This recipe originally comes from Jamie Oliver, from his book “Jamie’s Italy“. We recently bought it and very quickly fell in love with his down-to-earth simple taste foods. Absolutely gorgeous. This is how we made our fava bean crostini, which turned out beautifully. In the background, you’ll notice some other crostinis which were also inspired by Jamie and which we will write about in future posts.
Many of the sandwiches on this blog are the result of a specific plan and shopping trip to realize an idea that one or both of us have. I’ll be sitting at work and have an idea that just must be pursued. More often than not, this means I have to make a trip to the grocery store to purchase one of more of the critical component for the dreamed-up sandwich. Other times, a sandwich just sort of emerges from the ingredients on hand- it’s a case of just opening the refrigerator and pantry doors and letting our creativity run wild. In Jamaica, we have a saying for that: “tun yuh han’ an mek fashion”. I won’t bother providing the literal translation, since, as with all languages, much gets lost in that endeavor. I suppose the nearest English equivalent I can find is: ‘necessity is the mother of invention’. Hmm.. even that attempt seems to dilute the essence of this colloquialism.
Anyway, this sandwich was one result of us making fashion by sleight of hand. The ingredients – pugiliese bread, blue cheese and salsa verde left over from the much-mentioned recent wedding @ and zucchini left unused from recent stir fry.
Continue reading Rhapsody In Green: Grilled Zucchini Sandwich
The loveliness of Denmark is much reduced by the frequent rains, but infinitely improved by the bakery on every block. This sandwich revolves around the ‘horn’, a roll shaped a little like a horn, and covered in puppy seeds (‘birkes’ we call them in Denmark). The crayfish tail salad is from the local fish-monger, and tasted delicious.
Continue reading Danish ‘Horn’ Sandwich With Crayfish Tail Salad And Lovage
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.
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 our kitchen remodel is under way now, and today our old kitchen was reduced to rubble, and placed in a giant container outside the house. We are very excited to get the new one in about 4-6 weeks, and before the demilition began we had the sanity to make a few sandwiches and pizzas to keep things interesting while we await perfection. This weekend we shall attempt some sandwiches made entirely on our BBQ, and look forward to being creating. Until then, this is a little gem we made last week, falafel (great for sandwiches), with a nice homemade yogurt dressing. We hope you enjoy it.
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
This being winter, we thought we would provide a recipe for a summer garden favorite. And no, we do not find anything incongruous about this. What better time to start dreaming about the goodies of summer than now when the cold seems interminable. Okay, so as people lucky enough to live in San Diego which is as close to weather perfection as it ever gets in the US, we do not really experience winter – at least not of the snowmageddon variety. Anyway, one of the veggies that will reward you with copious production is the zucchini. Two plants can produce enough for a family of four for the growing season. With our limited space, we’ve regretfully stayed away from it. Our rationale – we have a well stocked market within 2 minutes walk of our house and it’s pretty hard to give up tomato space. So since we love zucchini but don’t always have it growing in the garden, we are so happy to be able to purchase was needed.
This little side dish is so simple, tasty and healthy. It is just bursting with flavor that we almost want to do a little dance as we eat it. Yes, it is that good.
One of our crazy experiments finally paid off. The addition of the salad dressing to this bread takes this simple sandwich to a whole new level. The bread, after toasting, is moist but yet crunchy. The dressing adds a ‘zing‘ to the ham. This sandwich reminds us of Woodstock: a mixed bag of nuts making sweet music together. Feel the love, add the dressing!
Slice the potatoes into 1/4 inch thick slices. Lay them out in a casserole. Mix everything else together and pour over the potatoes. If the cheese stays on top then mix it in. Place casserole in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. If the potatoes starts getting burned, turn oven down to 450, and cover with aluminum foil. Leave them an additional 10 minutes in that case. We have a very bad oven, we know.