We always are looking to try new ingredients on our sandwiches, and for a while we have been thinking of ways to use melon. Melon can provide a little sweetness and also a little bit of crunch (Depending on the ripeness of the melon of course). It’s fresh, so we added it to smoked salmon to really enhance the sense of ‘freshness’ one wants from fish. The mascarpone-pesto was really a way to ‘water down’ the pesto to not overwhelm the rest of the sandwich, yet provide more depth to the taste experience. We like ‘depth’ in our food, as well as ‘height’ (We are making sandwiches after all).
Potatoes are probably the national vegetable of Denmark. In fact, every year every Dane consumes on average 73 Kg potatoes (160 pounds). Potatoes au Gratin is one of our favorite ways of cooking potatoes, and one of the few ways that Wendie actually likes. It is of course a rather creamy affair, so we don’t do it very often. Recently we indulged ourselves, which left us with a bit of leftovers. Undaunted by the scornful look from Wendie, I went ahead and created this little beaut, a potato au gratin sandwich. What’s not to love when it comes to starch on starch?
This is a pizza made from leftovers in all aspects. The dough is actually from our lavash crackers, so it’s a little bit sweet from the Jamaican honey. The Italian Salsa Verde is from a tasting we did with a caterer for our upcoming wedding. The ham is the last of our Jamaican pineapple Christmas ham. Basically we got one of those inexplicable pizza-cravings while making lavash crackers and quickly improvised the little pizza that could.
There are so many ways one can use falafel to make sandwiches besides the traditional pita bread. Here we have combined it with Italian ciabatta bread because we love that, hot chili sauce because it’s traditional for at least the European Pita style, roasted garlic because it complements the falafel well and Italian Salsa Verde because it brings any food a little closer to food-nirvana (No seriously, add some to your next pizza, sandwich, paste, rice or potatoes and see for yourself). The salsa verde is very close to pesto, bu is a lot more lemony which adds a great flavor.
We love to make lavash crackers, they are fun, fairly easy, and you can use them for appetizers like this one. This is very simply just two of our own crackers with a falafel, homemade pesto, and sprinkled with smoked paprika. We had this around midnight while watching the episode of Lost where Locke stops the islands time-switches. It was an on-the-spur of the moment little snack we just improvised with what was available, but it turned our really good. In fact, we’re now considering if these may be worth serving at our wedding reception in April (Yeah, we’re getting married). Well done Locke, we salute you with falafel !
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).
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.
We’ve never had corned beef before, but recently decided to give it a try. This is our first attempt, and while we are not quite happy with the look of this sandwich, it tasted great. This was of course also another reason to get out ye olde burner, to give the Parmesan on top a little color. The burner was a Christmas gift from a couple years ago, and besides making flan (which we have yet to do), its usefulness is being seriously challenged. However, it’s coolness is unquestioned.
This is a simple to make appetizer that looks great and taste even better. We used architokelemon pesto (Trader Joe’s), but regular pesto would make an equally good sandwich. We just like to mix things up a bit… that and use the multitude of spreads we have from our over exuberant grocery shopping. The Genoa salami is from a deli in Little Italy, but could be substituted for your own local variations.
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.