Mediterranean Open-Faced Sandwich

Lately I have been kinda lazy…  With lots of work and travel, I have not been the most creative in the kitchen, cooking from scratch for myself.  For lunch or dinner, lots of sandwiches and snack foods.  I know… not so good.

But I was training for a half marathon so I needed to get some good vegetarian protein in my diet especially for after my workouts.  They help rebuild muscle when taken right after training.  I sometimes turn to my trusted pretzels with hummus combination… or my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  But I had gone to La Hacienda, a popular gourmet market and deli here in Puerto Rico and I had bought a garbanzo bean salad and this is what I came up with it…  you can call it a pizza or an open-faced sandwich, but there’s no denying that you will certainly be adding “mouth-watering” and “addictive” to whichever name you choose.

OPEN-FACED MEDITERRANEAN SANDWICH

1 flat bread of your choice…  I like FlatOut brand

½ cup of cooked garbanzo beans or garbanzo bean salad from La Hacienda

3 wedges of avocado

1 roma tomato, sliced

2 large handfuls of mesclun salad greens

Kosher Salt

Freshly Cracked Black Pepper

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

This is just assembling…

1. Drizzle and spread some olive oil to the flat bread and toast it in the oven…  I like my flat breads crispy.  I use the toaster feature in Light.
2. Take the toasted flat bread from the oven and place the garbanzo bean salad and the avocado wedges and mash it all together with a fork trying to cover as much flatbread surface as possible.  You can sprinkle a little salt, pepper and olive oil to the mixture while you’re mashing.
3. Place tomato slices over the mashed garbanzo/avocado mixture.
4. Place mesclun greens or even baby spinach over the tomato slices.  Season salad greens with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.
5. Cut into pieces using a pizza cutter…  I found it was easier than using a knife.

Tip:   I found the mashing worked best than leaving the garbanzos and avocados in pieces… they would roll off the flat bread and I ended up eating more out of the plate with a fork than over the bread itself.  So that’s why I recommend mashing…

Tags: #karmafree, avocado, flatbread, food, lettuce, mesclun greens, tomato, vegetarian, whole grain