appreciate it you tend not to waste as much.
“Hello, I.C.E.? I’d like to report an incident of ‘consorting’…”
That’s one good looking sandwich Brau.
Hell yeah. I’ve got some fresh baked bread on hand that I’m going to use to make one tomorrow.
Homies are struggling…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14987217/Biblical-flooding-Wisconsin-weather-trapped-state-fair.html
“Biblical” Flooding?
Until it covers THE WHOLE WORLD, I’m not sure Wisconsin’s drainage and public accessibility issues are what I see as Biblical.
Unless we’re talking about heretics and false prophets getting some O.T. style wrath.
It’s pretty bad, just spoke with my sister there and it’s easily a hundred year event.
Those seem to come around every year or so these days.
Goddamn space lasers.
I hope they gave free cheese curds and beer to all the people who had to evac from the state fair
Or a brat and an ear of corn…
Funnel cake, or I’m staying here and drowning!
I don’t think that settles the sandwich argument, it’s just a whole new can of worms as many previously agreed upon sandwich items are now no longer sandwiches, like a Chicago Italian Beef sandwich or the similar French Dip. Also any egg salad sandwich since that stuff will squirt out the back of any bread other than a croissant (and even then you have to be careful)
“饺子不是三明治” – graffiti written on unexploded ordinance found in the ruins of Tapei City, circa 2073
/translates loosely to “DUMPLINGS ARE NOT A SANDWICH”
As someone who plays a fair amount of poker, and who eats a fair amount of sammiches, I can say that eating a PB&J, for instance, with one hand while holding cards in the other is probably not going to get you invited back to that particular game.
We usually had catering dishes of pasta at our games. If you use a fork and a paper plate it’s no problem to keep the table clean
At our game it’s cut grinders and red solo cups full of meatballs/egg rolls.
Fine dining it is not.
SeatGeek still hasn’t sent me my ticket for the game that is in ~4 hours and their phone line isn’t manned for another 20 minutes so I’m trying to break their support bot and now I want a Cuban sandwich.
I think I might have succeeded on the bot front, or I hit some sort of rate limit. Let’s break it again!
phone support opened and ‘they will call the seller and email me’
I hope the seller is asleep and hung over as fuck
Never use seatgeek
WTF. It would be a bummer to miss the Tyson Bagent show in person.
I did eventually get my ticket like 10 minutes ago, but altogether way too much hassle for a freaking Bears preseason game
For Seatgeek being part of the effective monopoly on ticket SERVICE.
Make them a fucking utility or trust-bust.
I’m stunned you need tickets for those.