Try These King's Hawaiian Mini Cuban Sandwiches for Your March Madness Party!

Even if you don’t like sports even one iota, one great thing that you can love about it is that there are so many events that you can celebrate with good food. Superbowl, NBA Playoffs, or one of our favorites that is coming up--March Madness. 


I honestly don’t really know the first thing about these various college teams but I always love a good opportunity to create a bracket and compete against my family and talk a lot of smack! I am that person that always leads with my heart instead of my head so I always have the University of Iowa Hawkeyes going waaaaay further into the tournament than they should. Classic amateur move that I knowingly make year after year :)

But my very favorite part of all is celebrating every weekend I can of the Tournament with a night of yummy appetizers and good old-fashioned yelling at the tv. Good times! 

Recently I came across the supermodel and television personality Chrissy Tiegen’s new blog, CravingsByChrissyTeigen.com where she has tons of good recipes, chock-full of yummy things you crave, such as appetizers. The girl knows her way around the kitchen and is great at creating super easy, yummy appetizers for these types of occasions. In 2016 she published a cookbook called Cravings: Recipes for All of the Food You Want to Eat. It became a NY Times bestseller and was the second-best selling cookbook of the year.

Now, my anniversary is coming up so I am currently trying to convince my husband that momma needs an air fryer! That would be perfect timing to create even more delectable, crave-able bites and treats for March Madness coming up. So wish me luck! I am a pretty convincing person, but it is quite a large appliance with very little kitchen space to accommodate in our house so we’ll see who wins that battle! :)


As for now, you should go ahead and make these perfect little Cubans slider-type sandwiches with none other than King’s Hawaiian rolls for the buns! Brilliant! Inspired, I tell you! She uses a really cool technique where you smash them with a heavy pan in the oven so they get nice and crispy on the top and bottom. Once again--brilliant! Where has this recipe been all my life? 


Cubans are a hot, pressed sandwich that always contain ham, cheese and pickles, and smeared with a little mustard and mayo--it’s a winning combination.

Do you plan to have a get together to make yummy food and celebrate March Madness with your friends or loved ones? What are your favorite types of foods to make for these exciting sporting events? Please share in the comments below.

King's Hawaiian Mini Cubano Sandwiches by Chrissy Tiegen

Yield: 12 sandwiches

Serving size: 6
Calories per serving: 22

Ingredients:
1 (12-ounce) package King's Hawaiian original sweet rolls (12 rolls)
vegetable oil, for brushing
6 slices deli ham
6 slices deli chicken or turkey
6 slices pepper jack cheese
Sliced dill pickle
2 tablespoons Dijon style mustard
1 tablespoon mayonnaise


Directions:
Place two large cast iron pans or two rimmed baking sheets of the same size in the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F. While you're preheating, brush the underside of the entire connected sheet of King's Hawaiian rolls with vegetable oil, then place the whole thing on a cutting board. Using a serrated knife, carefully slice horizontally through the batch of rolls to create a top and a bottom sheet.

Layer the roll bottom sheet with the pickles, ham, turkey, cheese and pickles, then spread the mustard and mayo on the inside of the top roll.

Using an oven mitt, remove one baking sheet from the oven to the stovetop (it's hot!!!) and transfer the sandwich to the middle of the sheet (using two hands and moving the thing in one confident motion is the best way here). With the oven mitt, remove the second sheet from the oven and center it on top of the sandwich--you want to squash the sandwich a little bit.

If using sheet pans, weigh the top sheet pan down with something heavy and ovenproof, like a skillet (if using cast iron skillets the top one should be heavy enough on its own).

Transfer the whole thing back to the oven and bake until the cheese is melted, the underside is golden, and the top is toasty, another 10-12 minutes. Remove from the oven, cut along the lines on the rolls, and serve!


Recipe formatted with the Cook'n Recipe Software from DVO Enterprises.



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Dan's Note: Obviously, this great newsletter article was written BEFORE March Madness was canceled. Now, what we have to look forward to is March Sadness. This is my March Sadness bracket:

Sources:
  •   www.commons.wikimedia.org
  •   www.publicdomainpictures.net
  •   www.flikr.com
  •   www.cravingsbychrissyteigen.com

    Mary Richardson
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2014
    Email the author! mary@dvo.com


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