more animals

The Best Monte Cristo Sandwich EVER!

Cravings sometimes strike when you least expect it.  

The other day, while doing my grocery shopping at my local Trader Joe's Market, I was suddenly hit with an intense craving for a sandwich I hadn't had since I was a teenager.  

It was 1970something and Disney World had only recently opened.  My dad had taken the entire family there on vacation.  We stayed at the Polynesian Resort where I had a Monte' Cristo sandwich at their restaurant.  To this day I can recall how delicious it was, how positively sophisticated to a Midwestern girl raised in a town where Uncle John's Pancake House ruled supreme.

And there I was in the middle of Trader Joe's and I had to have one!

I bought the necessary ingredients - ham, turkey, swiss, eggs - and a loaf of Challah, which I figured it would be good with since Challah makes the best French toast ever.  

I got home, unpacked and checked my favorite sites online to seek out recipes.  Epicurious.  Cooks.com.  A simple google search on Monte Cristo ...

Some Monte Cristos were baked, some pan fried and some deep fried.  Some used a simple French toast/egg batter, others used an all out batter with flour and eggs.  Some had just turkey, some had just ham.  

I picked the best of a number of recipes and made my own.  It was sublime.

Presenting here, the best Monte' Cristo sandwich EVER:

• 2 thick slices of challah per sandwich
  
• 1 slice ham/per
  
• 1 slice turkey/per
  
• 1 slice swiss (I like Jarlsberg)
  
• Trader Joe's Garlic Aioli Mustard Sauce
  
• Butter
  
• 2-3 eggs
  
• 1-2 tablespoons of half and half
  
• 1-2 tablespoons of flour
  

Butter the outside of each slice of bread.  Butter the inside of one slice and slather on the Garlic Aioli Mustard to taste.  Layer the ham, turkey and cheese and top with the other slice of bread. Make a nice batter by beating the eggs, half and half and flour together.  Dredge your completed sandwich thoroughly. In saucepan, heat 1-2 tablespoons of oil, add 1-2 tablespoons butter.  Fry over medium to medium high heat until golden on both sides.  Finish off in a 375 oven for 5-10 minutes to thoroughly heat through.  Serve with a side of maple syrup for dipping ... inhale!

ARGH!!!! WHERE IS SCRABULOUS (most recently known as Lexulous)???

I will confess.  I am an addict.

Food?  No.  Prescription painkillers?  No.  Shopping.  Again, no.  

What I have is a relatively harmless addiction to playing Scrabble online.  As far as addictions go, it could be worse.  My addiction is basically harmless.  Merely a time-waster.

It started when I discovered the Agarwalla brothers' game,  Scrabulous, back in 2007 .  

The Scrabble word game had been a favorite of mine since early teens.  I'd tried "officially sanctioned" by Scrabble sites to play the game, but found they weren't at all worthwhile.  They were all horribly glitchy, static and boring so I didn't pursue it further.  But Scrabulous ... Scrabulous was seamless (even on my Mac, Firefox browser), quick, safe (very rarely did one find any hostile folks posting either in the various rooms or in an individual game) and oh, so much fun!  

I played folk from all over the world, including Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, India, Africa ... even my own back yard.

I scored my highest word ever, a triple/triple seven letter which included the letter "Q" and brought me around 168 points!

After seeing the Michael Moore movie, Sicko, I was curious about our perception of Canadian health care.  Moore noted in his film that Americans had been fed quite a bit of propaganda about how bad health care was in Canada.  I played the game with quite a few Canucks, so I took to querying every Canadian I played (well over 100) about their experiences with the Canadian health care system and learned that Michael Moore was right - they love their system and it works well for them.

During the election I played with many Obama supporters ... and some non supporters.  

All were friendly and respectful though and it's rare that I've had a bad experience playing Scrabulous or, later on, Lexulous.

Alas, over these many months apparently a lawsuit has been going down between Hasbro and the brothers (hence the name change to Lexulous).

I thought that all was settled.  Lexulous seemed like a dumb name but, hey, if I had my game I was happy.

Then ... tragedy of epic proportions struck.

(From Wiki)  On December 2, 2008, Lexulous announced the fact that users might notice "minor changes" in the game, which would be explained later.  The score multipliers have changed in layout from Scrabble (including a 4x multiplier for the first time) and the point scores for the tiles no longer match those of Scrabble.  Every player is given 8 tiles instead of 7.

Talk about cold turkey.  I've been depressed for days ... I'm livid at Hasbro AND Mattel (what a DUH lawsuit ... any idiot could tell that Scrabulous was luring all kinds of young, newbie players who promptly bought board games) and angry at the brothers for changing the game.

What is a Scrabble junkie to do?!