My Top ten most popular recipe posts of 2016

Looking back at 2016, it was an eventful year for us as a family, with lots of ups and downs.
At the beginning of the year I was seriously considering whether to stop blogging altogether, but I plodded along, and here I am, still cooking and posting recipes and snippets of our family life.
I'm always amazed that someone is reading my ramblings, and I'm eternally grateful to all my blog readers for coming back.
At the end of the year I usually look at the stats for my posts written through the year, to see which posts have received the most pageviews. My food and drink, book and toy reviews do quite well, with Grossery Gang Yucky Mart post taking the laurels of the most read non-recipe post.
Being a foodie blog, I'm curious to find out which of my recipe posts got the most interest.
And so here are my top ten most popular recipe posts of 2016:

No.10 Fruit & nut chocolate shards with popping candy
chocolate desserts are usually popular with readers (and with me too. I'm a chocoholic through and through)

No.9
Haggis sausage rolls were cooked to celebrate Burns Night, and proved to be well-received by my audience.

No.8
Strawberries with Pimm's - it wasn't much of a recipe, more of a recipe suggestion. It's one of my personal favourite food photos of 2016, as it reminds me of summer.

No.7
Roasted Tomato and Garlic Borlotti Beans Hummus was a quick and easy hummus recipe.

No.6
Slow dough: Real Bread by Chris Young and Earl Grey tea loaf appeared quite recently, but managed to reach no.6 position. It was a delicious loaf, and I must bake it again soon.

No.5
Marmalade cookies - who doesn't like cookies?! Easy to bake, always welcome with a cup of tea or coffee.

No.4
Reuben sandwich made it to no.4. You can't beat a good old classic sandwich.

no.3
Italian recipes are often in demand, judging by the stats of my blog through the years.
Aubergine parmigiana is another classic recipe which has loads of fans.

No.2
Crabbie's Raspberry delight  cocktail recipe proved to be popular on the run to Christmas, and propelled it to no.2.

And Ta Da... no.1 was a total surprise for me, as it's quite a recent post, having appeared just over a month ago:
Plaice in tomato saffron sauce recipe achieved the highest score of the year, and I'm not quite sure why. It was a tasty meal, but if I had to pick my most favourite recipe of the year, it would have probably been some dessert.

I'm wishing you all a very happy new year! And thank you again for reading my blog!

Reuben sandwich

The first time I tried a Reuben sandwich, we were newly arrived to the States. My husband was then a visiting professor at Yale, we were young and free and enjoyed exploring the local restaurants, cafes and diners.
The name of that place escapes my memory now, but it was famous for its sandwiches and fries. My husband suggested that I should try the Reuben sandwich. "What's that?"
I had the first bite, mmm, so many flavours and textures, that's so tasty. It was grilled to perfection, it was gooey inside and crispy outside. And served with a pickle, that's even better.

To celebrate the 4th of July, I made this classic sandwich for lunch.

A good rye bread is a key ingredient in this sandwich. It has to be quite firm and not too thin to be able to hold together all those delicious foods inside it.
Now the dressing: there is a bit of a dispute as to which dressing is the right one - Russian dressing or Thousand Island dressing. And do you choose corned beef or pastrami?

There are several legends on the origins of the sandwich: some versions claim it was invented by Reuben Kulakofsky, a Jewish Lithanian-born grocer who lived in Omaha, Nebraska, for his weekly poker game team. The other sources mention Arnold Reuben, a German Jew who owned Reuben's Delicatessen in NYC around 1914.
Whoever was the true creator, you can see the Eastern European Jewish roots in this recipe.

For a nice big sandwich you will need two long slices of rye bread, a few slices of pastrami, a good piece of Swiss style cheese (like Emmental), Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, butter spread and a pickle.
I don't offer any exact quantities as you just assemble it layer by layer, then grill.

Spread the butter over one slice of bread, the dressing goes on the other slice.
Rather than use a plain unflavoured butter, I used a flavoured spread from Lurpak Infusions - Sea Salt & Pink Peppercorn. It has a distinct aroma of freshly ground peppercorns, and gives an extra oomph to the classic sandwich. It looks pretty too, with specks of pink pepper.

Add a good forkful of sauerkraut on top of the buttered slice, then add the pastrami and cheese, cover with the second slice, press together and put on the grill. Cook until the bread is crispy and the cheese melts.
Cut the sandwich in half, and eat with a pickle.

I found the Thousand Island dressing in Co-Op of all places. It is their own product.