Mom's Dynamite Sandwiches

There is a particular kind of July light that I associate with my own childhood, and it visited the kitchen this week and I let it stay. The week was a summer week, the kind where the light through the kitchen window arrives at a particular angle and the freezer hums in a different register depending on the temperature in the garage. I made notes in my prep notebook on Sunday afternoon, the way I always do: meal name, ingredient list, cost per serving, prep time, freezer instructions. Twenty-eight bags. Two hours and eleven minutes. A little slow this week, by my standards, but Brandon was helping and the conversation was good, and I have learned, slowly and against my own grain, that the conversation is sometimes the point and the time is sometimes a courtesy I extend to my husband for being willing to chop onions on a Sunday afternoon.

Brandon golfed Saturday morning, attended his executive secretary meeting Sunday morning, and did the dishes Wednesday night, which is the rhythm of our life now. We have been married a long time. The arithmetic of it is the arithmetic of my whole life. There were years we missed each other in the same room, and there are years we find each other in the silences, and this is one of the latter, and I am old enough now to know that the latter is the achievement and the former was the cost.

The recipe of the week was BLT pasta salad, which I have made some specific number of times in my life and have refined to a system that I now hand to other people in printed form. The version I made this week fed eight, cost under fifteen dollars, and required twenty-six minutes of active prep, which is within my requirements and not a coincidence. Sunday prep is twenty-eight bags. I time myself. The accountant never leaves. I have stopped explaining the freezer-meal philosophy to people who already follow my work, and I have stopped apologizing for it to people who do not. The philosophy is simple: tomorrow is coming whether you are ready or not. You can either be ready or not. I pick ready.

The children are doing what they do, which is the central report of every week of my adult life. Ethan, 20, is in the Philippines on his mission. He sends emails on Mondays. I read them on Mondays. The day is now structured around his email. Olivia is 18, at BYU studying elementary education — the path she chose at age seven and has not deviated from once. Mason, 15, is in Brazil on his mission. His weekly emails are short and full of jokes. He does not write much about the work. He writes about the food. Lily is 13, in high school, asking the kind of questions in Sunday School that make the teachers uncomfortable, which I find difficult and also, secretly, admirable. Noah is 11, the comedian, the performer — the kid who does an impression of my disappointed face in front of company, and gets away with it. That is the family report. I do not have a system for these reports. I just listen and remember and call back when I said I would call back, which is most of the time and not all of the time, and the difference between most and all is the territory of motherhood.

I will close the laptop in a moment. I will go to bed. I will get up tomorrow. The freezer will be there. The photograph will be there. The work will be there. So will I.

The BLT pasta salad fed eight and took twenty-six minutes, and that is exactly the kind of efficiency I have built my Sunday afternoons around — but this recipe is the one I reach for when the potluck call comes in or when I want something in the freezer that feels like more than a side dish. Mom’s Dynamite Sandwiches are what I make when I need to feed a crowd without thinking too hard, when the conversation with Brandon is already the point and the food just needs to hold its own. They freeze in portions the same way everything else does, they reheat without complaint, and the name has never once failed to make Noah do a bit.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 35 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 10

Ingredients

2 lbs ground beef (80/20)
1/2 lb ground pork sausage
1 large yellow onion, finely diced
1 green bell pepper, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (15 oz) tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz) tomato paste
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
10 hoagie rolls or sturdy sub buns, split and lightly toasted

Instructions

Brown the meat. In a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef and ground pork together, breaking it up as it browns, about 8–10 minutes. Drain excess fat, leaving roughly 1 tablespoon in the pan.
Sweat the vegetables. Reduce heat to medium. Add the diced onion and green pepper to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 6–8 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Build the sauce. Stir in the tomato sauce, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar. Mix until the paste is fully incorporated and no streaks remain.
Season and simmer. Add salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and smoked paprika. Stir to combine, reduce heat to low, and simmer uncovered for 15–20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens and the flavors deepen.
Taste and adjust. Before serving, taste the filling and adjust salt or heat as needed. The mixture should be thick enough to mound on a roll without running.
Assemble and serve. Spoon generously onto toasted hoagie rolls. Serve immediately, or transfer cooled filling to labeled freezer bags in 1-cup portions for up to 3 months. Reheat from frozen in a saucepan over medium-low heat with a splash of water, stirring until warmed through.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mom's Dynamite Sandwiches — The Recipe That Keeps the Freezer Honest