complimentary fresh cut fruit

Awhile ago I was talking about comfort sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly seems to be the one everyone agrees on.  Now this person I was talking to said that she had gotten one that had strawberries cut up and added on and thought this mind blowing!

Now it's been months... maybe in fact a year since I was told to try this out, yet every time I've made a PB&J  since I have neglected to take the extra step, pretty lame I know. However, today when I returned home from running errands all over the city and was super hungry I  walked into the kitchen to find a bowl of strawberries I had left out to snack on and decided today was the day to do this.

Now I don't know how the rest of you make your PB&J's but I like to lightly toast my bread, that way the peanut butter melts into the warm toast and you get a great texture with the crisped outside and soft inside (the toast, by the way, was made with Semifreddi's sliced sourdough, yum).  And while the bread was toasting I cut up a few strawberries and that addition was just as awesome as I had been promised!  I'm not one for super sweet things and tend to go light on the jelly so the natural sweetness and juices from the berries was a perfect compliment to the entirety of the PB&J.  

saturday night horror

 

I'm only willing to accept partial blame for this one.  Ok, yes, I was the one that came home from the corner store with a package of bologna and a bag of "flamas" (Mexican chili-lime) Doritos.  But when I sat down at the couch with my late night snack, it was a simple bologna and cheddar sandwich with a bowl of chips on the side.  It was only at the prompting of Els did the two combine, against the will of GOD, in unholy matrimony.  I therefor suggest that any hate mail/picketings/prayers for eternal souls be directed at her, and not me.  Even though I'm the one that ate this.... and thought it was GREAT.  Does it make it any less trashy that it was on nice German Farm bread, with imported German mustard and a good sharp cheddar bought at the local co-op?  No, it only makes it that much worse.  What a horribly trashy and shameful sandwich.  But, I think I have some chips and bologna left over in the kitchen right now...... and I do need to eat lunch..... don't judge me!

chicken, fig and goat cheese

Here's a sandwich Els whipped up for lunch today!  One of the things that most impresses me about her cooking is that before last night, she had never cooked with fig before.  Yet somehow we ended up coming home from the store with figs and now today I had before me a chicken sandwich topped with fig.  I thought the combination of flavors in the sandwich was amazing.  The very first taste I noticed was the sweetness of the fig, which was very sugary and gooey.  The sweetness gave way to the sour sharp flavor of the goat cheese, the creamy texture of which melted together nicely with the fig.  Finally, there was a very surprising spicy bite from the mustard Els used- surprising because the mustard has such a strong and typically overwhelming flavor, but was used in moderation and so it didn't become noticeable until after the other flavors.  I think the only drawback to this sandwich was that we ran out of roast chicken- the various flavors of this sandwich were so strong that I think they could have used a more neutral flavor at the center, and big chunks of chicken would have done nicely.  Still!  This was such a good lunch.... I think Els is some kind of sandwich savant.

veggie burger with spicy pickled peppers

Speaking of Tartine bread, here's a little homemade veggie burger on a loaf from Tartine, topped with Wildly Spicy Pickled Peppers from the Happy Girl Kitchen Company.  There's some spicy honey mustard on there too.  What can I say, some times I like my flavors LOUD.

veggies and tartine bread

I was given a loaf a bread from Tartine this week.  This bread is the best!  When I've gotten it fresh outa the oven I can't even make it home without inhaling half the loaf, it's super fluffy and moist and when it's fresh it seems to just melt in the mouth. 

One of the best things about great bread (well good ingredients in general) is that you don't have to do much to make a great tasting meal.  With the weird summer fog San Francisco has been experiencing I've been very lazy in the mornings this week.  I've been staying in bed longer, not wanting to put a lot of effort into prepping food for the day and also I've been running out the door late.  So lunch has been thrown together rather haphazardly.  

This sandwich features Tartine's Country Bread, sliced pink lady apple, spinach, sharp cheddar, dijon burgundy mustard, spinach, and red onion.  I tend to eat some version of this a lot and I really like how balanced all the flavors tend to be, sweet and savory with a hint of heat. 

technological advancement

It still lives!! I know there's been a lot of downtime at this blog lately and rumors have been running rampant- I developed a severe wheat allergy, I joined a strict Atkins-diet cult, I renounced sandwiches and proclaimed I would from now on eat only tacos and burritos. Not true! I've just been working 2 jobs and have been more focused on EATING sandwiches rather than writing about them. But now i've set up this nifty mobile-blogging deal and can write up and post reviews mere moments after eating them! In fact, i'm doing that right now! See that killer salami, cheddar and heirloom tomato sandwich up there? Els fixed that up only minutes ago! It was delicious. Stick around, there's a bunch of new and great sandwich shops in San Francisco and we intend to eat at all of them or get fat trying!

camping!!

Els and I spent the weekend enjoying the woods and delicious camp-cooking with some good friends.  For dinner on Friday, Els made some crazy-delicious portabello burgers with smoked gouda, grilled green onions and Inglehoffer's stone-ground dijon mustard.  For a meal made on a little two-burner Coleman campstove, this was fine gourmet.  What is it about cooking in the great outdoors that makes food so extra-satisfying?  Is it the smell of the trees, the gentle sound of the river and songbirds?  Is it the primal satisfaction of escaping the soul-crushing, unnatural grind of city life?  Is it because Els used almost an entire stick of butter cooking these?  Truly, a question for the ages.

homemade vegan cheesesteak!

Here's a vegan cheesesteak sandwich I made!

A cross section:

bread
(veg.)mayo
homemade vegan cheese*
carmelized onion
grilled bell pepper
trader joes meatless beef strips
a little bbq sauce
bread

Ah, so good.  It would have been better on a roll, but the SOMA trader joes didn't have any. 


*I'm pretty down on gross fake cheeses, but a couple months ago I made a macaroni and cheese recipe from Vegansaurus and it turned out really well, so I did a similar thing here: earth balance melted in a pan, a little water, lots of nutritional yeast, tamari, tumeric, smoked paprika, garlic powder and salt and then some corn starch whisked in to thicken it.  This would be a little weird on a cold sandwich, but for melty vegan cheese uses, it's way better than packaged soy/rice cheeses.

more from on the road

As my stomach started to grumble while out snowshoeing, the knowledge of the exsisting left-over half piece of steak back at the cabin gave me the extra endurance to finish the hike and I crossed my fingers Aw wouldn't want it for his lunch.

The thing that gives this basic left-over meat sandwich it's edge is the greens. Fresh chinese broccoli from a farmer's market in Oakland added a mild bitter flavor cut with a hint of sweetness.

The proportions of flavors in total were well balanced, mild cheddar cheese, grilled steak, fresh tomato, red onion, chinese broccoli, brown mustard and mayo all on sliced wheat. Each ingredient could be identified as well as subtly complimenting the others.

Just woke up and I need a sandwich

I woke up very early this morning and I knew just what I was gonna make. The ultimate breakfast sandwich! Ciabatta sandwich round two!

It was rather similar than the last sandwich I made previously but I planned to make it with a bit more care. I put avocado on both sides of the bread (not too much) and a slice of muenster cheese. I put the bread in the oven to get it all nice, warm, and crunchy

Then I sliced up some mushrooms with an egg. (No need to admire my cooking skills, folks)

Then the meat! I was really ready to make the ultimate breakfast sandwich! Too bad when I grabbed the sausage it wasn't there! It was in the freezer and hard as a rock! It would have taken forever to thaw so I had to settle for a less appropriate meat: Salmon. (Again). I put it all together and added a couple slices of tomato, lemon, and dash of salt. Final product: Some sorry mess.

I actually did manage to take a photo before the bite but I think the bite really shows the contents of the sandwich well. It was a really nicely put together sandwich except for the salmon. The taste of egg and salmon kinda grossed me out. I felt like I was guilt tripped into this sandwich. It would have been so much more amazing without the salmon and tomatoes! It should've been Italian sausage! Then it would have been the ultimate, roll out of bed sandwich to enjoy before the sun rises.

Ah, well. It was hearty and it hit a spot but not the spot. Next time...

I'm not proud but I am hungry

I am also impatient. The proof is in the bite I took before taking the photo. Either way, it was around midnight when I made this. I just saw some ciabatta bread, salmon, and avocados and decided to make a sandwich.. There wasn't much thought put into this sandwich. I toasted the bread and prepared an avocado (isn't cutting one open the best thing in the world?), cut several slices of tomato, and put a bit of cream cheese with herbs on one side. I went pretty wild with the avocado, though, and it overwhelmed the sandwich. I couldn't taste the salmon and could only feel the texture of the tomatoes. It could have used a dash of spices and a little bit of lemon but I only realized this after I devoured this. Despite being only able to taste the avocado and ciabatta it was still satisfying even if it was carelessly put together. For a midnight snack this hit the spot.

grilled cheese, apple & spinach

I mentioned in my last entry Atlas' grilled cheese with apple- this is a homemade version that Els made recently. The cheese, however, was Cowgirl Creamery cheese (I got a bunch as an excellent Christmas present). What else is there to say but that this sandwich ruled?

roast beef and apple

  

Roast beef with apple, red onion, spinach and dijon mustard!!  UH, ROAST BEEF AND APPLE!!!  Why did no one think of this before?  Or did they?  Does this sandwich have a name?  It was super, super good.  I can't even describe what a weird and awesome flavor the combination of roast beef and apple has.  This sandwich RULED. BTW- I surprised Els for lunch this day, and this sandwich is what she had packed. Like, just a casual, everyday kinda lunch. I think she is kinda crazy.

(this is not a review of) Els' eggplant sandwich

Newest bxb contributor Els isn't just a sandwich reviewer, she's also a pretty killer sandwich maker.  And yesterday, she pointed out that I haven't ever reviewed any of the sandwiches she's made for me.  "I guess I'll just have to keep making you sandwiches until you post about one!" she said.
...
SO... this is NOT a review of today's lunch, an amazing sandwich with eggplant and fire-roasted peppers with Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam cheese, and carmelized red onions and black olive in a homemade [updated: carmelized balsamic] vinaigrette, and spicy dijon mustard that gave it a little extra bite.  I am not reviewing the fresh french roll that was so crunchy it could barely contain the eggplant, nor am I going to compare the bites that had extra Cowgirl Creamery cheese to "beams of light shining through the clouds" (I wouldn't say that even if this WAS a review, because man is that goofy).  If this were a review, I would say that it was a fantastic lunch... but this isn't a review.  SORRY ELS- I guess maybe I'll just have to post about one of your sandwiches another time.

fred's steak sandwich

This lovely little number here is something I ate a couple of months back at my parents' house (yeah, I got a little bit of a backlog going on right now). The meat is leftover steak from the previous night's dinner, a celebration of my little brother's graduation from high school. On special occasions, my family likes to cook "Fred's Steak", which is a blackened and marinated steak sold at Schaub's Market at the Stanford Shopping Center. Probably my favorite meal in the whole world is barbecued Fred's Steak and my mom's homemade potato salad, eaten outside on a warm night. But! That is not a sandwich. And so, thanks to the remarkable self-control of everyone in my family, allowing there to be any leftover steak at all, I was able to throw together a steak sandwich the next day. As far as I can tell, the primary flavor in Fred's Steak is "salty". I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I couldn't tell you what. Just that it tastes salty, and really, really good. And the leftovers are just as good as when it is freshly grilled. I do like cold steak very much; although I lack the technical know-how to properly understand it, I guess the fat coagulates, and the meat becomes firm and somehow easier to bite through. I didn't add too much to this sandwhich, so as not to distract from the meat, but the sourdough bread was quite good, the muenster cheese was not overly flavorful, the dijon mustard added a little spice and the mayonnaise added a little sweetness. It was a tasty sandwich- but (between you and me)- if it weren't for the sake of the sandwich blog, I would've just eaten the leftover steak plain.

pesto turkey burger pt 2

After making my last sandwich too strongly flavored, I tried to make this one a little more reserved. And it was more mild, both in flavor and in appearance. As you can tell, this wasn't the most colorful or appetizing sandwich to look at. Still, it tasted pretty good. You can't really go wrong with a combination of turkey, cheese and avocado.

pesto turkey burger pt 1

Once again, I decided to try out something new from the grocery store. This time, I bought frozen pesto turkey patties, which I believed to be fully cooked and in the shape of a normal burger. However, when I got home I discovered that that they were uncooked, as well as being rectangle in shape. Because the patties were greenish-grey, it was kind of hard to tell when one was done cooking. But I decided to take a risk and call it done. I threw on some of the sharp provolone I had from before, some tomato and red onion, and put the whole mess on a burger bun. It tasted pretty good, but a lot of the flavors were really sharp and acidic and it gave me a little of a stomach ache. I decided the next patty I cooked would be paired with more mild flavors.

grilled ham & cheese

This was the last of the rosemary ham that I bought at Trader Joe's. I think that I used mozzarella on this sandwich, rather than sharp provolone, in order not to be overwhelmed by strong flavors. But then, I don't really recall too much about this sandwich, which was sort of a late night snack.

rosemary ham & sharp provolone

As I mentioned in my last post, I've recently been buying products at the grocery store that I've never tried or wouldn't usually get. But the items in this sandwich- rosemary ham and sharp provolone cheese- put an end to that practice, at least for a little while. The rosemary ham was interesting to me- I wasn't really sure what to expect from it. But it was good, and I realized eating it that rosemary must be one of the main ingredients in the herbed turkey breast that you can get at a lot of delis. The sharp provolone on the other hand.... I was not prepared for. When I saw it in the store, it struck me as odd, because I didn't really consider provolone to be a very sharp tasting cheese and wondered what a sharp version of provolone would taste like. In retrospect, it seems obvious- it tasted like a really, really strongly flavored provolone. It was fairly pungent too. I've always loved cheese, and keep falling into the logical fallacy of "I like this flavor -> sharp means more flavor -> the sharp cheese must taste even better!". As I age, I'm starting to appreciate the value of subtlety a little more. I wish I had that frame of mind before making this sandwich, because the result was an intense flavor explosion that baffled my mouth. Each bite was an attack on my senses, leaving me reeling and wary of the next bite. Its good trying new flavors and all, but I think I over-did the experimentation on this one.

what was i thinking about

Dinner tonight resembles
the quantity and quality
of an after school, home alone,
throw things together and hope
for the best sort of meal.
i used love,
first and foremost,
followed by the ready-sliced
honey smoked
turkey breast, paired with
middle sharp cheddar.
Add a little beer 'n brat
horseradish mustard,
though just a little, it's spicy...
and slap two fresh-cut
sides of sourdough
infused
with rosemary and olive oil.
grill it panini-style,
al la george forman
and pair it with your favorite
fritos flavor (mine being
chili cheese)