Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: or Cuban style pork sandwiches with oven roasted potatoes and a spinach salad.
I started by quartering some small red potatoes and coating them with about a tea spoon of sea salt, a table spoon of crushed black pepper and some extra virgin olive oil and then putting them in a Pyrex pan.Next I cut some fresh rosemary and I laid it on top of the potatoes. Then I covered the dish with foil and I baked the potatoes at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. Halfway through I took the foil off and I removed the rosemary because it had infused the potatoes with it's distinctive flavor.
While my potatoes cooked I put my boneless center cut pork chops in a pan and I fried them in about a tablespoon of canola oil. After they got done I set them aside.

Next I mixed together one tablespoon of mustard and one tablespoon of light mayo. I then cut four thin slices off a loaf of Scratch made French bread and I brushed olive oil on one side of the bread. I then put the oil side down and I spread the mayo/mustard combo on the other side of two of the bread slices. Then I put one boneless pork chop on the slice with mustard/mayo on it and I laid a piece of Swiss cheese on top of the meat.Next I thinly sliced about half a white onion, caramelized the onion slices, and then I put the onions on top of the cheese.
Next I added a thinly slice of kosher dill pickle to each sandwich. Then I put the other slices of bread on the sandwiches oil side up. When my George Foreman grill got hot I put the sandwiches in and I pressed down and compressed the sandwiches a bit. I left them in the Foreman grill long enough for the olive oil to cook a bit and make the sandwiches nice and crusty. When they got done I took them out and I cut them in two.

I served the potatoes on the side with the spinach salad. It was all quite tasty.

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These style of Cuban sandwiches are usually made with slices of juicy left over pork roast, I just happen to use boneless center cut pork chops because they were on sale. You can use any type of meat in this sandwich though if you want it to be like a real Cuban sandwich I'd use pork. My vegetarian friends and readers can try this sandwich with a perhaps a few slices of portabella mushrooms or maybe some extra firm tofu. What really makes this sandwich zing is the slice of kosher dill pickle, it works well with all the flavors in the sandwich.

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(I apologize for the blurry photos. Don't hold them against me, okay? Thanks.)

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For those of you who might be interested my blog friend and fellow booklover Captain Karen is doing some cooking posts now. She's braver than I am because she's video blogging her cooking, so go check her blog out. She's quite the cutie and her voice is to die for.