While we do enjoy making falafels from scratch, it is a lot easier to buy them pre-made. So after an on-the-spur-of-the-moment shopping spree in the local grocery store, we found ourselves with a packet of falafels. They are quite acceptable in taste, a little wet in consistency (it’s not easy to preserve crunchiness after freezing), and overall a good experience. If you have fresh ones, by all means do use them, but for a Thursday sandwich without too much work involved, just get something like these. We find that falafel can be quite a nice change to a lot of dishes, such as salads or on sandwiches (like here).
Falafel Sandwich with Garlic-Yogurt Dressing, Lime, Pesto, Spinach and Grape Tomatoes on Ciabatta Bread
We do love smoked salmon in our house, and it makes for great appetizers or snacks. Salmon is also fairly easy to combine with other ingredients, as long as you keep the taste influences light so as not to overpower the subtle fish taste. It works particularly well on fresh bread, or lightly toasted older revived bread.
Appetizer: Homemade Pesto, Greens, Smoked Salmon and Grape Tomato
If you want to make a ‘Sloppy Joe’ style sandwich, you must first make the chili. This is how we make ours! The recipe has evolved over years, since the college days when chili was the preferred antidote to pizzas. Back then, the chili was mostly meat and beans and tomatoes, but today there are a number of different beans and veggies, as well as more advanced tastes going on. We started adding wine last year, which adds a very nice flavor, and 6 months ago we started adding the sugar after we discovered that is the secret ingredient in most BBQ sauces.
Chunky Chili with Lima and Black Beans, Fennel, Tomatoes, Red and White Wine.
‘Twas the eve before Christmas and all through the house, the smell of Jamaican Christmas ham was tempting my nose. Okay.. a poor attempt at a rhyme, but you get the message. We were starving and still had a few hours before the traditional Scandinavian Christmas (Eve) dinner. Scandinavian countries celebrate Christmas on the 24th while Jamaicans (like Americans) reserve our celebration for the 25th. To satisfy each of our cultural programming, we have two celebrations in our home- in effect, two Christmases. We spend Scandinavian Christmas with some dear friends with whom Anders is able to reconnect with his childhood memories and reserve Jamaican Christmas for the two of us. A necessary component of any Jamaican Christmas dinner is a slowly baked ham infused with the combined flavors of cloves, pineapple and brown sugar. It was a hit at last years Scandinavian dinner (go figure) so this year we decided to make it a staple. Yeah to cultural crossovers!
In the midst of the baking of the ham, we got hungry. So to satisfy the empty stomach, but not sacrifice too much space for the barrage of food that is Christmas dinner, we created this sandwich. A fresh ciabatta from Bread and Cie in Hillcrest forms the base, and is lightly warmed until the Spanish Valdeon cheese starts melting. We are always stacked up on smoked salmon from Costco. The sandwich turned truly international when we decided to add a hint of sweetness with a spoonful of tomato relish from Meyer’s (in Denmark). The combination of ingredients may seem surprising, but it was absolutely sublime. Hunger abated, we could now wait until dinner time.
Ciabatta Sandwich With Smoked Salmon, Valdeon Cheese, Sesame Seeds And Tomato Relish
This sandwich is one of the many that can be created almost entirely from Costco. No, they don’t sponsor us. We just like a lot of their foods (psst, Costco, if you read this, get in touch!!). We particularly love it when they feature cheeses on the tasting floors. In fact, we get practically giddy like children in a candy store. This past weekend, we walked in and were greeted with the sign announcing “Cheese Tour”. Now, this always puts us in a quandary as we struggle to justify the purchase of yet more cheese. At any given time, our refrigerator is home to at least four different varieties of cheeses. After this weekend’s purchase, we now have 7. We are such cheese maniacs that we purchased Parmesan Reggiano even though we had a big block at home. There is something just more intense about the flavors and textures of a freshly cut cheese. The cheese guy was kind enough to yield to Wendie’s pleading that he cut her only the teeniest of pieces since this was to be eaten right away. If you are familiar with the family (nay, restaurant) sized packages at Costco, you know how absolutely sweet it was of him to oblige her.
So it was home to make the most elemental of sandwiches – potato rosemary bread with freshly cut Parmesan Regianno cheese. Yum. That was the appetizer which was quickly followed by another made with cilantro-lime shrimp, another Costco food that we have grown to love and find multiple applications for.
Large and succulent, they don’t need much else, so we try to limit the extras. On this particular sandwich, the most significant other ingredient is a small amount of mustard, so be very careful to measure that exactly, or it will completely overpower the taste of the shrimp.
Shrimp Sandwich With Potato Rosemary Bread, Romaine Lettuce, Vodka-Mustard, Gravlakssås, Lemon and Dill
A fresh little appetizer for parties or just for Wednesday night. It’s so easy to make, there really is no reason not to make everyday food a little more interesting. This is also our first ‘sandwich’ without bread, so we’re now starting to push the envelope of our sandwich blog :-).
Surprise your loved one with appetizers after a long day at work, and you’ll be the star of the evening.
Cucumber With Smoked Salmon, Curry Mayonnaise, Capers and Dill Appetizer
After Thanksgiving, it’s time for the leftover turkey to reign supreme. Truth be told, we celebrated thanksgiving with friends, and forgot to bring home leftovers, so, undeterred, we cooked another turkey the next day. Just for sandwiches. Is that dedication or what !?
We recently discovered a great food store in Little Italy in San Diego. It should be noted that Little Italy is very aptly named, since it’s basically just one street. You blink, you miss it. If you are of Italian descent, please move to San Diego so we can add a couple more streets. In Little Italy, we found Assenti’s Pasta, a wonderful little delicatessen shop where you can get fresh pasta of all shapes and forms. Arriving there at 5:59pm we were simply happy traffic had not delayed us more, and positively exuberant that Assenti let us in. Yes, we had a rushed 5 minute shopping spree, but it was great. Here we found muffaletta and tuscan bean spread as well as fresh pasta (which weren’t really for sandwiches, although Anders tried and failed).
This sandwich is our first using the muffaletta, is was delicious. It fell a bit apart due to the iceberg lettuce, which became very slippery with the oil from the muffaletta and the melted cheese. We had to add toothpicks to hold it all together long enough to take pictures.
Turkey Sandwich with Lettuce, Fennel Seeds, Muffaletta, White Bean Tuscan Paste, Paprika, Fresh Sweet Basil Leaves and Creamy Cheese
Since his birthday lunch of seared tuna at Blue Water Seafood Market and Grill, Anders has been dreaming about making a tuna sandwich. But the price of fresh tuna and our relative inexperience with cooking it has served as a big deterrence. You don’t want to ruin a $14/lb tuna steak! Anyway, this weekend he could not be stopped. We finally succumbed and bought a ginormous ahi tuna steak at Costco. This was one fantastic looking steak – probably big enough for 4-5 tuna rolls. So the plan was to sear the tuna, and, borrowing inspiration from Blue Water Seafood, serve it on a soft bun, rather than the artesan-style breads and rolls we typically use.
With a game plan in mind, the search was on for an acceptable roll. Anders just happened to be shopping at Lucky Supermarket – one of the 6 supermarkets that we just had to visit this weekend to satisfy our finicky grocery needs – when he happened upon: Pandesal rolls. Slightly sweet Filipino bread rolls which are very soft. Getting home with the unexpected find, it was time for the searing. A quick Google search, and a plan were laid to do one steak with sesame seeds, and one with a spice rub. From this point on we basically improvised the recipes below based on the content of our pantry, and the rest was… well see for yourselves.
Seared Ahi Tuna Sandwich with Roasted Garlic Mayonnaise and Iceberg Lettuce, Asian Pear, and Avocado
Another day.. another sandwich. I’ve been dreaming of making a salmon patty ever since we started this blog. Today, desire rendezvoused with opportunity. I used Paula Deen’s recipe (of Food Network fame) for the salmon burger and improvised on the cilantro mayonnaise. Actually used miracle whip in place of the mayonnaise. It resulted in a tangier taste than mayonnaise would provide and had the added benefit that it was much healthier (a built in justification for eating that extra sandwich).
Bear in mind that the brevity of the recipe is actually a bit deceptive. All told, it took us about 1 1/2 hours to make this sandwich. It’s probably not an ideal mid week meal but made for a wonderful Friday evening dinner.
Salmon burger on ciabatta with cilantro mayonnaise
