Ever heard of the four cheese sandwich?  Typically this sandwich involves an abundance of cheese with little smidgen of veggies.  A few weeks ago, we decided to turn that recipe upside down and make the four tomato caprese panini.  Thanks to overshopping (yet again) at the annual Tomato Mania, our garden has quite a variety of this summer necessity.  If only the variety was matched by abundance.  Sigh!  This year, we have been outdone by the garden pests who have made off with most of our yield.  Poor Anders. In anticipation of this annual raiding, early in the season he stocked the pantry with peanut butter – the bait of choice for our Have a Heart trap.   Months later, we are out of peanut butter and tomatoes.  There are some very fat well fed squirrels and rabbits running around Poway right now and they owe it all to Anders.   How they managed to get to the PB without springing the trap is beyond me.   Ocassionally, (grudglying, we suspect), they left us a few, from which we were able to have a few tomato meals – like this sandwich.

You can use any combination of tomatoes you wish. We used: white oxheart, brandy boy, Mr. Stripey and XXX.  It was delish, so much so that after eating his mammoth sandwich, Anders begged for another.  After eating his second sandwich, he was nearly comatose on the sofa.  Sweet reward for me… that and hearing him declare, “this is hands down the best panini I’ve ever tasted.”

Panini Recipe

• 2 slices of sourdough bread
• 8 slices of tomato (2 of each of the 4 types)
• 6 basil leaves
• Buffalo mozzarella
• 3 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 4 tsp lemon garlic mayo (See recipe below)
• olive oil

This recipe makes two sandwiches. For each sandwich, assemble as follows:

Preheat the panini grill on medium high heat.

Spread 1 teaspoon of the mayo on a slice of bread.  Add the four slices so that the slices overlap. Add three leaves. If your bread slice is large, you may need to add more basil. What you are going for is nearly complete coverage so that every bite has a bit of basil.  Thinly sliced the buffalo mozzarella and cover the basil.  Drizzle with 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.  Spread another teaspoon of mayo on a second slice of bread and cover the sandwich (mayo side down).

Brush top and bottom of the sandwich with olive oil. Place on the press and grill on medium high for about 3 minutes.  Remove from grill and eat while still warm.

Let us know what you think.  We love your comments.

Lemon Garlic Mayo Recipe

• 3 tbs mayo
• 1/2 garlic clove
• 1 tsp lemon zest

Squeeze half of a garlic clove through a garlic press, mix it with other ingredients and you will miraculously have created lemon garlic mayo. Easy, huh?