There are occasions when my enthusiasm goes a bit overboard… This is one such occasion, where dinner turned into a monster sandwich. By the way, nerd moment; the top photo reminds me of the “alien” in the movie of the same name. Anyone see the resemblance?
There is something oddly alien and organic about beech mushrooms that just makes them pop in photos. As an added benefit, they also taste really good, and you can usually pick up a bunch from your local Asian grocery store. Cut of the base where they are all connected and treat them like ordinary mushrooms after that. This sandwich brings out the best of the mushrooms, because they are so prominent compared to the other ingredients. We opted for a brief sautéing with olive oil and thyme.
Continue reading Meatball Sandwich with Sautéed Beech Mushrooms
For the past two months, we’ve been hosting weekly pizza parties. Well, truth be told, they have been competitive throw downs where our friends are invited to say goodbye to the week that was and bring their best recipes to battle it out for the pizza crown. We’ve had some pretty fantastic creations. After 8 weeks though, inspiration begins to wane. So we were quite excited to hear of the tastespotting.com Johnsonville Italian Sausage competition. Inspiration, the chance to get our pizza on our favorite food porn site AND the likelihood (albeit remote) of winning a food making competition. How could we not be excited?
Anders had this one on his mind for a whole week and came up with this creation: Johnsonville Italian Sausage Pizza with roasted garlic, Portobello mushrooms and topped with parmesan crisps and toasted pine nuts. Does it get any crazier than this? We hope you like it, and if you do please vote for us when the time comes.
Sometimes a man needs to be a man, and that’s when he makes “The Big Bad Wolf Burger“. Oh yeah, 1/2 pound of patty with basil, cilantro, oven roasted garlic and blue cheese chunks. What a great 4th of July celebration that was. Inspired by the moment, I topped it off with crispy hash browns and a jackfruit/avocado rough guacamole. I can’t even begin to tell you how good this burger is, but this is so far the best burger I’ve had in my life. The jackfruit guacamole sweetness perfectly blends with the spicy mayo, the juicy patty, and the crunchy hash browns. These are the times when I think back to all the missed opportunities of my childhood to celebrate with awesome burgers, the food of men 😉
This is what we call a ‘lazy’ sandwich. After a long day at work, we were too tired to cut the bread, so two sandwiches became one. On the left some smoked mackerel imported from Denmark. Danes are very good at smoking fish, and have quite a reputation for smoked herring, smoked cod roe and smoked mackerel. On the right, a simple smoked salmon with avocado sandwich. Quick dinner, simple to make, and very good. The bread is a pane siciliano that we made over the weekend, and which turned out unexpectedly flat (although well tasting). Perhaps not our most exciting sandwich, but still… good.
Continue reading Lazy Smoked Mackerel & Salmon With Avocado Sandwich
A great tasting pizza for every occasion. This is fairly simple to make except for the dough, but places like Trader Joe’s now sell pizza dough which should make this super easy. We made this pizza as part of a giant birthday party involving 8 other pizzas which you can find elsewhere on amazing sandwiches.
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 🙂
“A Winter’s Sandwich”. Granted, in San Diego, winter is when the temperature drops to 50 degrees, and a storm is when we get 2 inches of rain and traffic slows down to 63 mph. We have it easy. This is a sandwich we made mostly from leftovers, some ham, some prosciutto, and half an avocado. We have pretty good leftovers I guess. It was an excellent afternoon in the low winter sun, with a warm sandwich and a glass of red wine in the swing. Life’s good.
Leftover chicken is fantastic. Carefully pick all the little pieces of meat off, and make yourself a nice chicken salad. It’s very easy and simple, and we quite frankly look forward to the day after the roast as much as the roast itself. We have fallen in love with pepitas seeds (aka pumpkin seeds): These seeds are fantastic on sandwiches, as they provide some ‘crunch’ and taste great on top. We find them to be very under-utilized and the next experiment will be to try them on pizzas. We already know they work wonders on Lavash crackers. Posting this recipe makes us long to have a kitchen again, as currently everything we have is torn out and dumped. Over the next four weeks, we hope our fantastic contractor will be done building it back up, with lovely Calacutta marble counter tops and custom cabinets. Ahhh dreams…
This burger looks quite simple, but the onions make it very moist and delicious while the roasted garlic gives it a great taste. This is definitely one of our favorite burgers so far. In the next few weeks our kitchen is being renovated, and we’re not sure how we can keep up our frantic sandwich making pace. We will have access to an outdoor BBQ with a side stove, and… restaurants. Idea for BBQ sandwiches/burgers that can be easily prepared with no kitchen would be highly appreciated 🙂
Continue reading Burger with Roasted Garlic Mayo and Caramelized Onions