Category Archives: Food

All food entries

Baking, Breads, Cheeses, Cooking styles, Food, Garlic, Honey, Mascarpone, Onion, Pesto, Pizza, Pizza dough, Roquefort, Thyme

Caramelized Onion Pizza with Roquefort and Roasted Garlic and Pesto-Mascarpone Sauce

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Caramelized onions are such a treat but requires good quality sweet and savory onions to really bring out the best taste of the food. They go extremely well with mild blue cheese, such as the Roquefort we used here. The first time we really discovered the joy of caramelized onions was at a visit to the farmers market in Temecula, Ca. The ‘strawberry lady’ had brought some gigantic onions that she was raving about. She told us to go home and slow-cook them (caramelize), and basically just eat onion for dinner. We did almost that, but added a steak too (man must eat). However, since then we regularly enjoy this often overlooked treat in our cooking. Most people probably don’t realize how easy it is to make amazing food with something as cheap and simple as onions, so hopefully this can server as inspiration.

Caramelized Onion Pizza with Roquefort and Roasted Garlic and Pesto-Mascarpone Sauce
Caramelized Onion Pizza with Roquefort and Roasted Garlic and Pesto-Mascarpone Sauce

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Baking, Breads, Cheeses, Feta, Food, Herbs, Ingredients, Lettuce, Olive-Rosemary Load, Open Faced Sandwiches, Oregano, Paprika, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches, Smoked paprika, Tarragon, Tarragon salad dressing

Greek Oven Roasted Feta Sandwich

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Last summer we went on vacation to Greece, to the island of Lesvos. We were prepared to taste amazing foods, local delicacies and great tasting salads. Our friends have told us enough stories about the Greek islands that we were rather excited to taste the cuisine. Honestly though, it was a bit of a letdown. The island seems to have gotten a bit ‘touristy’, and the food was usually bland. It wasn’t bad per se, it was just not very interesting. After two weeks eating all over the island, we did find a restaurant on the last day of our trip which was actually great, but that was the exception. Given the less-than-satisfying culinary experiences, we did find one simple dish we kept returning to; The greek salad. It is a salad with a simple dressing, topped with a gigantic block of feta cheese. We decided to combine this a little with the pan seared feta dish called saganaki. We roasted a slice of feta in the oven, and placed it on top of a simple salad on toast. The result was amazing, and here is the recipe.

Greek Oven Roasted Feta Sandwich
Greek Oven Roasted Feta Sandwich

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Breads, Bulgur, Cucumber, Food, Garlic, Grains, Ingredients, Italian salsa verde, Lemon, Meats, Olive Oil, Onion, Open Faced Sandwiches, Parsley, Pine nuts, Pork roast, Roasted pine nuts, Rustic white bread, Salsa Verde, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches, Tomato

Roasted Pork Sandwich With Tabouleh Salad, Italian Salsa Verde And Swiss Chard Side Dish

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This sandwich is an imprompty improvisation made from ingredients we found around the house. The roast pork is from the night before as is the tabouleh. The Italian Salsa Verde is from our wedding, where is was both served for dinner and given as a gift to the guests. The Swiss chard is from our vegetable garden, and the roasted garlic- well let us just say we make sure never to run out of roasted garlic.

Roasted Pork Sandwich With Tabouleh Salad, Italian Salsa Verde And Swiss Chard Side Dish
Roasted Pork Sandwich With Tabouleh Salad, Italian Salsa Verde And Swiss Chard Side Dish

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Bell Pepper, Breads, Cheeses, Chili sauce, Food, Fruits, Herbs, Ingredients, Italian salsa verde, Meats, Onion, Open Faced Sandwiches, Oregano, Rembrandt, Rosemary-Olive bread, Salsa Verde, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches, Toppings, Turkey, Vegetables

Marriage Is Like A Turkey Sandwich With Salsa Verde And Rembrandt Cheese

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So many things have happened the last month, it’s hard to recap it all in one sandwich post… Let’s see… We got married and had a wonderful ceremony and party in our own back yard (fixed up for the occasion) with Anders’ sister Birgit as the Deputy Marriage Commissioner (for a day). What a fantastic day it was, lots of friends, family and food, but alas, no sandwiches. It turns out after much thinking that teaching everyone to make sandwiches would be too much work, as would assembling any great sandwich for 70 people. Instead we opted for Phil’s BBQ and some of our own appetizers. The sandwich below is pre-wedding, from back in March when we still had time to do daily sandwiches, and had a kitchen to do them in. It’s a wonderful turkey sandwich with a great old Rembrandt Gouda Cheese on top, and a chili-sauce kick to it.

Turkey Sandwich Recipe With Salsa Verde And Rembrandt Cheese
Turkey Sandwich Recipe With Salsa Verde And Rembrandt Cheese

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Breads, Cheeses, Chicken Salad, Food, Mayonnaise, Meats, Open Faced Sandwiches, Parmesan, Roasted garlic, Rosemary-Garlic bread, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches

Chicken Salad Sandwich With Capers and Parmesan

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As our kitchen renovation draws nearer to its conclusion, and after having lived for weeks now with a dusty house, no kitchen, a fridge in the garage, and the top of our washing machine as our kitchen counter, we remember this sandwich from our ‘old kitchen’ days. This is made from a great chicken Wendie made which we turned into ‘chicken salad #2‘ and added to a fresh slice of roasted garlic bread with capers and Parmesan on top. We also torched the Parmesan a little to give it a golden look, and to achieve the oddly comforting feeling of warmth near the top of the sandwich. Saturday we are getting married, so the frequency of posts have significantly eased of as our backyard weddings draws nearer. We will post lots of sandwiches after the wedding 🙂

Chicken Salad Sandwich With Capers and Parmesan
Chicken Salad Sandwich With Capers and Parmesan
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Food, Sandwiches

Chicken Salad #2

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When you make chicken, a great idea for all the little leftovers that can be picked from the bones is to make a chicken salad. Unlike what you find in a grocery store, chicken salad should not be a vast ocean of mayonnaise with small islands of chicken. The mayonnaise and mustard is there to add taste, but mostly to hold it all together.

Chicken Salad Recipe #2

  • 5 oz chicken meat in small pieces
  • 2 tbs mayonnaise
  • 1 tsp mustard
  • 2 tbs peperiono seeds
  • 1 tsp paprika
  • 1/2 tsp curry
  • 1 tbs + 1 tsp shredded Parmesan
  • 1 tsp capers
  • 2 tsp kalonjo seeds (name?)

Make sure the pieces of chicken are fairly small, and then mix all ingredients but the capers together. At the end add the capers and carefully mix a little more.

See a sample sandwich here: Chicken Salad Sandwich With Capers and Parmesan

Baking, Dark Rye Bread, Food, Leeks, Lemon, Liver pâté, Meats, Olive Oil, Open Faced Sandwiches, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches, Walnuts, Zucchini

Liver Pâté Sandwich With Toasted Walnuts And Sautéed Leeks With Lemon And Grilled Zucchini

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Call me crazy, but I just love the dark brown parts of liver pâté. I realize that may not be the preference of most other sane people, but what can I do against such deliciousness. So these pictures may not do full justice to the wonderful slice of Maria’s liver pâté, but I can assure you that once you bite into this little black diamond, your buds will thank you.

The sautéed side of zucchini with garlic and lemon matches perfectly the sautéed leeks and roasted walnuts.

Liver Pate Sandwich with Roasted Wallnuts and Sauteed Leeks and Squash
Liver Pâté Sandwich With Toasted Walnuts And Sautéed Leeks With Lemon And Grilled Zucchini. The side of the pâté got a little dark, but inside it's moist and good.

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Baking, Bell Pepper, Cheeses, Food, Fruits, Garlic, Ham, Ingredients, Jarlsberg, Mascarpone, Meats, Mushrooms, Onion, Parmesan, Pepitas seeds, Pizza, Pizza dough, Tomato, Toppings, Vegetables

Pizza Recipe: Black Forest Ham, Red Onions, Heirloom Tomatoes, Sautéed Garlic Mushroom, Jarlsberg/Parmesan Cheese, Peperino Seeds (pumpkin), Pesto/Mascarpone Sauce, Roasted Garlic

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This pizza makes for an excellent dinner if you are having a few friends over to share a nice bottle of Barolo. The black forest ham is great on sandwiches, and excellent on pizza. It’s not overly salty and thus goes really well with the veggies. As always, enjoy making pizza, have some fun, and don’t be afraid to experiment a little. Pizzas are the Chef’s playground, they are very hard to mess up, and everyone always enjoys fresh-baked bread. Just buy decent ingredients, and kick loose. We made this pizza on the spur of the moment, with ingredients we mostly ‘found’ in the kitchen. Adding Peperino seeds was purely because we had some. Black forest ham? We had some. Green bell pepper? Yup, we had some. That’s how we make pizzas, and the best ones go on the blog for you guys.  So go crazy tonight. Make your own pizza, or try this one.

Pizza: Black Forest Ham, Onions, Heirloom Tomatoes, Sauteed Garlic Mushroom, Jarlsberg/Parmasan Cheese, Peperino Seeds (pumpkin), Tomato Sauce, Roasted Garlic
Pizza: Black Forest Ham, Onions, Heirloom Tomatoes, sautéed Garlic Mushroom, Jarlsberg/Parmesan Cheese, Peperino Seeds (pumpkin), Tomato Sauce, Roasted Garlic

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Basil, Cheeses, Food, Herbs, Olive Oil, Parmesan, Pesto, Pine nuts, Roasted pine nuts

Fresh Basil Pesto

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Pesto is a wonderful spread or topping for sandwiches and appetizer, in addition to its obvious uses in pasta. It’s very easy to make yourself, and when our sweet basil plant starts to grow out of hand we always have a use for the basil. If you live near a well stocked grocery store (We have Trader Joe’s here in California), look for a bag of basil and try this yourself if you don’t have the plants.

Pesto Recipe

  • 3 cups of rinsed fresh basil leaves.
  • 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
  • 3/4 cup of olive oil
  • 1/2 cup of pine nuts
  • 3 garlic cloves

Start by placing the garlic cloves in  a food processor. Pulse a few times until the pieces are as small as they can get. Add the basil and pine nuts, and pulse again. Add the olive oil slowly while running the food processor, and finally add the cheese.

Tip: The Simply Recipies blog has excellent advice for freezing fresh pesto, plus a slightly different version. In general don’t sweat the exact measurements, but try and taste it and adjust. The quality of the basil can vary over the course of the year, or from region to region, so you may need to add more or less cheese and olive oil.

Breads, Cheeses, Fish, Food, Fruits, Mascarpone, Melon, Olive-Rosemary Load, Open Faced Sandwiches, Pesto, Salmon, Sandwich Styles, Sandwiches

Mascarpone Pesto With Smoked Salmon Sandwich Topped With Honeydew Melon

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We always are looking to try new ingredients on our sandwiches, and for a while we have been thinking of ways to use melon. Melon can provide  a little sweetness and also a little bit of crunch (Depending on the ripeness of the melon of course). It’s fresh, so we added it to smoked salmon to really enhance the sense of ‘freshness’ one wants from fish. The mascarpone-pesto was really a way to ‘water down’ the pesto to not overwhelm the rest of the sandwich, yet provide more depth to the taste experience. We like ‘depth’ in our food, as well as ‘height’ (We are making sandwiches after all).

Mascarpone Pesto With Smoked Salmon Sandwich Topped With Honeydew Melon
Mascarpone Pesto With Smoked Salmon Sandwich Topped With Honeydew Melon

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