Sandwich

Chicken, Bacon, Avocado & Swiss Panini

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Sometimes I have one ingredient that I really need to use and the rest of the meal comes about because of it.  That’s exactly what happened last night.  The ingredient…BACON.

Ben bought some really amazing thick-cut bacon last week when we grilled burgers.  I had more than half of the package left and it needed to be used in the next couple of days.  I could have frozen it, but when something goes into my freezer it may never come out.  And there was no way I was going to waste good bacon!  In college my best friend used to order the chicken, bacon, ranch sandwich at Quizno’s and she’d add either avocado or guacamole.  I might have some details a little confused here, but it was something like that.  With the bacon and some leftover grilled chicken in my fridge I knew exactly what we’d be having for dinner.

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We eat panini a lot, and usually I’m using leftovers to make them.  It’s one of the main ways we use any leftover steak.  As with most panini recipes the ingredient list is short, and prep is simple if you’re using leftovers.  All you need is some bread (I used sourdough) some cooked chicken, a few slices of cooked bacon, avocado and swiss cheese.  You can use any kind of cheese that you like, but I thought the swiss paired well.

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You can spread some mayo on the bread, or if the Quizno’s addition of ranch sounds too good to pass up you can either spread some ranch dressing on the bread or dip the sandwich in it after it’s been cooked.  If you have some guacamole around, then use that instead of the avocado.

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For a nice and crunchy exterior, and terrific color, I like to either drizzle the bread with olive oil or, if I’m feeling really crazy, spread it with softened butter.  It’s up to you.

You don’t need a panini press, but if you have one that you don’t use very often I highly encourage you to dust it off and make it a part of your life.  To make these without a press, just heat a skillet over medium high heat and while one side is cooking, press down on the sandwich with another heavy pan, then flip and do it again.  Like a smashed grilled cheese, although I guess pressed does sound better than smashed.

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The recipe below makes 2 sandwiches, so adjust the ingredient amounts as needed for the number of paninis you plan to make.

Ben and I both really enjoyed these panini and I can see myself planning my weekly meals with some extra chicken and bacon in the future.  Enjoy!

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Chicken, Bacon, Avocado and Swiss Panini

Ingredients

  • 4 slices of thick cut sourdough bread
  • 1 cooked chicken breast, sliced
  • 4 slices of cooked bacon
  • 1 half of an avocado, sliced
  • 4 slices of swiss cheese
  • mayo or ranch dressing, optional
  • olive oil or butter for grilling

Directions

  1. Preheat your panini press or a large skillet over medium heat.
  2. Set out your bread (spread with mayo or ranch) and layer 1 slice of cheese, chicken, bacon, avocado and top with another slice of cheese.  (I tear the slice of cheese so that it covers the bread.)  Repeat with remaining sandwiches.
  3. Drizzle olive oil or spread butter onto both sides of the bread.
  4. Place on the panini press or on the heated skillet and press until bread is golden brown and cheese had melted.

 

Monte Cristo Sandwiches

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These sweet and savory sandwiches remind me of a restaurant that used to be in Austin called Bombay Bicycle Club.  It was a special place we’d go for birthdays and I’m pretty sure that I almost always ordered the monte cristo.  Theirs was full of meat and cheese, deep fried, covered in powered sugar and served with a side of raspberry preserves.  And I think it came with fries.  And I probably had a hot fudge sundae for dessert.  This was back in the days of high metabolism.  Those were good days.

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When a post came up on the King Arthur Flour blog the other day about croque monsieurs and monte cristos I immediately added the ingredients to my grocery list.

I usually buy groceries a few days in advance, and sometimes (when Ben does the grocery shopping for me on Sunday afternoons) I will have groceries for the entire week of meals and not need to go to the store.  The only problem with this is that sometimes I get to the day I had planned to make such-and-such for dinner and I don’t want to make it.  That happened with this meal.  It just seemed like more work than I wanted to put in to dinner that night.  But in the end it was a really quick meal with less mess than I’d anticipated and more deliciousness.

I found this incredible brioche loaf at Whole Foods (set me back $8 but was totally worth it).

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You can use any bread you like, but a soft white is pretty wonderful since it really soaks up the egg.  These are triple-decker sandwiches, turkey and ham on one half and Emmentaler swiss on the other.

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If you’re using thick bread slices you may want to smoosh the sandwich a bit with your hand.

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After assembling the sandwiches you dredge both sides in a mix of egg and milk.

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And then cook them until golden brown.

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After cooking, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve up with a side of raspberry preserves for dipping.

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If you’re making more than 2 sandwiches just increase the amount of bread, meat and cheese.  The egg is enough for probably 4 sandwiches.  Set your oven to 200°F and put the finished sandwiches on a cookie sheet lined with foil while you cook the rest of the sandwiches.  They won’t have the great crunch they do when they’re fresh, but at least they’ll be warm.  To make sure your sandwiches are heated through and that the cheese gets perfectly melted, take the meat and cheese out of the fridge for 20 minutes before cooking so that it’s not cold when it goes into the pan and keep the heat medium-low so that the outside doesn’t cook too much before the center is warm.  Enjoy!

Monte Cristo Sandwiches

Makes 2 sandwiches

Ingredients

  • 6 slices of good white bread
  • 4 slices of ham
  • 4 slices of turkey
  • 2-4 slices of swiss cheese (depending on the size of your bread and how cheesy and delicious you’d like your sandwich to be)
  • butter
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons of milk
  • powdered sugar
  • raspberry preserves

Directions

  1. Heat skillet over medium-low heat.
  2. Arrange meats on bottom layer of bread, top with a slice of buttered bread, top with a slice or 2 of cheese.  Repeat with other sandwich.  If your bread is thick, press the sandwich down with your hand to flatten it slightly.
  3. Whisk egg and milk together in a pie plate or shallow dish.  Dip both sides of the sandwich in the egg.
  4. Melt a little butter in your pan, then place the sandwiches in the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side, making sure it doesn’t get too dark.  If it is cooking too quickly, turn down the heat.
  5. Move sandwiches to a cutting board and slice in half.  Move to plates and sprinkle lightly with powdered sugar.

 

Daring Bakers: Dutch Crunch Bread

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This month I was confronted by my fear of bread baking with this Daring Bakers challenge.  Thankfully it was a successful baking experience that resulted in a tasty sandwich and picnic lunch with my little family.

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

I had never heard of dutch crunch bread.  One of the reasons I really like being a part of Daring Bakers is the exposure I get to foods in other countries and other regions of the U.S. that I would have otherwise gone my whole life without knowing anything about. Making this bread made me want to go try the real thing sometime.  Whenever I find myself in Northern California I will make sure to keep an eye out for it.

We were given a couple of bread recipes to use as the vehicle for the dutch crunch topping.  I chose a simple soft white bread that I made into rolls.  The dough was so easy, smooth and lovely.  It made me really happy.  And that makes me a little weird, I know.

The topping struck me as strange when I mixed it up and did not look like the recipe said it should.  As I spread it (or tried to) on top of the risen rolls I had some serious doubts.  But they baked up beautifully and the topping lived up to its title of dutch crunch, but wasn’t striped like it should have been.  The topping adds great visual appeal and texture to the finished product.  I realized in rereading this recipe that I should have added more water to my topping to make it less stiff and easier to spread.  I used most, but not all of the topping.  Turns out I should have made half a recipe of the topping since I was only making 6 rolls!  I promise that I really do read a recipe all the way through before I start cooking, but sometimes I miss things.  Can I blame pregnancy brain for this even if it happened before I was pregnant?  Luckily there was no harm done and my kitchen didn’t explode as a result of my oversights.

Rolls Before Baking

My sandwich was not exactly one-of-a-kind, but it was simple and good.  Honey ham, white cheddar, whole grain mustard, mayo and spring mix.  I wrapped them up in parchment, packed them in my rarely utilized picnic basket along with some other goodies and picked Ben up from work last Friday and we had a nice family picnic in the park.  So even though the sandwich wasn’t groundbreaking, the experience was really wonderful.  Why don’t we picnic more often?

Below are the recipes for the bread and the topping.  Here is the link to the pdf with more detailed instructions.  Other than the rice flour (which was not hard to find at my well stocked HEB in Houston) you will have most of these ingredients or be able to get them easily.  The rolls I might make again and divide into 8 or 10 because some of the sandwich rolls I ended up with were really massive.  Thanks, Sara and Erica!

Dutch Crunch Topping

Can be halved for the roll recipe below.

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons (2 packets) (30 ml) (15 gm/½ oz) active dry yeast
  • 1 cup (240 ml) warm water (105-115º F) (41-46°C)
  • 2 tablespoons (30 ml) (30 gm/1 oz) sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
  • ½ teaspoon (2½ ml) (3 gm) salt
  • 1½ cups (360 ml) (240 gm/8½ oz) rice flour (white or brown; NOT sweet or glutinous rice flour) (increase by 1 cup or more for home-made rice flour)
Directions
  1. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat with a whisk; beat hard to combine. The consistency should be like stiff royal icing – spreadable, but not too runny. If you pull some up with your whisk, it should drip off slowly. Add more water or rice flour as necessary. Let stand 15 minutes.
  2. Coat the top of each loaf or roll with a thick layer of topping. We tried coating it with a brush but it worked better just to use fingers or a spoon and kind of spread it around. You should err on the side of applying too much topping – a thin layer will not crack properly.
  3. Let stand, uncovered, for any additional time your recipe recommends. With the Soft White Roll, you can place the rolls directly into the oven after applying the topping. With the Brown Rice Bread, the loaves should stand for 20 minutes with the topping before baking.
  4. When baking, place pans on a rack in the center of the oven and bake your bread as you ordinarily would. The Dutch Cruch topping should crack and turn a nice golden-brown color.

Soft White Rolls

Makes 6

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon (1 packet) (15 ml) (7 gm/ ¼ oz) active dry yeast
  • ¼ cup (60 ml) warm water (105-110º F) (41-43°C) (No need to use a thermometer – it should feel between lukewarm and hot to the touch).
  • 1 cup (240 ml) warm milk (105-110º F) (41-43°C) (We’ve tried both nonfat and 2%, with no noticeable difference)
  • 1½ tablespoons (22½ ml) (20 gm/ ⅔ oz) sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil (plus additional olive or vegetable oil for greasing bowl during rising)
  • 1½ teaspoons (7½ ml) (9 gm/⅓ oz) salt
  • Up to 4 cups (960 ml) (600 gm/21oz) all purpose flour

Directions

  1. In the bowl of an electric mixer or large mixing bowl, combine yeast, water, milk and sugar. Stir to dissolve and let sit for about 5 minutes (The mixture should start to bubble or foam a bit and smell yeasty).
  2. Add in vegetable oil, salt and 2 cups of flour. Using the dough hook attachment or a wooden spoon, mix at medium speed until the dough comes together.
  3. Add remaining flour a quarter cup at time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl, as shown in the photo below (For us, this usually required an additional 1½ to 2 cups of flour).
  4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 4 minutes, until smooth and elastic.
  5. Place in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 1 hour, or until doubled
  6. Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 6 equal portions (if you’d like to make rolls) or 2 equal portions (if you’d like to make a loaf) (using a sharp knife or a dough scraper works well). Shape each into a ball or loaf and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet (try not to handle the dough too much at this point).Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 15 minutes while you prepare the topping.
  7. Coat the top of each roll or loaf with the topping as described above. While the original recipe recommends letting them stand for 20 minutes after applying the topping, I got better results by putting them directly into the oven.
  8. Once you’ve applied the topping, bake in a preheated moderately hot 380ºF/190°C/gas mark 5 for 25-30 minutes, until well browned. Let cool completely on a wire rack before eating.

 

Grilled Cheese with Apple & Bacon

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These sandwiches made for such an easy dinner.  Grilled cheese is always delicious, but the addition of tart apple slices and yummy bacon make it extra tasty.  I usually add sliced tomato to grilled cheese sandwiches, but I might make these apple & bacon grilled cheeses my new go-to sandwich.

I used white cheddar cheese, granny smith apple, thick sliced bacon and sourdough bread spread with dijon mustard for the sandwiches.  You could make these in a skillet, or in a panini press (which is what I chose to use).  Serve along side a bowl of tomato soup or a green salad.

Grilled Cheese with Apple & Bacon

Serves 2

Ingredients

  • 4 slices of sourdough bread
  • Dijon mustard
  • 8-10 slices good cheddar cheese
  • 4-6 slices cooked bacon
  • 8-10 slices tart green apple
  • butter

Directions

  1. Spread bread with Dijon mustard, then layer cheese, bacon, apple and cheese.  Top with second slice of bread.
  2. Butter outside of the bread and grill on hot skillet or panini press.
  3. Eat!

 

Apple & Almond Chicken Salad

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Few things are better than a really delicious chicken salad on some really delicious bread.  This chicken salad is really delicious.

I have been convicted lately to use my cookbooks more.  I am often reminded of my dad saying to me and my sisters when I lived at home, “Why are you looking on the internet for a recipe?  You’ve got a whole bookcase full of cookbooks right here!”.  He only said it once, but he had a good point that has obviously stuck with me.  While I do still find myself browsing recipes on food sites, I am making an effort to use my cookbooks more and it is really paying off.

This chicken salad recipe is from Rebecca Rather’s cookbook and is one of my favorites.  I have made and have blogged about many of them, and have yet to be disappointed.  I often focus on her sweet treats, but decided to delve into another section of the cookbook this weekend.

I do prefer to use homemade items instead of store bought most of the time, but not for this recipe.  Rather instructs you to make your own mayonnaise.  This, I am sure, it spectacular.  She also includes a few ways to spice up your homemade mayo that make it extra special.  She suggests curry powder, saffron, garlic, chives or rosemary.  With the egg fiasco going on, and this whole pregnancy thing I’ve got going on, I figured raw eggs would not be the best choice for me…so I used store bought mayo.  I recently bought a bottle of Kraft Olive Oil mayonnaise that I used here, and I really liked it.

Other than my laziness in the mayo department, I made minor changes to this recipe.  My changes are shown in the recipe below.  The only thing I left out completely was 1/4 cup finely diced red onion.  I didn’t have one, so I just used 5 chopped green onions.  I also added the fresh tarragon.  Central Market sells a lovely tarragon chicken salad, so that was my inspiration.

I served this chicken salad on ciabatta rolls with lettuce and tomato.  I ate some leftover today on a bed of lettuce.  The almonds still had some texture, so two days in the fridge will not turn your almonds into mush.  Enjoy!

Apple & Almond Chicken Salad

Adapted from The Pastry Queen

Ingredients

  • 2-3 cups chopped cooked chicken
  • 1 Granny Smith apple, cored and diced
  • 2-3 stalks of celery, diced
  • 4-5 green onions, thinly sliced
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1 cup slivered blanched almonds, toasted
  • salt and pepper to taste

Directions

  1. Combine the chicken, apple, celery, green onion, parsley and tarragon in a large bowl.  Mix until well combined.
  2. Add in the mayonnaise, salt and pepper and stir until thoroughly mixed.
  3. Add the almonds right before you plan to serve the salad so the almonds stay crunchy.
  4. Serve on bread, rolls, croissants, crackers or salad greens.

Dinner Rush: Chorizo and Black Bean Mexican Tortas

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I have too many cooking magazines, too many cookbooks, and way too many printed recipes from various websites.  Even if I were to cook something from one of these sources everyday, there is no possible way that I could exhaust my recipe stockpile in my lifetime.  I don’t help the situation by buying more cookbooks, more magazines, and printing more website recipes.  I’ll admit it, I have a problem.  Progress is being made, though.  I did find a recipe in the September issue of Food & Wine magazine yesterday that I made for dinner last night.  I didn’t just mark it with a sticky note or tear the page out as something I’ll make someday.  I MADE it, and we ate it, and it was yummy.

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