Rubin Gruber’s blog

I just learned about this scrumptious little recipe from a friend, Italian in origin I suppose, this one's a hummer:

It's the eggplant sammich.

"Eggplant?!" you say, "The Hell!" you say. "The Hell!" I say, "Eggplant!"

It's doable, but very difficult. The tricky thing about eggplant is the consistency. Eggplant goes soggy within a wink of overheating. The trick is to pre-grill it up at extremely high heat, caramelize the outside, and then bake it at equally high heat, but not for very long. And poof, a replacement for bread that's also the best antioxidant! Make one a day, and you'll be eating the healthy way.

So, now you've got your "bread" so to speak, you've got to fill it with good stuff. I suggest ground beef and marinara sauce. It's sort of becomes it's own eggplant parmesan (thus, include the parmesan). Brown the beef ahead of time, you can even store it in the fridge ahead of time. And usually when I brown my beef, I toss in a packet of italian sausage seasoning, available at any grocery store for about a buck fitty.

You can also add some chopped onions and garlic to the mix, but be careful not to over-goop your sammich ingredients, or you'll have a sluggish messy blunderbuss on your hands, good for no one.

No, not a break FOR sammiches, a break FROM sammiches. I started writing a short story in a previous blog, so I've decided to continue the story on this post rather than talk about something banal like a sammich.

But first! I must give mad props to my man Mark Sisson and his amazing health blog. He discusses such wonderful things as primal nutrition and the paleo diet. Check it out! Now on with the story...

Point Moulle began three miles from the boy's house. The street was dirt and barren for the first two miles. Just a connecting road sloping and winding down from the facility up north to the beginning of the ambassadorial district on the edge of the city. The boy ran at full speed all the way to the gas station that marked the edge of the city. Another boy of the same age lived at the gas station and sold orange sodas in plastic bags to the tourists later in the day. But he was lazy, and the boy did not like him. He'd once seen the other boy messing with a dog, feeding it pieces of a shredded plastic soda bottle.

Past the gas station and down along the high walls of ambassadorial row. Many European countries were on this road. Tall blond people who wore the same clothes as the locals. People used to hand around the gates to beg when the blond men came out, but somebody had hopped the wall one day, and since then nobody was allowed to stop there.

The boy slowed his pace once he saw the ocean. Point Moulle was still far enough from the city to appear isolated. Though an hour past sun up the vendors, swimmers, and beggars would set up, and another hour would bring everyone else.

The boy reached Point Moulle and turned west. The sea turtles lay four miles down the beach, through the weeded inwash which was the farthest the tourists would venture.
 

So, I recently went on a high protein, low carb diet, which is great for losing the weight and all, but it is absolutely detrimental to my sammich time. There's really only two things you need for a sandwich. Meat and bread. And a low carb diet completely removes the bread. Thus, all I am left with is the meat.

I cried for a few days, and then decided to get experimental. I'd heard tale of people using lettuce instead of bread. That's hogwash, plain and simple. If I want to get abs on a high fat diet, or low carb abs for that matter, I'm going to have to think of a better way to make a sandwich.

That's where the meat comes in. Lots of meat. Before, I put meat between two slices of bread. Now, I put meat between two pieces of meat!

It's actually a little more involved than that. I take two pieces of meat, very then, smashed chicken or more likely lunch meat, and in between I put various vegetable goos and pastes. Olives, Muffaletta sauce, mayo, lots and lots of cheese, maybe a best multivitamin, whatever fits my fancy. And whalah! Meat Sandwich!

Oh, and don't forget to check out the benefits of vitamins website my friend is starting up. It's nifty!

The Parmesan sandwich is a mighty thing, a staple of the Italian eatery across America, almost as common as pizza.

The most important thing about a Parmesan sandwich is the ratio of tomato sauce to other ingredients. Too little sauce, and the thing is just a thinly disguised hoagie, not good at all. But too much sauce is even worse. The bread becomes soggy, the sandwich turns to mush, and even though some stalwarts will tell you that's a good thing, it's NOT. The rule of thumb for the Parmesian sandwhich is the cheese should be able to completely cover up the sauce, and a good squeeze should not change the shape of the sandwich.

There are all sorts of parmesan sandwiches. Chicken Parmesan is the most popular, but that's because chicken is so cheap and abundant. Sausage Parmesan has its benefits, but with a sausage Parmesan, the quality of the sandwich rests almost entirely on the quality of the sausage, and it's just harder and harder to find quality sausage these days. My personal favorite is the eggplant Parmesan I'm not even a vegetarian, but something about the crunchy/soft zuchini-like substance really gets my wheels spinning.

So if you want to find people now, find them at a local Italian eatery munching on eggplant parmesan. Those people aren't plagued with orthorexia, I guarantee you that much.

I went to Quizno's again recently and tried their new Prime Rib Ranchero.

I find this amusing because "Ranchero" was the name for the ridiculous truck in a Simpson's ridiculous truck commercial several years ago. I can still sing the theme song.

Other than the name, the ranchero was quite a tasty sandwich. The previous prime rib sandwiches were loaded down with too much mayonaise-like substance, which always ruins taste in my book. The ranchero uses a tangy southwest sauce. Still mayonaise-ee, but much zestier. They also load the thing up with spicy jack cheese and spicy peppers. Did I mention spicy? This sandwich is very spicy.

The ranchero was delicious, but I have particular qualms about Quizno's this week.

Quizno's regularly gives out coupons that can be used on "any sandwich." They also advertise the two dollar pocket sandwich. But they don't allow the coupons to be used on the pocket sandwich. There's a little sign explaining this at the checkout counter in which they blame it on their "accountants." This is a total cop-out. I consider this to be fraud and false advertising. I enjoy Quizno's, but I do not appreciate being duped.

Finally, My very un-sandwich like links for this month are about omega 3 supplements and how to relieve stress. Both are worth a look-see

Quizno's is probably my favorite sandwich chain restaurant. And that means something, because I don't particularly like Quizno's. It's not bad, I'll admit. But measures and processed sandwiches, whether toasted or not, just don't have the zing of the home cut selections and sauces and breads of a mom and pop deli.

I should be talking about how to deal with stress, or pushing you to buy vitamin pills and all that. But instead, I'm just gonna mull over the pros and cons of Quizno's

Pros:
Quizno's uses a genuine.toasting method.

Cons:
It's a chain restaurant. There you go.

I'm Rubin and I like a good Rueben!

But seriously, I do love me all sorts of sum goood sandwiches (sammiches) and this blog is about the best sammiches I've ever made.

There's just one problem with all these amazing sammiches. They're fattening.

In fact, the sammiches I make so well are so fatty, that I weigh just about 300 pounds, and it's time for me to reskinny myself.

So, I'll be talking about some great sammiches, but I'll also be talking about healthy ways to get the best out of a sammich, everything from vitamins, to calories.

My first sammich I'll be talking about is the turkey/cheese rollup. It's not really a sandwich but there's no carbs in a turkey cheese roll-up and that turkey is some of the best stuff you can put in your belly, so go for it!