What are you cooking today?

Muffaletta!

I made the spiced olive spread that's mostly for sandwiches from New Orleans (Central Grocery in/near French Quarter IIRC) but great for other applications.

This was a big batch (4X), about 3 quarts, but it keeps forever and ages well, and is a good gift. Might show up at the beer exchange.

4 cups chopped pitted olives--mixed green, ripe and kalamata
1/4 cp chopped shallots
1/4 cp chopped celery
2 cp chooped red peppers--not fresh but jar; I used Italian smoked
1/2 cp capers
12 chopped pepperoncini
1/4 cup + red wine vinegar
3/4 cp + olive oil
1/4 cp chopped parsley
4 cloves garlic chopped/minced

Mix well and store in glass jars in the refrigerator. Add more oil/vinegar to keep moist if needed.

The muffaletta sandwich--the father of the submarine:

Use hearty bread, including a good sandwich bun.
Spread olive mix on both pieces of bread
layer salami, mortadella, capocolla (substitutes below) and provolone with cheese in the middle
Essential: press the sandwich for 1-24 hours

Serve cold or heated pressed--like a pannini.

Serve with copious cold beers or sangiovese/temparinillo type red.

Notes:
It's essential to put the olive spread on the bread and to press; this squeezes the flavored oil/vinegar into the bread.

I used hot (spicy) capocolla. You can add some heat to the olive spread, like ground hot peppers for subs.

I used a food processor for this batch; usually I hand chop. But you want it small.

Some people put carrots and cauliflower in the spread. I think they are too hard. And cauliflower is albino broccoli which I will not abide, either one.

Mortadella is a mild boiled sausage from Bologna with cubes of fat in it. No cubes, it's basic old bologna/baloney and it works just fine.
Capocolla is a cured Italian ham so you can use prosciutto or country ham like Smithfield ham (no not Smithfield brand boiled ham that is an abomination to be cast from your mouth).

To press mine I put a 10qt cast iron dutch oven then 4 cast iron frying pans on top of the sandwiches. I like cast iron.

Cooked: melt butter in a cast iron pan that will hold them all; add sandwiches, put another smaller pan on top and mash (we say maish) down. Flip when the bottom is toasted.

Schlotzky's signature sandwich claim to be a muffaletta.

As a young boy I was constantly fed cream cheese and olive sandwiches (white bread). My childhood friend Sam McGann, chef at the Blue Point in Duck, serves it as an amuse' bouche. The spread above makes an exotic cream cheese and olive.

I bought a gallon jar of mixed olives and they looked like they had been pitted. Not. So you lay out 4-6 at a time and maish them with the side of a chef knife and it's easy to remove the pits. Doing 4 cups didn't take that long. I got mine from Restaurant Depot but if you get them from the ordinary, first look for the "olive bar" and if not get cheap green olive--pimentos are fine--and calimata. But not canned "ripe olive" bullets. And I have lots left in the gallon jar if anyone wants to come by.

If there are olives in it, I like it. 
Speaking of...I was on a filthy martini kick a while back. Had multiple jars of olives minus the brine in the fridge. Eventually found and ordered straight olive brine (no olives) to even things out.

I checked it out and that is a cool device. I like that you can sauté/brown in it; I try to make everything in one pot when I do chili, stews, pot roast, etc. I also like that you can remove the pot to clean it; crock pots are hard to wash. I saw that they sell a number of inserts.

I just read about a couple from Portsmouth who are travelling the US for five years; they carry one of these.

TACOS!

Oh Jeff, you are so perrrfect
So spectacularrr in every way
You bring light into my life, Jeff
YOu almost make me forget about...TACOS!!

A few days ago (I know, it's not today...however...)
I cooked/made applesauce from our yellow transparent apples.
Saturday, I made wild blackberry pie.

Wha?

you've never had transparent apples? 

Now I want some yellow transparent applesauce.