Posts filed under 'Sandwich'
right that minute
In the winter, I generally gravitate toward comfort foods. In spring, I look forward to the first’s: asparagus, strawberries, radishes. In the summer, I’m usually too busy to think much about food—just a juicy tomato, sprinkled with salt and pepper, will do. In the fall, though, it’s different. In the fall, I crave. In the fall, I stop dead in my tracks and I say to myself: I must, right this minute, right now, not one minute more, grill a sandwich, a grilled cheese sandwich, which, in my opinion, is the pinnacle of all sandwiches.
But it’s fall—the season of specific, urgent cravings—so it doesn’t stop there. Oh, no. Instead, the cheese must be cheddar: white and very sharp, or smoked at the very least. There must be thinly sliced apples, too, sweet and crunchy ones (honeycrisp!). And, of course, autumn is the season for seeded wheat breads, so the vehicle for this sandwich will be two slices of that. Not just a grilled cheese, but a grilled-apple-and-cheese. Because it’s autumn, you know.
summer, over time
Although it always delivers sunny skies, emerald lawns and delicious produce, summer, and what it means to me, has changed over the years. As a kid, it meant late nights scampering breathlessly around the neighborhood, running through the cool arc of a lawn sprinkler, spending a couple weeks up at my grandparents’ house.
When the teenaged years hit, summer shifted to mean hours spent on the phone and sunbathing, a mind boggling number of soccer games, and a series of pushed boundaries where bedtime and boys were concerned.
have your number
[I'm in Napa, but I put this post together in advance. If we can't all sip crisp whites and spicy reds together, I'm hoping this is the next best thing.]
Some recipes just have your number. Call it destiny, or maybe love at first read. But, before you’ve even made the recipe, you just know. This recipe—for sweet cherry compote—was one of them. It has all the elements of my kind of recipe: a project (cherry pitting); a tranformation (rendering cherries from firm globes to slouching folds); color (a deep, seductive ruby—one that flirts, even, with purple); and a marriage of flavors that is equal parts sweet, salty and sour. Like I said, it was over before it began.
Speaking of destiny: this compote always had one destiny and one alone—a turkey sandwich. Which is pretty shocking for a girl who, not so very long ago, simply could not abide the presence of fruit on her sandwich. Be it banana-topped peanut butter, pear-threaded grilled cheese, or cranberry sauce over thick slices of leftover Thanksgiving turkey, my answer would be, emphatically, no thank you. Maybe even just a firm “no,” dispensing with the “thank you.” Heck, I didn’t even much like pb&j as a kid (the jelly, of course, being the problem).
sloppy joes
Growing up, my mother really knew her way around a pound of ground beef. And I mean that as high praise. She could come home from work, bone tired, and unsheath a pound of ground beef (you know the packages—with the colored foam trays and snug-fitting plastic wrap) and have dinner on the table in no time flat.
Ground beef featured prominently in many of the kid-friendly recipes in my mom’s repertoire: chili, goulash, tater tot hot dish, spaghetti sauce, taco filling and, perhaps best of all, sloppy joes. I suppose, then, it’s no surprise that one of the things that I remember learning in the kitchen was how to brown ground beef, seasoning it with salt and pepper and letting it sizzle away in a skillet.
I’ll Do it Myself
I spent good chunks of the first two weekends of January working, which, in this economy, is not really something to complain about. So I won’t gripe about the work. Instead, I’ll whine about the lunch. Because I was otherwise occupied, most of the lunches were delivered. And while you can’t beat the convenience of sandwich delivery on a subzero Chicago Saturday, I swear to you: the order was never right. My reactions ranged from unattractive gagging noises when I discovered a sandwich slopped with mayo, something akin to a temper tantrum when another sandwich came with coleslaw instead of chips, tears when I opened a sack to find a white bread-ed sandwich when I’d ordered multigrain, to (worst of all) oh-no-they-didn’t-forget-my-pickle.
So last weekend, when I did not one minute of work (ahhh), I decided that when it came to lunch, I’d do it myself. Thankyouverymuch. I started out with beautiful, fresh ingredients: slices from a loaf of burnished whole wheat sourdough; folds of black forest ham the light pink color of a flush cheek; slices of havarti, as lacey as a delicate doiley; peppery leaves of baby arugula; spicy Dijon mustard; kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper; thin slices of juicy bosc pear:
Lined with Gruyere and Spilling Over with Caramelized Onions
If there is any solace to the cruel fact that the days of sandwiches stuffed with thick slices of sun-kissed tomatoes are over (emphasis on the “if”), it is that we have now arrived in the portion of the year in which sandwiches are only complete—only right—if they ooze with melted cheese. And that is a silver lining I can get behind. Plus, what’s more American than a grilled cheese sandwich (even a gussied up one, sporting, erm, imported cheese)? And, on this brilliant morning, I’m feeling pretty proud to be an American.
Another cold weather sandwich staple of mine is caramelized onions. So, when I discovered this recipe, which marries both of my go-to hibernation season sandwich fillings (for review: cheese warmed to its stretched-out-and-stringy state; soft curls of sweet, slow-cooked onions), I think I not only drooled a little bit, but I even—and please don’t hate me for this—willed winter to hurry up already.
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipe.)
Putting the Pesto to Work
You might be wondering what I did with yesterday‘s sage-and-walnut pesto. While it was arguably good enough to eat by the spoonful, I did not do that, you will probably be relieved to know. Instead, I used it to perk up a grilled cheese sandwich of sorts, which was just about the only thing I wanted to eat on Sunday, after two whirlwind, wedding-hubbub-filled days, one of which was apparently the rainiest in Chicago history. And we all know that a grilled cheese sandwich on a rainy day is truly one of life’s kindest treasures.
But it wasn’t just any grilled cheese, I’ll have you know. It had the standard bread-and-cheese components, sure, but even those were dialed up a notch from yesteryear’s slices of Wonder Bread and American cheese: I used a hearty multi-grain loaf and whisper-thin slices of Swiss cheese. And I continued to gussy up the once-humble sandwich by liberally slathering the slices of bread with the sage pesto I whizzed up earlier that day and by scattering some shredded roast chicken leftover from the other night (which just so happened to have been roasted with several sage leaves slipped under its skin). The end result was perfectly gooey and pure comfort.
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipe.)
Defying Genetics
I have news, friends. Do you remember how I told you about my grandfather and his pretty spectacular green thumb? Heck, the man’s thumbs are probably both green. Well, what I failed to mention is that, sadly, I did not inherit this trait. It must be a recessive gene that didn’t make it’s way into my quadrant of the Punnett Square. Despite great effort, our flowers struggle and our herbs wither. It’s a sad thing. Even knowing this, my grandparents generously entrusted us with a tomato plant when we were in Minnesota at the end of July. I guess they supposed that even I could not reverse a half-summer’s worth of nurturing.
And, oh how I tried. First, there was the matter of the storm I mentioned a couple weeks back. The tomato plant did not fare so well, though it fared better than our deck furniture, much of which blew away completely. After that blustery night, we nursed the tomato plant back to health. Even so, days after the storm I’d keep finding still-green orb blown into one corner of the deck or another—debris from the storm. This induced a constant lower-lip-jutting-out on my part, which in turn induced Kevin to suggest we buy the plant a proper cage to support the wooden stake that was then (half-heartedly) holding up the plants’ limbs.
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipe.)
I Got Nothin’
Well, it finally happened. The legal rules have found their way into every single nook and cranny in my brain. If you can believe it, there is no room for daydreamed menus, to-do-list recipes or mental grocery lists. These things typically take up quite a bit of space in my head. But, sadly, the bar exam is occupying that precious real estate now. As such, I declare this day, July 25, 2008, to be Food Porn Friday. It shall feature gratuitous close-ups of my favorite BLT, complete with a creamy pesto spread. Enjoy!
(Click “more” for the photos & recipe.)
Pondering a Picnics-Only Plan
On Friday night, we went to a fundraiser concert near Lincoln Park. It was an earlyish show, so we decided to meet in the park—Kevin coming from work and me emerging from the haze of studying in which I now live—to precede the show with a picnic. We found a shady patch of clover-filled grass, looking to escape the 90-degree heat, and set up shop, smoothing out a thin blanket and unpacking our picnic basket (actually, a picnic shopping bag, but who cares).
We dined on sandwiches (thin baguettes, split lengthwise, jaws stuffed with roasted vegetables and goat cheese, in my case, and soppresata and mozzarella in Kevin’s case), a vinegary tomato salad, some potato chips dusted with sea salt and black pepper, and a few wedges of watermelon. And, if you must know, we also sipped on a tasty beverage: San Pellegrino Limonada mixed with a glug or three of vodka, all poured into a thermos (actually, an empty Perrier bottle, but who cares; as you can see: we were going for disposable).
(Click “more” for the rest of the story, more photos & the recipes.)