A New Easy Recipe

Of course most domestic-sorts-of-blogs recommend new recipes to their readers.  Don’t we all struggle with doing the same ‘ol boring recipes, especially those that are easy to fix?  Well, I am going to recommend one today that I’ll bet you never imagined.  I know I hadn’t until the day it was first discovered!

Before telling you about it, I just have to give credit to my daughter, Sarah Kate for she is the one that created this new treat!  She is now almost 25 years old, and rarely cooks and to all of those that don’t cook much, this might be the dish for you.  Again, it takes little preparation and truly, even the most clumsy will find it easy to prepare.

My daughter is much like myself.  She seems to have an inner clock that has gone awry and it is constantly set for about fifteen to thirty minutes behind standard time making her race around every morning and scrambling to get out the door to get to work almost on time. She is also a creature of habit and her breakfast meals rarely vary. She fixes herself a travel cup of Earl Grey tea with lots of honey and a bit of milk, a cinnamon-raisin English muffin with lots of butter that she wraps for her lunch and to eat on the way to work, she fixes herself peanut butter toast with honey, and to keep the honey from dripping, she carefully swirls the honey into the peanut butter with tiny circular motions.  These details are critical in preparation of this recipe that I am going to share with you.

Before I get to the recipe, I must tell you that in my youth, our extended family reunions with twenty-one cousins (though rarely all gathered at the same time) were always eating festivals. As we had to make our own fun, simple conversation and inexpensive games were the bill-of-fare, and made up games were the best, as they were most affordable.  We were a creative bunch when we would get together and contests became games that would serve all sorts of purposes.  The winners were rarely awarded a prize, except for laud and appreciation and record in our memories of being labeled a winner by a large and unseemly crowd.

I truly think my mother and her sisters created “Make the Most Creative Sandwich Contest Game” so as to not be bothered at lunch time with having to think up what to serve, much less please this crowd. Out would come bread, butter, pickles, lunch meats, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce and most importantly peanut butter.  Other condiments and relished treats were included as well, canned pork and beans, honey, maple syrup, grape jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, catsup, celery, radishes and of course chips of various sorts. Basically emptying out the refrigerator of left overs was also part of the game and the only hard fast rule was that after creating the most creative sandwich, you had to eat it.  This may seem like a digression, but really isn’t for my new recipe would have surely won for the most original sandwich of the day…so original, but likely coupled with a disclaimer NOT to try this at home!

Our favorite sandwich combinations  that actually became family favorites were peanut butter and pickles (all sorts of pickles will work for this from dill to bread and butter, though the latter added sweetness like jelly with a nice crunch as well). Open face peanut butter toast with maple syrup was another treat! Peanut butter and potato chip was still another favorite.  Peanut butter was also tried with mayonnaise, and also with mustard, though those pleased only a few.

My mother’s specialties always included a lot of butter, I think it made whatever she ate slide down a little easier.  So along came bread and butter with sliced radishes or cucumbers or peanut butter with butter, never one of my favorites, but judging by the heart attacks in the family were not just favorites of my mother's!

There were of course the plain catsup and bread or mayonnaise and bread sandwiches. Traditional open face pork and bean sandwiches had to be eaten with a fork and plenty of beans (my mother, of course, added a rich layer of butter first). To this day I like jelly with my ham or turkey lunch meat sandwiches, and of course from that grew the post Thanksgiving sandwich of turkey, mayonnaise and cranberry sauce sandwich, though my cousin, Mary Margaret had little spirit of adventure and would stick with a fail-safe peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and skip the Thanksgiving dinner altogether. Yes, although quite and creative in every other way, her cuisine choices were limited as a child, and she stuck with her PPJ sandwich as an alternative to most meals. I believe that since she has grown up she now eats a traditional turkey dinner with her family, though a fact check should be done to eliminate false rumors.

My oldest daughter liked a plain ham sandwich without the bread, but never in my day did anyone come up with the combination that my daughter, Sarah Kate came up with—ever!!  Though her’s likely breaks the cardinal rule that one must truly eat it, for after its creation, it was merely left for discovery by others.

Here it is, revealed at last, a first to be sure.  But not before I tell you the secret behind the creation….a nagging mother!  You see, if rushed to get out the door and stacking your napkin-wrapped, English muffin lunch on top of your travel mug with honey-d tea, and then on top of that you place a napkin with your peanut butter toast with nicely swirled honey on top, and juggling your purse on your opposite shoulder while one-handedly opening the door, a nagging mother's admonition of “don’t you dare drop that” could jinx even the most capable juggler and you too might be lucky to make it as far as the car before you do just that, and there in the driveway is the final ingredient, driveway rocks…. There you have it, nicely cured in the hot sunshine for a day before discovering what even the birds will not eat…Peanut Butter Toast with Swirled Honey and Driveway Rocks (PBTSHDR).

No wonder we have an ant problem!!

This will likely be a meal that will sit heavy and might be a bit binding too, unless your driveway is covered with a fine gravel, in which case the fiber content will likely have the opposite effect. This recipe is designed for those that have to dine so quickly that  they need to swallow their meal whole, washed down with some nice hot soothing sweetened tea.  Chewing is actually contraindicated unless you relish dental work! My mother would have definitely added a thick layer of butter to help it slide down more easily!!

Another favorite of Sarah Kate’s seems to be a variation on this same theme, but if dropped while going out the door it will simply be a Peanut Butter Toast and Swirled Honey with Dirt and Dog Hair (PBTSHDDH).  Having to stop to clean the rug is really a drag however and definitely adds clean up time after, and causes tardiness for sure unless you plan for this extra time factor!

I cannot write this silly blog without adding a bit of warning that my oldest daughter, Hannah  revealed just recently that hating any sandwich made with bread, but especially peanut butter and honey, she once stuck this sandwich on the side of her babysitter’s house. She had been sent outside in her back yard to eat her lunch and was resolved to leave it for the birds.  Some sandwiches can have that effect, though likely if she had tried that at my house corporal punishment would likely have ensued! Now I know why she wasn’t the babysitter’s favorite child and is still working hard to compete with her sister for this honor and after Sarah Kate’s PBTSHDDH on the rug by the door, Hannah might be sliding, quite literally, into first place…and I wonder who they got their competitive spirit from?

So there you have it…what do you serve, when you have run out of ideas and want someone to take over in the arena of preparing meals? Perhaps Peanut Butter and Honey-d Toast with Driveway Rocks might be just the thing!