Ahhh, it’s the final recipe from the Tessie O’Shea Slimming Cookbook!
In January 2019, I pledged to make one recipe a month from Tessie’s book and what with one thing and another, it has taken me until now to do all 12, but it’s been loads of fun. Her recipes are generally a little bit bonkers so there are links at the end of this post to all the recipes I tried including Egg Juice, Butt-Chive Cheese Shrimps and Just Discovered Tinned Soup. Delightful!
The idea of a lettuce sandwich tickled me because a few years ago work colleagues mercilessly took the mickey out of me for taking a peanut butter and lettuce sandwich in for lunch. Everyone seemed to think it was really weird to have lettuce in a sandwich with peanut butter.
Is it? It seems perfectly normal to me. If they could only see some of the mental things I am eating during lockdown they would think peanut butter and lettuce very tame!
But these aren’t sandwiches with lettuce inside them, they are sandwiches with lettuce replacing the bread. Sounds mad, tastes good!
I had egg mayo mixture left over from some Tessie O’Shea Diet Scotch Eggs which seemed eminently appropriate for my first ever lettuce sandwiches.
I rolled ’em up as directed…
and scoffed them as per Tessie’s suggestion, “in the hand.”
I guess in modern parlance these would be called “Lettuce Wraps”. THEY WERE DELICIOUS!
There’s a little bit in Tessie’s recipe that makes me feel kind of sad. She says of the lettuce sandwiches, “they’re so easy to take on picnics, on long train journeys or to the office.” Ah, remember those days dear readers? Before every single day was just spent like this…
Good news is, when I saw Tessie’s list of things that would be good in a lettuce sandwich I spotted LIVER SAUSAGE. This is something I loved as a kid, and I haven’t had for a couple of years. There used to be a little Polish cafe opposite Mr Rathbone’s flat and I often picked up a liver sausage and gherkin sandwich to take to work on a Monday after spending the weekend at his place. The cafe is long gone alas, but I now am the proud owner of a tube of liver sausage. It’s just hanging around in my fridge for when the weather is good enough for a lettuce sandwich picnic.
Gotta have things to look forward to in these crazy times right?
Here are the other 11 of Tessie’s recipes I rustled up, one chosen from each of the 12 foregoing chapters in her brilliant cookbook. Click on the name of the dish to go to the post that includes each recipe.
Tessie O’Shea’s Slimming Breakfast
Fun With Leftover Chicken or Turkey
Brussels Sprouts (Creamed Cheese Style)
It was really fun to have been set this task. I have so many movie star cookbooks that I’ve never dipped into, so to make 12 recipes from the same book was a great challenge. It’s taken me over two years to do this and get the posts up but I feel WELL CHUFFED with myself to have completed this.
Right now feels like a time for getting things finished and celebrating small victories.
Marvelous. Inspiring. You have every right to be well chuffed indeed!
Aww, thanks Patricia!
I always read your posts and think how wonderful they are, but never seem to get around to telling you so. Today I’ve made the time after reading your post about Tessie O’Shea and your cooking goals, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The dishes you chose to highlight looked so good, that I’ve jumped online and ordered myself a copy of Tessie’s book so I can have a go too, and see what other recipe gems there are in the process. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Awwww Alison, your comment has absolutely made my day! Thanks so much for taking the time to write. DO let me know what dishes tempt you from Tessie’s book. It is such a fun read as she has a lovely writing stye. Drop me a line with photos of anything you cook if you think to do so, I’d love to see what you get up to with Tessie!
Those look a lot more promising than a sandwich of bread and lettuce I used to take peanut butter and cucumber sandwiches to work and was similarly teased Jenny…
Mmmm – peanut butter and cucumber, that sounds DELICIOUS to me. Are you allowing peanut butter in the house during lockdown? I accidentally bought some via Ocado that was housed in what looked like a cute little miniature paint pot. It turned out to be a HUGE paint pot – 1 kilos worth. All gone now though! And as Mr R doesn’t eat PB I can’t get away from the fact that I have put away a kilo of PB in a fairly short amount of time…