Curing the Sandwich Blahs
The last two meals we had for dinner this week were sandwiches. How boring! How trite! How…how…alas, how busy people eat sometimes. In case any of you food snobs out there are hesitant about serving sandwiches for dinner, here are four tricks I use to assuage my obsessive food snob side when sandwiches are really all we have time for:
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Good bread. Bread can make a huge difference in the quality of your sandwich. I like to make my own (focaccia is my favorite easy one) on the weekend when I have time, but the bakery at our grocery store carries some nice ones too.
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Cheese! I am a cheese fanatic, so most any sandwich filling could use a good dose of a good cheese, in my opinion. Be brave and add a bold cheese to a plain sandwich (I like blue cheese to liven up plain old turkey) or use a creamy cheese and make a nice spread (goat cheese and basil is a favorite around here).
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Crunch. I really like for my sandwiches to have a variety of textures when I bite into them. Bread is nice and soft, cheese is gooey when melted, so something crunchy really adds a lot to the eating experience for me. Bacon works well, or a crunchy lettuce. A sprinkle of green onions or toasted nuts can also add a bit of texture to your sandwich.
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Spread. The sauce part of a sandwich is really important to me. I HATE store-bought mayonnaise worse than anything I can think of at the moment, and mustard is okay, but really only on hot dogs. So, since I’m so fussy, I like to make something to spread on sandwiches. My favorite at the moment is an Artichoke-Caper Spread (recipe below) I adapted from Sara Foster’s Artichoke Aioli. Mine is not quite as complicated, and it makes a ton and keeps well. We spread it on everything from ham sandwiches to pizza.
The sandwich you see in the photo is Chicken Salad on Focaccia. The chicken salad is a mixture of: grilled chicken (from the salad last night), grapes cut in half, toasted pecans, green onion, tiny pieces of red onion, and shredded Parmesan cheese. I dress it with homemade mayonnaise, spiced with a little paprika and seasoned salt.
If you are philosophically opposed to sandwiches for dinner, these ideas work fine for lunch or picnics too! Here’s the recipe for the artichoke spread:
ARTICHOKE-CAPER SANDWICH SPREAD
2 cloves garlic
1 14-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained
1 T. capers, drained
1 cup mayonnaise (I only use homemade, but I’m a freak about the store-bought stuff. It gives me nightmares)
A pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 t. Kosher salt
Juice of a lemon, if you have it
With the food processor running, add the garlic cloves until they’re minced. Then add the artichoke hearts, capers, salt and pepper flakes. Puree. Add mayo and lemon juice. Foster’s recipe also calls for horseradish and mustard, but I leave those two things out. Add them if you wish. Spread on French bread, add a slice of ham and a sprinkle of Feta cheese, and you have yourself a not-so-blah sandwich!
July 23rd, 2011 at 9:07 am
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