Sandwich

Sandwiches organized neatly: apple tuna sandwich

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I am a completely uncreative person.

This mini sandwich series has been inspired by two things and two things only. One of those things is not a Hilary stroke of genius. Unfortunately.

Blame/credit Things Organized Neatly (awesome Tumblr) and What to Cook & How to Cook It (awesome cookbook).

Current desktop background, photos compiled from Things Organized Neatly
Best cookbook

Well now that I’ve admitted to being a shameless Internet troll and design copycat, let me introduce you to something I did think up myself: this delicious apple tuna sandwich filling. I would say it is the most delicious tuna fish sandwich that I’ve ever eaten, but I am in no way qualified to make that statement. It’s only my third ever.

Baby cans (3.5 oz) of tuna were on sale at the grocery store the other day, and, since I can’t really afford paying for groceries anymore, I stocked up. I also want to do a craft with the empty cans in the near future. Because, you know, I need more DIY stuff to hold my other stuff.

Anyways, here’s what was in this sandwich:

Cheer up, Mr. Sandwich!

– Two cans of tuna, half an apple, celery, green onions, pepper, chopped walnuts and mayonnaise

And, as if I don’t already spend enough time photographing my food once it’s done, this step-by-step, organized neatly thing is a heck of a lot more work. It involves me kicking open our screen door multiple times and nearly face planting into the porch as I perch birds-eye-view above the food. Strange stares and judgmental glances from passersby happen throughout, but I’m used to that by now (hey, at least I’m not standing on chairs anymore).

PS: I get that these photos aren’t completely step-by-step, but do you really want to be the one who takes pictures of me dicing the apple? Nope, didn’t think so.

Continue reading →

Advertisement

A Stella Luna-inspired prosciutto panini(ish)

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I’m officially done my journalism degree! Clearly that means one thing – time to make some kick ass sandwiches.

Okay, but really, this sandwich – a make-shift panini – should be made regardless of whether or not you have a reason to celebrate. It’s inspired by the to-die-for paninis that they make at Stella Luna Gelato Café, my favourite neighbourhood retreat.

Why the panini(ish)? Well, I’m lacking a panini maker, meaning that I am forced to go without those fun, aesthetically-pleasing, highly-photographable lines on my sandwich. I’ll just have to deal. Broiling things is far more fulfilling and even sets off my fire alarm once in awhile.

The sandwich was organized neatly, because you know how i get into these neurotic streaks.

Here is what’s inside:

Prosciutto (sheds a succulent, fatty juice upon heating), a fresh panini bun, arugula (king of all greens), a couple of wedges of Parmesan cheese (the likes of which I re-discovered in our fridge’s meat drawer) and a scoop full of creamy, seasoned goat’s cheese (which I have no side comments about).

Stick ’em all together, broil the heck out of it and you get a melty, ooey-gooey mess of sandwich. Sure to please all. But mostly me. While I was studying for my j4k exam reading The Hunger Games.

Continue reading →

Grilled Chicken and Red Pepper Sandwich with Brie

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I finally got sick of eating sesame seed bagels with strawberry cream cheese.  After a day of March Break tour guiding yesterday, I was famished and knew I needed to make myself something delicious and nutritious for supper. I haven’t cooked in a little while and it seemed as though I was a little out of practice with this whole meal decision thing. Because of this, I wandered around the grocery store for a torturous amount of time, pondering what it was that I wanted to eat.  Now that I look back, the answer was so simple.

I wanted a sandwich.

I’ve been craving a gourmet sandwich ever since I made my mom the pear, ham and gruyere sandwich over reading week. As I walked up and down the deli aisle of the grocery store, I was practically drooling in anticipation.  But what would I put on my sandwich?  Since I’m not a fan of duplicate blog posts, I needed to make something dramatically different than my mom’s fruity fare.  So I improvised.  I was getting a huge chunk of brie anyways (because I eat an unhealthy amount of cheese), and decided to build my sandwich around this.  Add some grilled chicken, red pepper and leftover red onion and voila!  I’m a master sandwich maker (no sexist jokes, please).  Also, the only protein I’ve eaten in what seems like weeks has been cheese, so it was nice to have some chicken in there.  Finally, I had some parsley leftover in the fridge, so I decided to throw that in for fun.  I popped the entire sandwich in the toaster oven for a bit and everything got heated, melty and ultra flavourful.  I’m almost salivating just thinking about it.

The recipe is under the pictures, ch-ch-check it out!

Continue reading →

Pear, Ham, and Gruyere Melt with Pesto

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

I unfortunately did not get to eat this sandwich.

It has now been three days since I got my wisdom teeth removed, but I am still unable to open my mouth properly.  The only way I can eat is by taking the tiniest baby bites of food, chewing them carefully with my front teeth like I’m a rodent nibbling on a seed, and mushing that food around in my mouth until I eventually swallow the entire thing, still partially whole.  It takes me approximately an hour to eat a single meal.

With this dilemma in mind, it probably would have taken me an entire afternoon to eat this sandwich.  Instead of wasting away at the kitchen table listening to David Suzuki talk about decomposing bodies (seriously, this was what was on CBC  at lunch time), I decided to instead make this sandwich for my mom.  This sandwich was inspired by the leftover gruyere we had sitting in our fridge from the mac and cheese I made earlier this week.  The pear, gruyere, ham combination came flitting into my mind one day, and a quick googling told me that the three together would produce wonderful flavours.  My mom’s verdict of the sandwich was that it was really good, so I’ll have to take her word for it until I can eat solid foods again and make myself a duplicate of this sandwich back in Ottawa.

Anatomy of the sandwich:

Bread: focaccia or ciabatta bun
Layer 1: Two slices of black forest ham
Layer 2: Approximately six thin slices of gruyere cheese
Layer 3: One pear, sliced thinly
Layer 4: Pepper, to the max
Layer 5: Arugula
Layer 6: a dabbling of pesto

Voila! A delicious and quick lunchtime melt that is suitable for feeding mothers, significant others or, most importantly, yourself.  Grill all these things together and you have a savoury and filling sandwich.  I made my mom’s sandwich in our fancy convection microwave since it has a special “grill” button.  If you don’t have one of these high tech devices, you can always just melt everything in your toaster oven or oven.  Gosh I wish I had tried a bite.

PS: This whole wisdom teeth thing isn’t all bad.  Case in point: I’m currently eating a homemade chocolate milkshake with a spoon.  Life is grand.

Continue reading →

Pesto Onion Steak Sandwiches (AKA the most tasty sandwich ever)

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

Well, I most certainly wasn’t planning on making a nice dinner tonight.  Recovering from what was a completely sugar-consumed weekend in Toronto (seriously, yesterday all I ate was funnel cake, oreos, chips and McDonalds…), I was thinking of taking it easy and making the standard toast, peanut butter and applesauce.  Then it hit me – tonight was the finale of Hell’s Kitchen (GO HOLLI!).  As an informal rule, whenever I watch some sort of culinary show, I am obligated to make something worthy to eat while watching it.

Adding to that rule was the fact that I haven’t had any sort of real protein in my diet for so long (besides chicken, but that only half counts), so I decided to go all out and eat the best of the best: steak!  For the first time, I didn’t even buy the discounted will-go-bad-in-a-day steak, and bought my first meat purchase over $4.  I’m moving up in the world!

Thisrecipe was from my Canadian Living Everyday Favourites cookbook, and involved some delicious teriyaki-dijon mustard marinated steak and red onions sautéed in pesto.  Also, if I were to rank this sandwich on a messiness scale of one to 10, I would have to declare this one a solid 24.  It’s a good thing that I firmly believe that the messier something is, the better it tastes.  Bringing leftovers for lunch – the co-workers will be disgusted by my inability to eat cleanly.  Will try my hardest.