Category Archives: Pepper

Grilled Zucchini Sandwich With Oven-Roasted Tomatoes & Parsley-Jalapeno Paste

If you’ve been in San Diego for the past few weeks, you would be wondering where is that glorious San Diego sunshine that we are known for. It’s been nothing but rain and overcast skies and nary a day above 70 degrees. Of course, for our mid-West and East coast friends, you are now reading this with great disdain for our inability to tolerate any temperature below 70. We can’t help it – we are spoiled. In my case though I don’t mind the colder weather as much as I mind what it means for the backyard garden. It is in the decline of production that I see the first signs of the end of summer, and am reminded that I need to get the jackets cleaned before the winter really hits us. The tomatoes have yielded the last of their crop; the cucumbers have given up their valiant fight; the basil plants are beginning to go to seed and the zucchini – that prodigious producer – has finally kicked the bucket. Time to pull up the old plants and start with the winter garden. In the meantime, here’s a sandwich that serves as an ode to summers past: grilled zucchini with parsley-jalapeno paste and roasted tomatoes. We made this in the good old days of summer.

Grilled Zucchini Sandwich With Oven Roasted Tomatoes And Hot Salsa Verde
Grilled Zucchini Sandwich With Oven Roasted Tomatoes And Hot Salsa Verde

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Hummus And Buffalo Mozzarella Sandwich

This is a simple sandwich for people in a rush (well, assuming you have the ingredients available). You need some hummus, and a bit of really good mozzarella, like this buffalo mozzarella which is smooth and creamy. We make our own hummus, which is a variation on this recipe: Sun-Dried Tomato and Basil Hummus. This is a spicy hummus with cilantro and banana peppers instead of the sun-dried tomato basil.

Hummus And Buffalo Mozzarella Sandwich
Hummus And Buffalo Mozzarella Sandwich

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Breakfast Soft-Boiled Egg Sandwich

The breakfast sandwich is one sandwich that doesn’t get enough mention on this blog. Perhaps that’s because I’ve considered my breakfast sandwich choices to be too uninspired for this blog.  Some people’s idea of a breakfast sandwich is bacon, eggs, sausage, cheese or some combination thereof. Mine is much simpler – just an egg (either soft boiled or scrambled) that gets enjoyed on a weekend morning (typically Saturdays).  For me, Saturday mornings are rife with possibilities. It is the beginning of two uninterrupted days of freedom when I can indulge some of the little personal pleasures that are bypassed in the hustle and bustle of the work week. One of these is the breakfast.  On workdays, breakfast is a grab-and-go cup of coffee or tea and whatever fruit happens to be available at the moment, both of which gets consumed during my commute to the office.  If I’m particularly hungry, a boiled egg gets tossed into the mix, to be eaten when I arrive at work.  I look forward to the slower pace of the weekend breakfast. There I have a leisurely meal that serves as punctuation between my work week and weekend of freedom.  For the most part, the basic ingredients remain the same as the work week breakfast; what differs is the preparation and presentation.  The coffee/tea is served in a mug/teacup rather than my travel thermos; the single fruit is exchanged for a bowl of homemade fresh fruit salad; and the egg is served either scrambled or soft boiled, with or without a slice of toast.   Better yet is that I get to enjoy this sitting on my favorite garden bench (weather permitting).  It’s  a breakfast that is a sort of culinary exhalation – as if to say,  “Aaah.. it’s weekend and this is my time.”

Breakfast Egg Sandwich
Breakfast Egg Sandwich

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Pizza With Sautéed Leeks, Grilled Mushrooms and Goat Cheese Whipped with Lemon Zest

This summer we have introduced a new tradition in the Amazing Sandwich home – Pizza Cook-off Fridays. What started as dinner with a friend who came over to show us how to make pizza on the grill, has morphed into my new favorite evening of the week. The basic concept is this: get some friends together, Anders and I provide the dough and competitors bring their favorite wines and toppings for 3-4 hours of trash talking, ardent pizza making, even more ardent eating, and just a wonderfully good time.  So far, we’ve had some awesome creations: classic margarita with fresh tomatoes from our respective gardens; pesto with grilled mushrooms; feta with hummus, grilled pork and finished with tahini drizzle; smoked salmon with thin lemon slivers; apricots with prosciutto and arugula. But my favorite so far was one entry from last weekend: sautéed leeks with garlic, grilled oyster and shimeji mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella and then topped with dollops of a whipped goat cheese/lemon zest blend and sprinkled with fresh thyme.  It was divine. I mean really…it was soo good it bears repeating – it was divine!  We whipped the goat cheese with a fork, added some lemon zest and bit of olive oil.  After baking in the oven, it was so light and creamy and the lemon just gave it the perfect amount of tang.  I can’t wait till Friday – we might just make this one again.

Leeks with grilled shimeji and oyster mushrooms and topped with whipped goat cheese
Leeks with grilled shimeji and oyster mushrooms and topped with whipped goat cheese

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Steak Sandwich With Shimeji Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Cheese And Balsamic Vinegar Reduction

A few months ago, we posted about our ongoing quest to ensure that our reformed vegetarian friend S. doesn’t abandon his recent embrace of the omnivore diet.  To wit, that meant introducing him to foods that showcase the diversity of his new diet.  That is no mean feat. You see he is fortunate enough to be from a country that has enjoyed thousands of years of history of making vegetarian food. So for him, American vegetarian food is definitely lacking in options. He still bemoans the fact that vegetarian food at most restaurants consists of some steamed or sautéed veggies with pasta and a sauce with a unidimensional flavor.  That just does not work for him – he is used to a cornucopia of flavors of incredible intensity and variety.  He assumed that when he switched diets, he would have more variety (read; flavor), but has since found that to him it is just ‘more texture, but same lack of flavor’.  In other words, Bleh! 

So it is Anders’ and my responsibility to be good evangelists of all things omnivore.  We take this very seriously. Last time he was here we made this little sandwich to showcase some of the flavors we love about meat.  And by we, I mean Anders:-).  Unlike Anders who (nearly) salivates at the very prospect of eating meat, I am not much of a meat lover myself.  I feel about meat the way I feel about bacon – aphathetic.  So I figured that if I could make a sandwich for S. that I was in love with, then he was sure to love it as well.  This is a simple sandwich with really great ingredients that unite superbly- grilled steak (medium rare); mushrooms sautéed with garlic and thyme (my favorite way to make mushrooms); Cambozola cheese (a combination of French soft ripened triple cream cheese and Italian gorgonzola, and a staple in the kitchen); and to crown this all…a drizzle of balsamic reduction as benediction.  I humbly submit that there is no greater steak sandwich than this.  OK… maybe next time I could add a slice of avocado 🙂 

Steak Sandwich With Shimeji Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Cheese And Balsamic Vinegar Reduction
Steak Sandwich With Shimeji Mushrooms, Gorgonzola Cheese And Balsamic Vinegar Reduction

 

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Figs, Prosciutto, Blue Cheese, and Arugula Sandwich

It’s that time of year in our local farmers’ markets.  Our longer than average spring has given way to summer and with it has come one of the fruits that I only started eating when I moved to California – figs, glorious figs.   There are some fruits whose appearance and tastes you can describe by comparing it to another. But a fig… Nothing tastes like a fig. It just is.  Figs are popping up all over and once again, I am beginning to flirt with the idea of adding a tree to my garden.  Until then though, I have kind friends who help satisfy my cravings by sharing from the bounty of their own gardens.  This sandwich is the result of one such gift – a basket of black mission pigs.

While there are many ways to add figs to your diet, this is by far my favorite. The saltiness of the prosciutto, creaminess of the Cambazola (a soft ripened triple cream blue cheese) and the nuttiness of arugula – what at taste sensation. If ever a sandwich could be described as sensual, then this is it.

Figs Prosciutto Blue Cheese and Arugula Sandwich
Figs Prosciutto Blue Cheese and Arugula Sandwich

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Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks

A fantastic sandwich, using the highly undervalued leek. That’s right. When is the last time YOU cooked with leeks? That’s what we thought. We made the rolls specifically for this sandwich, they have a center (which you can’t see on the photos) of pesto-infused dough. It was a grand experiment, but in reality they didn’t rise quite as expected. This was our best specimen of the lot.

Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks
Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks

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Jamie’s Bruschetta Appetizer

This is another of Jamie Oliver’s recipes we decided to make along with the “ Grilled Eggplant Crostini Appetizer” and the “Fava Bean Crostini Appetizer” both from his delicious book “Jamie’s Italy“. It’s basically tomatoes, basil olive oil and a slice of bread. The key is as always to use great ingredients for great results. We tweaked it a little like we always do since we believe in creative liberties.

And today we just launched the free Amazing Sandwiches iPad application. Why do you ask? Well, because we can. Browse all our sandwiches in glamorous high-res – literally sandwiches at your fingertips. It’s not fancy, it’s just… sandwiches. Enjoy. Oh, and you can download it directly from here.

Bruschetta Appetizer
Bruschetta Appetizer

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Grilled Salmon With Fava Beans, Parmesan And Radish Sandwich

This sandwich was really just a quick lunch-snack to keep us going through a long day of yard work. Putting down the gloves after weeding the tomato garden we found a bit of leftover grilled salmon from the night before, some veggies, and voila, a sandwich was born. When I grew up in Denmark, my mother tended to make the same sandwiches day after day. Liver pate sandwich, potato sandwich, Russian salad sandwich, chocolate sandwich (dessert). Rinse, repeat. Now, with this blog, we have made literally hundreds of different sandwiches, and I wonder what my childhood would have been like with that kind of variety. It’s so easy to have fun with sandwiches, so don’t get stuck in the same humdrum, live a little 🙂

Grilled Salmon With Fava Beans, Parmesan And Radish Sandwich
Grilled Salmon With Fava Beans, Parmesan And Radish Sandwich

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Sandwich With Smoked Salmon And Cilantro Mayonnaise

How many ways can you make a smoked salmon sandwich?  It turns out there are many – or so my search on Tastespotting revealed.  Tastespotting is pure visual food pornography – some awesome photos of really great food with popularity driven by the online food community. We love it and have had a few of our own creations featured there.  Sometimes I am just starved for inspiration. When we first started this ambitious blog, I thought coming up with 100 sandwiches would be itself an epic feat. Now as we approach the 200 sandwich mark, I marvel at some of the creations that we have come up with. Anders’ Big Bad Wolf Burger is one such marvel.  As you can imagine, with this many sandwiches behind us, it becomes increasingly difficult to come up with a creative (and postable) sandwich.  When those moments happen, I turn to the Internet.  Today it was Draganabakes by way of  a photo on Tastespotting.   That recipe included a shallot mayonnaise. With the abundance of cilantro from my last run to the grocery store, I decided to whip up some cilantro mayonnaise instead.

Smoked Salmon with Cilantro Mayonnaise Sandwich
Smoked Salmon with Cilantro Mayonnaise Sandwich

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