Category Archives: Olive Oil

Four Tomato Caprese Panini With Buffalo Mozzarella

Ever heard of the four cheese sandwich?  Typically this sandwich involves an abundance of cheese with little smidgen of veggies.  A few weeks ago, we decided to turn that recipe upside down and make the four tomato caprese panini.  Thanks to overshopping (yet again) at the annual Tomato Mania, our garden has quite a variety of this summer necessity.  If only the variety was matched by abundance.  Sigh!  This year, we have been outdone by the garden pests who have made off with most of our yield.  Poor Anders. In anticipation of this annual raiding, early in the season he stocked the pantry with peanut butter – the bait of choice for our Have a Heart trap.   Months later, we are out of peanut butter and tomatoes.  There are some very fat well fed squirrels and rabbits running around Poway right now and they owe it all to Anders.   How they managed to get to the PB without springing the trap is beyond me.   Ocassionally, (grudglying, we suspect), they left us a few, from which we were able to have a few tomato meals – like this sandwich.

Four Tomato Caprese Panini With Buffalo Mozzarella
Four Tomato Caprese Panini With Buffalo Mozzarella

You can use any combination of tomatoes you wish. We used: white oxheart, brandy boy, Mr. Stripey and XXX.  It was delish, so much so that after eating his mammoth sandwich, Anders begged for another.  After eating his second sandwich, he was nearly comatose on the sofa.  Sweet reward for me… that and hearing him declare, “this is hands down the best panini I’ve ever tasted.”

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Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks

A fantastic sandwich, using the highly undervalued leek. That’s right. When is the last time YOU cooked with leeks? That’s what we thought. We made the rolls specifically for this sandwich, they have a center (which you can’t see on the photos) of pesto-infused dough. It was a grand experiment, but in reality they didn’t rise quite as expected. This was our best specimen of the lot.

Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks
Sandwich Roll With Tomatoes, Crayfish Salad, Basil, Parmesan And Sautéed Leeks

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Jamie’s Bruschetta Appetizer

This is another of Jamie Oliver’s recipes we decided to make along with the “ Grilled Eggplant Crostini Appetizer” and the “Fava Bean Crostini Appetizer” both from his delicious book “Jamie’s Italy“. It’s basically tomatoes, basil olive oil and a slice of bread. The key is as always to use great ingredients for great results. We tweaked it a little like we always do since we believe in creative liberties.

And today we just launched the free Amazing Sandwiches iPad application. Why do you ask? Well, because we can. Browse all our sandwiches in glamorous high-res – literally sandwiches at your fingertips. It’s not fancy, it’s just… sandwiches. Enjoy. Oh, and you can download it directly from here.

Bruschetta Appetizer
Bruschetta Appetizer

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Hummus, Grilled Feta and Roasted Pepper Sandwich

A few weeks ago, we had a friend visiting for the weekend.  He is a recent convert to the omnivore lifestyle – after over 30 years of a purely vegetarian diet.  Food is nearly like a religion and each style has its adherents who hold to it with zeal and conviction that borders on fanaticism.  So when our friend converted, we were so thrilled that he had chosen to walk the other side that we now consider it our mission to ensure that his forays into the omnivore lifestyle are rewarding enough to cement his place as a member of our growing sect 🙂 “Thou shalt not backslide”.   Still, even with this new adventurous palate, his lifetime of preparing only vegetarian cuisine means that he is at a loss as to what to do when confronted with meat or fish.  He does well enough when dining out, but at home he needs to prepare vegetarian cuisine if he is to eat at all.

When he visited, he remarked that our blog is woefully lacking in vegetarian style sandwiches that he could create at home.  We have been remiss, and so have prepared this little sandwich in his honor. Subu, this one’s for you (more acts of repentance to follow).

Hummus, Grilled Feta and Roasted Pepper Sandwich
Hummus, Grilled Feta and Roasted Pepper Sandwich

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Review: ‘Luxus Bagel’ at the Bagels Corner In Copenhagen, Denmark

There are some thinks that don’t translate so well across cultures. Bagels might be one of them. It was a dreary afternoon in Copenhagen, Denmark, when I walked into the Bagels Corner. A bit hungry I could not get myself to settle for a plain cream cheese bagel, so instead I opted for the luxury bagel (Choice of smoked salmon, shrimp, pesto chicken, Mexican chicken, etc). I decided on pesto chicken, and selected a whole-wheat bagel with rolled oats on top. Looked great. Then the lady asked me for what type of cream cheese I wanted. Cream cheese? Whaaaat? I decided to see where this would go, so I picked the herb-cream cheese. She added a generous layer. Then the pesto chicken (lots of it), then lettuce, cucumber, corn, and finally she asked me to pick a dressing. I selected the curry dressing. Again she added a generous layer on top, and closed up the bagel. Oh dear!

Review: 'Luxus Bagel' at the Bagels Corner in Copenhagen
Review: 'Luxus Bagel' at the Bagels Corner in Copenhagen

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The Big Bad Wolf Burger

Sometimes a man needs to be a man, and that’s when he makes “The Big Bad Wolf Burger“. Oh yeah, 1/2 pound of patty with basil, cilantro, oven roasted garlic and blue cheese chunks. What a great 4th of July celebration that was. Inspired by the moment, I topped it off with crispy hash browns and a jackfruit/avocado rough guacamole. I can’t even begin to tell you how good this burger is, but this is so far the best burger I’ve had in my life. The jackfruit guacamole sweetness perfectly blends with the spicy mayo, the juicy patty, and the crunchy hash browns. These are the times when I think back to all the missed opportunities of my childhood to celebrate with awesome burgers, the food of men 😉

aThe Big Bad Wolf Burger
The Big Bad Wolf Burger

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Grilled Eggplant Crostini Appetizer

Inspired by Jamie Oliver’s book “Jamie’s Italy” this is one of our favorite appetizers so far this year. It also looks beautiful. The crunchy toasted pane siciliano bread and the smoothness of the eggplant (or Aubergine as we call it in Denmark), goes very well together and fills your mouth with flavor and adventure. Eggplant seems to be largely a forgotten vegetable in the US, at least in SoCal (Southern California), and really it’s a wonderful ingredient in many dishes. People, wake up and smell the eggplant!

Grilled Eggplant Appetizer
Grilled Eggplant Appetizer

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Caprese Panini Sandwich

We love caprese salads so much we had Phil’s BBQ change their menu and serve it at our wedding (They did a great job too). So, it should come as no surprise that we had to try and turn the art of the caprese into a sandwich. A panini sandwich to be exact. It has all the classic ingredients: Mozzarella, tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. For the bread we went with our own homemade pesto-sourdough bread, but any regular sourdough will do just fine.

Caprese Panini Sandwich
Caprese Panini Sandwich
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Fava Bean Crostini Appetizer

This recipe originally comes from Jamie Oliver, from his book “Jamie’s Italy“. We recently bought it and very quickly fell in love with his down-to-earth simple taste foods. Absolutely gorgeous. This is how we made our fava bean crostini, which turned out beautifully. In the background, you’ll notice some other crostinis which were also inspired by Jamie and which we will write about in future posts.

Fava Bean Appetizer
Fava Bean Appetizer
Grinding fava beans to paste in stone mortar
Grinding fava beans to paste in stone mortar

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Appetizer of Avocado With Lemon/Olive Oil/Cilantro Dressing

Wendie bought these avocados for a salad, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to toast some bread and make a few avocado appetizers. Some would call them mini sandwiches. They’re dead simple and very refreshing when the weather is hot and you have a Sunday evening on the patio with a glass of red wine and Clapton and Bob playing in the background.

Salted Avocado With Lemon Appetizer
Appetizer of Avocado With Lemon/Olive Oil/Cilantro Marinade

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