Roasted Tomato and Goat Cheese Panini

This is one I made up all by myself. I don't like to eat the same things over and over and over, but cooking for only two people I often have a lot of stuff left over. From the Red Pesto Ravioli ingredients, I got two more dishes of that, plus I still have some oven roasted tomatoes, sun dried tomato pesto (dry and chunky, not like a sauce), spinach, and goat cheese. I wanted to use some of these things, plus I wanted to find ways to use my freshly baked bread, and from this my panini was born.

Ingredients:
20 tiny oven roasted tomatoes
1 Tbsp goat cheese
1 Tbsp sun dried tomato pesto
6 spinach leaves
2 slices whole wheat bread

Directions:
1. Spread the goat cheese on one slice of bread and the sun dried tomato pesto on the other slice.
2. Layer the oven roasted tomatoes over the goat cheese, and the spinach leaves on top of that.
3. Put the other slice of bread on top and pop it in the panini grill until warmed through.

Yum yum yum! I would definitely make this again... maybe even later today!

Pret "Salad" Sandwich

This sandwich was inspired by one of my very favorite sandwiches at one of my very favorite places to have lunch in NYC. I like to bring my lunch because of all the calories, sodium, and who knows what else in takeout food around the city. But I (re)discovered Pret A Manger, which I had been to several times for lunch in London. They use only natural ingredients, no preservatives, and they donate their leftover sandwiches and stuff at the end of the day. This is a nice healthy alternative to the takeout options that my coworkers usually eat (although some of them go to Pret sometimes, too).

If you visit Pret's website you can find some "DIY Recipes." Some of them are totally impossible for me to make, if not for the lack of availability of ingredients, then for the metric measurements. But I had seen the Pret Salad Sandwich recipe on the site, and was so excited when they featured it as a weekly special in the store I go to in NYC. It consists of hummus and some veggies on whole wheat bread - delicious! I thought this would be a quick and easy thing to make for our light lunch. I was already chopping up cucumbers for my go-to salad, the Cucumber Feta Salad, so I set some aside for the sandwich. The cucumbers were from my Nonna's backyard, so yum - local food! I also chopped up some red pepper, and I used a few leaves of the spinach I had picked up for the pasta dish. I spread the hummus on the bread, sprinkled on some pine nuts, layered the veggies, and voila! Pret Salad Sandwich DIY in my own home. Easy peasy. I used Sabra hummus (the one with the pine nuts, for consistency) but sometime I would like to try making my own lemony hummus concoction. I meant to add some thin slivers of red onion to the sandwich, but I forgot. Oops!

I served the sandwich with a little of the salad, and since we were going for a light lunch I just made one sandwich for us to split. It was the perfect tiny portion to hold us over before we went on our very fruitful adventure to Whole Foods.

Nutella and Banana Sandwich

Sometimes I get up around 4AM to run before work. (Yes, I am crazy!) Usually I eat a little something before I go, just a few bites to keep my stomach from growling, but today I was too sleepy and didn't even think of it. So when I got back from my run I was STARVING! I saw some ripe bananas on the counter and was reminded of my afternoon spent catching up with Closet Cooking posts yesterday, where I saw a gooey sandwich with Nutella and bananas.

I put two slices of cracked wheat bread in my toaster oven. (I got this bread at Stop & Shop when I couldn't find the regular bread aisle. I can never find what I am looking for there and it is always SO obvious.) While it was toasting, I cut 9 banana coins, which was about half the banana. When the toast was done I put a dollop of Nutella on each slice and spread it thinly. There is no reason to have a lot of Nutella, but everything is better on BOTH sides of your sandwich. Then I placed the 9 banana coins on the bread, overlapping a little in 3 rows.

At first I thought the sandwich might be too banana-y, but I think it turned out to be the perfect amount of banana. After assembling I cut the sandwich into two triangles.

One minor problem I encountered was that it cooled down very quickly. The toast did not keep it warm enough. I tried to solve this by putting the whole sandwich in the toaster oven. It worked for a few seconds and then got cool again. Luckily it was still very tasty.

I look at a lot of food blogs, and all the ones I like take fancy pictures. I have been using my Blackberry (and my mom's iPhone, which explains those few better pictures) but I am going to TRY to start using my digital camera. I used to really like photography, so I think I can handle taking some nicer pictures of my food. Look forward to higher quality images - coming soon!