Tag Archives: sandwiches

Havarti and Strawberry-Rhubarb Grilled Cheese

This is a grilled cheese sandwich for grown-ups. For me, grilled cheese is a once in a while indulgence, when I feel the need a big food hug. The inspiration to add strawberry-rhubarb to my sandwich came from my daily breakfast habit. I roast a batch every week, as I like to mix a big spoonful of it into my morning yogurt and granola.

I made the bold decision to add a smear of the compote to my sandwich. I threw in a few slices of pickled jalapeno for fun.

I was surprised to see fresh rhubarb at the grocery store. It was certainly not local, as Ottawa is still burried under a ton of snow. It was undoubtedly “forced rhubarb”. Most of the year, I use frozen fruit. Rhubarb begs for the addition of sugar. I added 1/3 of a cup for a 6 cups of diced fruit.

The melting qualities of Havarti cheese made it an ideal candidate for this sandwich. While making a grilled cheese sandwich seems to be a fairly simple thing, here are a few tips that can take your sandwich from meh to yeah!

Grate or thinly slice the cheese. If you opt for slicing, dip your knife in cold water before each slice. It prevents the knife from sticking to the cheese.
Butter the outside of bread, rather than just putting butter in the pan. You will get a more even golden crust.
Low and slow for the heat. Don’t be impatient and crank up the heat. You will just end up with buttered toast and unmelted cheese.
Sandwich the strawberry-rhubarb and jalapeno between two thin layers of cheese. rather than just one cheese layer. It helps to hold the sandwich together better and makes for more even melting.

Click here to print recipe for Havarti and Strawberry-Rhubarb Grilled Cheese

Indulge your inner child today and make these. The outer layer of crunch yields to a center of melted goodness. The tart fruit and spicy jalapenos are a wonderful surprise.

Turkey Koobideh (Persian Kebabs) Pita Sandwiches

Click here for Turkey Koobideh Pita Sandwiches.

Mediterranean Chicken Sandwich

Click here to print recipe for Mediterranean Chicken Sandwich.

Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma

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I live in Ottawa, while my mom, brother and four sisters all live in Toronto. I don’t get to see them nearly as much as I would like to. Admittedly, we have become a little lazy about communicating with each other. These days, it’s mostly emails and texts and very few phone calls.

Last week I got an email from my brother. The subject line read, “Mom passed!!” My heart stopped. Logically I knew that my brother would never tell me that mom died in an email. But in the heat of the moment, I got nervous, and for good reason. My family and I have a bit of a sketchy history when it comes to communicating about death.

When I was in University, I came home one weekend for a visit. I asked my sister where Heidi, our dog, was. Apparently, my parents had put her down a month ago, and no one remembered to tell me. I was also the very last one of my siblings to know that my dad died, although to be fair, the signs were there.

You will be relieved to know that mom did not die. The body of the text read: “Mom passed her drivers test today. 2 more yrs of driving at least. Wish her Mazel Tov!” My mom is 82 years old. In Ontario, after the age of 80, you must take a test every 2 years to ensure that you are still fit to drive. I fired off an email to my brother with the subject line, “Don’t send an email with the heading “Mom passed”. It could be misinterpreted.” Then I promptly called my mom to say congrats and I love you. For the record, all my sisters had momentary heart failure and my brother properly apologized.

The recipe for this chicken shawarma came to my attention via a text from my baby sister. She is always sending me links to different recipes she thinks I would like. She said she’d never read a recipe with so many positive reviews.

Recipes are like rumours. You must always consider the source. This recipe is from an impeccable source, Sam Sifton, food editor of The New York Times. If you don’t already subscribe to cooking.nytimes.com, get on it right away! It is one of the best food websites. Their Mobile App is fantastic. Not only can you save and categorize their database of over 18,000 recipes, you can also save non-NYT recipes to your recipe box. I finally have a way to save all the online recipes I am inspired by, in one place. Genius! Subscribing to their daily newsletter is free, but they charge $5 US per month for the App.

Boneless skinless chicken thighs are bathed in a highly flavourful marinade.Let the thighs marinate for up to 12 hours in the fridge. If you’re short on time, even an hour will still produce spectacular results. Add a quartered red onion to the sheet pan and bake the whole thing off for 30-40 minutes. If you have time, mix up some great sides to go with the shawarma. I made an Israeli salad with cherry tomatoes, cucumbers and cilantro and dressed it simply with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I doctored up some store-bought hummus with a sprinkle of smoked paprika, toasted pine nuts and a drizzle of good olive oil. I thinned some tahini with lemon juice and hot water for a drizzling sauce. I also added some charred corn slaw that I had leftover from last night’s dinner. Sour dills and hot sauce are more than welcome to join this party. Stuff everything into a pita pocket or lay it flat and roll it up. Whichever way you choose to go, make sure you have plenty of napkins to catch all the drips. This is messy eating at its finest.

Click here to print Oven Roasted Chicken Shawarma.

Spiced Lamb Meatball Pita Pockets

Click here to print recipe for Spiced Lamb Meatball Pita Pockets.

Roasted Cauliflower Tuna Melts

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Apple orchards, pumpkin patches, haunted houses, whatever your version of autumn joy is, I hope you’re out there, savoring the season. Have you heard about leaf peeping? My niece Rachel, who is up on all the latest trends, informed me about it. She lives in Seattle now, but grew up in Florida. I told her that those of us who live in the Northeast have been peeping for years!

As for me, my fall bliss involves cauliflower. I’m having as bit of a love affair with it this autumn. But who can blame me when stunning beauties like these keep popping up at the market. A tuna melt is my default go-to when I return home from holidays and the cupboard is bare. I always have some kind of bread in the freezer, a can of tuna in the pantry and a small wedge of cheddar in the fridge. Bonus points if the cheese is mold-free and the tuna is packed in olive oil.

Truthfully, even the humblest of ingredients are more special when served on toast, and this fact is celebrated in Jill Donenfeld’s new book, Better on Toast. I took her Cauliflower Melts recipe and tarted them up with the addition of Italian tuna in olive oil. Slice the cauliflower into slabs, brush with garlic kissed olive oil and roast until golden brown.
Pistachios add crunch and golden raisins add a welcome hit of sweetness. Tuna in olive oil just tastes better than water packed tuna. Look for a Spanish or Italian brand if you can find it. Unlike water packed tuna, which can be dry, olive oil packed tuna is exceptionally moist, so no mayo is needed. If you have access to some really good artisan bread, go for it. Slice thickly please and give it a light toasting before assembling.I love the addition of nutty Gruyere cheese, but feel free to use cheddar or any great melting cheese. Hot and bubbly, these are hearty knife and fork sandwiches, that help soften that abrupt hard landing that inevitably occurs when coming home after a holiday.

Click here to print recipe for Roasted Cauliflower Tuna Melts.

Killer Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

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Some days, it seems like the world is covered in jagged, sharp edges. Nothing goes smoothly and everything irritates you. When you wake up on the dark side of the mattress, plan on having this grilled cheese sandwich for dinner.

Gooey, crispy, salty and buttery, it comforts like nothing else can.

This sandwich is based on the “Grilled Cheese with a Twist” I ate at Milk Truck’s Smorgasburg location a few years ago. Crafted from aged Wisconsin gruyere, champagne vinegar pickled onions and whole grain Dijon mustard on Blue Ribbon Bakery Jewish Rye, it was a revelation for me. I have put caramelized onions in my grilled cheese before, but never pickled onions. The sharp tang of the vinegar cut right through the rich fatty cheese and created such flavour balance.

I substituted shallots for onions, because they are sweeter and milder. For my version, I decided upon a combo of cheeses. I used mild, buttery Fontina because It melts like a dream and gives you a really ooey gooey center. Gruyere adds really earthy, nutty flavours to the sandwich. And, rounding out my cheese trifecta was classic mild cheddar. Don’t be tempted to use “old” or “sharp” cheddar for this. It is too dry and crumbly to melt properly.A smear of Dijon mustard adds an unexpected tang. I also added a layer of thinly sliced Honeycrisp apple. It added a welcome crunch and tart-sweet component. If you are lucky enough to live in Ottawa, please, please, please, use Rideau Bakery rye bread!

You get much more even browning when you butter the bread, rather than melting the butter into the pan. A very light sprinkling of salt on the buttered bread, before cooking, adds a bonus oomph! But feel free to leave it out if that’s how you roll. I promise not to judge. The key is to cook it low and slow, so that you get it brown and toasty on the outside and completely melted in the center. A lid on the pan will help with thoroughly melting the cheese.

Click here to print recipe for Killer Grilled Cheese Sandwiches.

#41. Whole Wheat Bread gets rescued!

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This week in the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge we tackle whole wheat bread. I had been warned by fellow challengers that this bread was not a favourite. One of the best things about participating in this challenge is the fraternity we have created. We share our successes and failures (not that we have had too many of those!) as well as our knowledge. I have discovered that bread bakers are a very generous people by nature. They are willing to help one another and share what they have learned along the way.

Mags shared her tip of adding vital wheat gluten to the dough to improve it. Txfarmer shared 6 wonderful tips (including a longer autolyse time, double fermentation as well as longer kneading times) with us on how to improve this bread on our google group page. As I read these helpful hints, I felt grateful to belong to such a giving group of bread freaks.

Of course, by the time I actually got to baking this bread, several weeks later, my aging brain completely forgot about these helpful hints. So I have no one to blame, but myself, for my less than stellar results.

Although this was the 41st bread in our challenge, this was actually the first time I had formed my bread into a “sandwich loaf” and baked it in a loaf pan. Although this had been suggested as an option for many of the breads in this book, I had always resisted, thinking that using a loaf pan made the bread look a little too uniform in shape and thus institutional and not artisnal or homemade. My misshapen wonky hand formed loaves were made with love and no one could mistake them for factory bread! However, I figured that shaping into a loaf to be baked in a loaf pan was another skill I should master before this challenge was over, so I went for it.

My little institutional bricks needed about 90 minutes of proofing before they crested up over the sides of the pan and were ready for baking.

The loaves baked for about 40 minutes and then I patiently waited the requisite 2 hours for them to cool so I could slice and taste.

Oggi was right. This bread was dry and crumbly. And it was bland too, just like Sally said. I was planning to serve this bread for dinner but was not exactly thrilled with the results. This bread needed something to wake it up! I whipped up a batch of smoked paprika mayo (garlic, lime juice and smoked paprika mixed with plain light mayo). I sprinkled some chicken breasts with chipotle chile powder and grilled and sliced them up. I caramelized some onions in olive oil. I sliced some Kumato tomatoes and washed some leaf lettuce.

Killer chipotle chicken sandwiches with smoked paprika mayo!!

Salt and Serenity

Tales from my kitchen