DARYL: Welcome to another Around the Kitchen table. I love grilled cheese sandwiches. I don't eat them often because I watch my waistline, but when I do, I love to doll them up. Extra cheese, maybe apples or pickles or grilled onions. Bacon, tomatoes, avocado. Olives? Spices? I've made tons of grilled cheese sandwiches to use as recipes in my Cheese Shop Mysteries and even in my Cookbook Nook Mysteries. [I wrote about a grilled cheese competition in
Inherit the Word.] But it's the cheese that matters to me. Oh, and I love using my panini grill. It just makes that cheese ooze with yum-m-m.
What do you like on your favorite sandwich?
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KRISTA: Assuming I'm making it at home, it's usually chicken fingers, ham, sliced turkey (best with cranberries), open-faced with smoked salmon, or tuna with mayo. With everything except the salmon, I add piles of lettuce. Shh, don't tell, but I've been known to just have lettuce on the bread with a little mayo!
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DENISE: I'm not much of a sandwich eater, but when there are tomatoes ripe from my garden, I do love a good old fashioned BLT on homemade white bread toasted to perfection.
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CLEO: Denise, your wonderful BLT reminds me of how much I always enjoy those triple-decker sandwiches with bacon and turkey. Marc and I are also fond of hot pastrami (with a big, fat pickle on the plate). And neither of us will ever turn down an extra-juicy, charcoal-broiled diner burger with cheese and fresh-cut fries on the side. One of our favorites, however, is a sandwich we featured in our Coffeehouse Mystery series. If anyone would like that recipe, along with our
6 Secrets to Making the Perfect Patty Melt,
click here or on the photo below and...eat with plenty of joy!
~ Cleo
LESLIE: One of my tricks for watching my weight is to not keep bread in the house unless it's for a particular recipe or meal. But I do love me a good grilled cheese sandwich, and when there is a loaf of a country bread, French bread, or sourdough on the counter, I'll whip one up with whatever cheese we have---the more the better, often with a country mustard and fresh tomatoes or marinated asparagus.
Cleo's mouth-watering post reminds me that when we were in New York in January, on our way to Paris, we had absolutely delicious classic pastrami sandwiches at
Friedman's on West 47th. (There are other locations as well.) In Paris, we pretty much ate our way through all the French classics, from Nutella crepes to Sole Muniere, the dish that made Julia Child swoon. But one of our favorite meals was lunch at
Le Rubis, a neighborhood wine bar in the 1st
arrondissement. It's not much more than a hole in the wall, with a fabulous zinc bar and a sign on the restroom reading "Toilettes Telephone." (The real reason French people stay slim? So they can fit in the typical restroom and make a phone call.) We loved seeing the neighbors drop in for a glass of vin blanc or an afternoon espresso, greeting the barkeep by name or with the
bis (the ritual cheek-kissing), almost as much as we loved the extremely simple, extremely yummy sandwiches: salami on a buttered baguette for my hunny and a long hunk of Brie on a buttered baguette pour moi. When the ingredients are that good, simple hits the spot.
Ellie: Hummus! Always hummus. I think hummus is the most versatile and least used condiment. Sure, we traditionally think of hummus as a dip, but it’s perfect on sandwiches. It’s thick, creamy, packed with protein, and won’t turn your bread soggy. My favorite sandwich is hummus with sun-dried tomatoes, shaved carrots, thin-sliced turkey, and arugula, served on a crusty olive bread. Swoon.
VICKI: Oh yes. Sandwiches. Love 'em. Like Daryl I almost never eat them, but my favourite by far, and worth waiting for, is left-over turkey sandwiches made the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas. I sometimes think the purpose of the turkey dinner is to provide me with sandwiches the day after. I like my turkey sandwich fairly plain with just piles of turkey, a spoon of cranberry sauce, and lashings of mayonnaise.
LESLIE: Vicki, swap that mayo for a healthy swipe of cream cheese and I'm there with you!
PEG: I'm not a big sandwich eater--like several of you, I'm always trying to watch my waist line (trying being the operative word here!). But I do love a sandwich with bacon on it. Of course I pretty much love bacon anything! But turkey with bacon, tomatoes, avocado and mayo is a sure ticket to heaven--gustatory heaven that is. Avocado is another sandwich addition that will elevate almost anything like tuna salad, chicken salad or your humble BLT!
MADDIE: What Peg said! You can't go wrong with avocado on any sandwich, in my native-Californian opinion. Nobody has mentioned a Caprese yet: picture a grilled slice of sourdough spread with basil pesto, topped with a thick slice of sun-warmed tomato, another slice of local mozzarella, and a big basil leaf, all drizzled good olive oil and real balsamic? 100% yum. Wait - did you say it's MARCH? Ah, well, summer will be along soon enough.
LUCY: I eat the same sandwich almost every day when I'm at home working. This would be half a Goldman's bagel (that's our local Key West shop), toasted with Boar's Head Canadian cheddar, and then piled with pickled sweet jalapenos from
The Backyard Food Company and arugula or radish sprouts from the
Florida Keys Garden. The bagel can be cranberry or everything or poppyseed, but the other ingredients don't vary, much to my husband's astonishment.
MAYA: A BLT in the summer when the tomatoes are ripe is my favorite sandwich, but winter tomatoes are not worth buying. My winter workaround is a BLAST sandwich--Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, and Sun-dried Tomatoes. I spread sun-dried tomato pesto on one piece of toast and mayo on the other piece. As Peg and Maddie said, avocado improves any sandwich. I love guacamole on burgers, whether beef, veggie, or fish burgers.
LINDA: I used to be a huge mayo fan and would put Hellman's on every sandwich I ever made. Now, it's aioli, in particular Lemon Herb Aioli. I enjoy the subtle but noticeable flavor. Here's mainly what's in it: Canola oil, eggs, lemon juice, white vinegar, mustard powder, cultured dextrose, dried dill, dried tarragon, granulated onion, dried garlic, pure lemon oil. This is one ingredient that's always used up well before it's Best Before date.
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What do you like on
your sandwich?
Inherit the Word, by Daryl Wood Gerber
The Diva Spices it Up, by Krista Davis
Trouble on the Books, by Essie Lang
Scam Chowder, by Maya Corrigan
Fatal Roots, by Sheila Connolly
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