Wendie bought these avocados for a salad, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to toast some bread and make a few avocado appetizers. Some would call them mini sandwiches. They’re dead simple and very refreshing when the weather is hot and you have a Sunday evening on the patio with a glass of red wine and Clapton and Bob playing in the background.
Continue reading Appetizer of Avocado With Lemon/Olive Oil/Cilantro Dressing
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 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.
Recently we discovered the joy of smoked salmon on pizzas, and decided to try another one. This is our second pizza from Wendie’s surprise birthday party (of nine total), and also a very popular one amongst our friends. It’s simple in its ingredients, with very subtle tastes. The Sautéed mushroom worked great on the pizza (We used it a few times that night), and on this the avocado brings a coolness to the hot pizza that almost melts with the salmon.
Just for fun, we thought we would ask if Costco would publish one of our sandwiches. That was in November 2009. Imagine our excitement when they said yes! So, due to their long production time, we were scheduled for the March issue of the Costco Connection magazine. The editor asked us if perhaps we could make a St. Patrick’s day inspired sandwich, with corned beef. Of course we could, and with a deadline of mid-january, our Christmas consisted of making several corned-beef adventures since none of us have ever really used it (turns out corned beef is quite tasty). Of our many corned beef sandwiches (some of which we have published already here), we had two favorites:
The winner was this one, a delicious burger with a side of mayo-less coleslaw. Costco unfortunately ran out of space, so the coleslaw couldn’t make it in the magazine. This is, however, the entire recipe. Let us know what you think.
Well, well, it seems we are to be featured in the upcoming Costco Connection magazine (March), with one of our recipes. We’re very excited of course, so make sure you read the next one carefully :). This was planned back in December, which means we spent Christmas contemplating St. Patrick’s Day inspired sandwiches. This is the one that was not chosen to be in the magazine, but which we really loved. It’s based on corned beef naturally, and it has a little green in it. We hope you enjoy, and check back at the end of February to see which one made the (cold) cut…
Continue reading Corned Beef Coleslaw With Avocado on Demi Baguette Sandwich
You may think this is an odd looking giant patty, and you would be right. But there is a reason of course; the patty is stuffed with feta cheese. So take a step back and say “woooa”, then re-evaluate your first impression. Quite frankly, we forgot to take a photo with a cross-cut, so someday we’re going to have to make this again. Until that happens you can always try it yourself, it’s gooood.
Our first creation introducing our Mascarpone Pesto, which turned out to be a brilliant spread for sandwiches and even pizzas. This is one of our leftover turkey sandwiches from Thanksgiving, a fresh creation with a little crunch from the cucumber, and a lot of taste from the pesto.
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.
Lingonberries are small red slightly sour berries that are famous throughout Scandinavia. Lingonberry bread, as the one we have here, is a mix we got at the local Ikea. It is a dark bread, almost rye, with a minimal amount of lingonberries (We found 3), and decent if you’re in a rush (and for just a couple bucks, it’s very well priced). However, we won’t be trying it again, at least not without some augmentation. This sandwich was made on our first lingonberry bread ever, fresh out of the oven (and that’s always good). Sliced turkey from the local deli, creamy garlic paste from the local farmer’s market and fresh avocado and red bell peppers makes up this little adventure. The creamy garlic paste we found is amazing on sandwiches, and we highly recommend it. It’s from ‘The Majestic Garlic”.
