Draden grabbed his notebook, flipped to a new page, and spent a couple of minutes scrawling out the recipe. He needed to make sure he had it down right before he knew for sure what needed to be summoned. There was also the matter of his version of the recipe versus the standard, slightly more convoluted version.

  When he was making the sandwiches for himself, he would often just use one type of meat, which wasn’t even part of the standard recipe. However, since it was available, he would also include some thinly sliced steak.

  Grabbing two chicken breasts, he quickly butterflied them, opening them like a book. After removing the excess pieces of fat, he splashed some oil on a skillet and placed both inside to cook. He sprinkled the tops with a mix of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, oregano, and then some cumin. It was pretty much your standard Mexican spice mix.

  With that cooking, he turned his attention to the list of ingredients he needed to summon. For this particular recipe, there were six items that he needed to summon. Pepper jack cheese, red wine vinegar, banana peppers, dijon mustard, mayonnaise, and some Italian dressing. The last item was more just personal preference than something actually needed.

  Grabbing a piece of paper, he wrote the six items down, followed by everything he needed for the restaurant. Reaching into the coin pouch he had strapped to his side, he withdrew an amount he thought appropriate and stretched out his hand.

  The coins turned to dust, and the paper he had placed on the counter followed suit. A heartbeat later, a glowing circle appeared, and ingredients began pouring out onto the counter.

  He set all the extra ingredients to the side and focused on what he needed for the sandwiches. This was an incredibly easy sandwich to make, as everything got chopped and thrown together in a bowl. That’s why it also made a decent salad.

  With regular sandwiches, you had to layer everything properly, something that he had never quite gotten the hang of. This particular sandwich took all the thought out of the matter.

  Draden checked on the chicken and then went back to the ingredients on the counter. Placing an entire head of lettuce on the cutting board, he removed the bottom core before chopping the lettuce into pieces. He didn’t want it diced or minced but chopped into slightly larger pieces.

  Once that was finished, he scooped the lettuce into one of his new bowls. Picking up a whole large red onion, he peeled the skin and chopped it, adding it to the bowl. The banana peppers were next, with roughly half the bottle of sliced peppers getting put on the cutting board. These, he cut a little more carefully, dicing, instead of chopping.

  The last item to go onto the cutting board was the block of pepper jack cheese. He first cut it lengthwise, unfolding it like a book to make the block thinner. Then he cut it into small blocks, before finally beginning to roughly chop the pieces, making them even smaller.

  After he was finished, he grabbed them and, using his fingers, broke up any that had clumped together as he dumped them into the bowl. The tomatoes he used were a bunch of cherry tomatoes, cut in half.

  He checked on the chicken again, flipping the pieces and lightly seasoning them again. You wanted the meat to have a slight char, but not be burned, and with chicken breast, it was important not to overcook it, otherwise it would dry out. There were ways around that, as long as you were careful.

  While the second side of the chicken was cooking, he began preparing the sauce for the sandwiches, along with adding some extra zing to the filling mixture. First up was salt and pepper, followed by a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar, the same for extra virgin olive oil, and then a few splashes of Italian dressing.

  Mixing it all together, he let the moisture from the oil, vinegar, and Italian dressing coat as much as possible. Over the next few minutes, the excess would fall to the bottom of the bowl, and he would be able to repeat this action again.

  In another bowl, he began mixing everything together for the sauce. Some mayonnaise went in first, followed by the dijon mustard, a bunch of garlic, parsley, basil, salt, and pepper, and then some more red wine vinegar. The exact amounts had faded from his memory, but the general amounts hadn’t. He knew what it was supposed to taste like, and that was what was most important.

  All that was left to do was add the chicken and the steak. He had made these sandwiches before with just chicken and thought they were still delicious. The steak added a little something extra, but it wasn’t always needed, in his opinion. However, since this was his first time making the sandwiches for everyone, he would be adding the extra meat.

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  As soon as the chicken was done, he took them out of the pan and began cutting them into strips. He then roughly chopped them as well, so they looked like they had been shredded. With that completed, he put a little bit more oil into the pan and dumped all the chicken back in to absorb as much of the seasoning as possible.

  Little by little, he scooped the chicken into the bowl with the rest of the ingredients and mixed everything together. The mere act of mixing everything helped to shred the tender meat, spreading it around more.

  Once all the chicken was in the bowl, he put it on top of the ingredients he needed and carried it all back to the restaurant with the sauce in his free hand.

  Cooking the steak would only take a few minutes, then he simply needed to cut the meat and mix it together like he had with the chicken. After that, all he had to do was toast the loaves of bread and put the sandwiches together.

  Normally, Draden would have used the same Mexican spice blend that he had on the chicken for the steak. However, since he already had some steak marinating, he would just use that instead. He was interested to see how the two flavors would come out in the sandwich. If they would clash or combine into something great.

  In the kitchen of the restaurant, he found Emilie cleaning up the counters, while Alice did the dishes.

  “Perfect, you’re both finishing up. I almost have lunch ready. Would one of you grab me a couple of pieces of thin steak from one of the marinating bowls, please?” He asked as he carefully placed the items he had been carrying on the counter.

  Emilie nodded and, after folding the small towel she had been using, reached towards the bowl closest to her.

  This was why Draden needed so many large, flat-bottomed bowls right here. They were used for everything in a restaurant, from mixing ingredients to holding marinating meat overnight in the refrigerator. Currently, they were sitting on the counter warming up, with plates on top of them.

  Alice glanced curiously at the items he had brought in with him, but didn’t say anything. She had seen enough of the weird labels in the kitchen to know that they were just part of her boss's oddness. The ingredients themselves were sometimes rare, but for the most part, normal. She had even swiped her finger across the top of one of the weirder-looking containers. It had been a little metal container with dozens of tiny holes on top of it. The white crystals had been salt, pure salt, which was rare, but just plain salt.

  Draden quickly cut a few shallow cross-hatch marks into the steak and placed them into a sizzling oiled pan. While the meat was cooking, he took the leftover bread from the night before, cut each of them in half lengthwise, and placed them in the oven to toast. You didn’t want them hard, but since there was liquid in the sauce and around the chopped portions, you wanted it toasted enough to not get soggy while you ate it.

  He waited until the steak had a nice crust on one side and then flipped it over. At this point, the thin meat was already cooked, but he wanted a slight crust on the second side as well.

  It only needed to cook for a minute, and then they could be removed and placed on the cutting board. After that, the process was mostly the same as with the chicken, of cutting it into strips, and then roughly chopping it. The difference was that the steak didn’t need to go back in the pan and could be put directly into the bowl of previously chopped ingredients and mixed together.

  Opening the oven, he removed the toasted bread and placed them on the counter. The sauce would be spread on both sides of the bread, and then the final step would be to place the chopped ingredients onto the bread right before it was eaten. Since it was such a loose sandwich, the best way to prepare it was by using some paper to wrap the sandwich and keep it tight.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have that, so they would have to deal with some mess and use forks to clean up whatever fell out.

  “Alright, lunch is ready. Let’s get Coradine and Marcus.” He told Alice and Emilie as he finished spreading sauce on the last of the loaf of bread. He folded the loaves of bread and put them on a stack of plates to be brought out into the dining area along with the bowl of chopped ingredients.

  Coradine and Marcus followed Alice into the dining area, their steps heavy with the fatigue of their morning’s work. The faint, almost invisible lines they had drawn on the floor and walls with the mana crystals seemed to hum with a latent power. They were the first parts of the new wards they were creating around what would become their small pocket of peace.

  Emilie helped Draden carry everything to a table and then took her seat.

  Draden set the large bowl, brimming with the colorful chopped salad mixture, in the center of the table. The green of the lettuce, the red of the tomatoes, and the purple-red of the onions, mixed with the yellow of the banana peppers, created a feast for the eyes before the meal had even begun. The plate of prepared toasted loaves with their golden-brown crust, and the sauce he had already spread on both sides.

  “Alright, everyone, all you need to do is scoop some of the ingredients from the bowl, pile it onto half a loaf of bread, and then put the other half on top. Just like that, build your own,” He announced, his voice carrying a note of warmth for everyone there. “It’s called a Chopped Sandwich. It can be a little messy, so don’t be shy about using a fork for whatever escapes.”

  He had already set aside a few toasted loaves for Leah, Eowin, Emilie, and him to eat when they went to pick up the girls.

  As though to prove his point, he bit into the sandwich, part of the filling oozed out the sides. He closed his eyes and moaned. He had missed this. Really, it was a miracle that he hadn’t thought of making this sandwich earlier. Still, it was somewhat annoying that he had forgotten to add cucumbers to the mix. They weren’t part of the regular recipe, but merely something he liked to add as they were nice.

  Emilie was next. She took a piece of the warm, toasted bread, the crust crackling softly under the pressure of her fingers. The creamy sauce Draden had previously spread had slightly softened the bread’s toasted interior. Catching an errant drop on her thumb, she brought it to her mouth, licking it clean, before piling on the chopped mixture.

  “Hmm,” She nodded appreciatively. “That’s good.”.

  (The recipe I use in this chapter can be found on my Patreon for free.)

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