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Avocado Toasts

31 Aug

This is a breakfast inspired by a delicious treat we had last month while traveling in NYC.  We had breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, a great French-style bakery/restaurant chain found in many cities in the US.   We were going to see the “China: Through the Looking Glass” exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and needed to make some time before the museum actually opened at 10AM.

China as seen by the fashion and movie industries.

We had only had some fruits and we were hungry…   so we ordered steel-cut oatmeal and Avocado Toasts with Kale and Cumin Salt, a seasonal option for breakfast and lunch at the restaurant.    To be honest, I’ve had better versions of the steel-cut oats from LPQ before, but the Avocado Toasts stole the show!!   I don’t know if it was the awesome gluten-free bread they were made in… or the interesting combination of the kale and cumin salt, but we were blown by the deliciousness of these toasts.  I even had to Instagram-it they were sooo good.

Le Pain Quotidien - Avocado Toasts

These days, I have such an abundance of avocados that I decided to have some for breakfast the other day…  I made it my own by exchanging the cumin salt for garlic salt and adding alfalfa sprouts instead of kale.

Avocado Toasts - KFC

AVOCADO TOASTS

2 slices of bread – I prefer whole grain or gluten-free versions

½ avocado – sliced

Vegan Mayonnaise

Dijon or Stone Ground mustard

Alfalfa Sprouts

Garlic Salt

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

 

I make this just like at Le Pain Quotidiene, open-faced.  But you can pile it all up, make it portable and eat it like a traditional 2 slice sandwich… it’s up to you.

  1. Toast the bread to your liking.
  2. Spread a generous amount of vegan mayo and mustard.
  3. Arrange the avocado slices, in shingle like manner.  Season with a light sprinkling of garlic salt.
  4. Pile the alfalfa sprouts.  Drizzle a small stream of olive oil.  Season with a light sprinkle of garlic salt again.

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Mediterranean Open-Faced Sandwich

10 Nov

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 Med Sandwich

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.

Med Sandwich Generic - website

Med Sandwich - Just a piece

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…

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Apple Onion Relish Panini with Gorgonzola

8 Feb

I was given a challenge… A Sandwich a Day wanted us to showcase our favorite sandwiches.

I’ve told you before how I could live on sandwiches alone possibly and how one of my most addictive sandwiches is my Avocado Tomato Sandwich. Sometimes I fail to come up with new ideas for sandwiches because I am so enthralled with this one still. I even dream about eating it sometimes.

But recently I have come to learn to love another sandwich… maybe not as fresh-tasting as the one above, but certainly very seasonal. Mixing apples, onions, thyme, almonds and blue cheese in between 2 pieces of bread might not seem very appealing, but oh, oh boy, how delicious it is. This has nothing to do with my Latin roots, but everything that I have learned to appreciate from my travels in the Northeastern part of the US.

Inspired by these crostini from Giada Di Laurentiis, this panino hits the spot on a cold winter night. I might even argue it works great for a nice cozy date in front of the fire. I think your date would be greatly impressed.

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APPLE ONION RELISH PANINI WITH GORGONZOLA

2 slices of 100% whole grain bread
Cream Cheese
Gorgonzola Cheese crumbles
Toasted Sliced Almonds
¼ cup of Apple Onion Relish
Butter – for the outside of the bread/sandwich
  1. Pre-heat your Panini maker, or in my case, my George Foreman Grill.
  2. Spread cream cheese on the inside of both bread slices. This will be part of the glue that makes the sandwich stay together.
  3. On one slice, add the apple onion relish. Try to keep it as dry as possible so the moisture won’t seep out of the sandwich. Layer the toasted almonds and finish with the blue cheese crumbles.
  4. Close the sandwich with the other slice of bread, cream cheese on top of the almonds/blue cheese.
  5. Butter the outside of the slices with some softened butter.
  6. Place on the Panini maker and press lightly without forcing it too much. The sandwich will flatten as it toasts in the Panini maker.
  7. After a few minutes, the cheeses will be melted and the bread toasted on the outside. Carefully, remove the sandwich from the panini grill and allow it to cool slightly. This will allow you to cut into the sandwich without the breads sliding all over the place.

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Enjoy with you favorite sparkling cider or tea.

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Morel Mushroom Toasts

25 Jan

I have a bunch of virtual friends and we decided at the end of last year to start sharing amongst each other the things we love to eat from the places we live. These virtual friends are spread all over the US and the world – Colorado, Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Texas, Oklahoma, of course me in Puerto Rico and even one in Italy and another one in can’t remember if she’s in Iceland, Vietnam or Australia. That girl has me confused…

On our first round of our Foodie Exchange I got paired up the KATY, the only other vegetarian in our group. Can you believe our luck??? Well, they say there are no coincidences in life. It was up to the Universe that we would get to share what we love about our region. Katy lives in Maryland, close to DC and Baltimore… but she’s a lover of everything in her region including Pennsylvania where most mushrooms in the US are grown.

This is what I received from Katy…

 

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dried morels

But for the purposes of this post, we’ll concentrate on the baggie of dried morel mushrooms right there. Katy told me these are her favorites and that she preferred to send them fresh but was unable to locate them. So in its place she sent me these with instructions on her favorite way to eat them – sautéed with onions and thyme over toast. This is Katy’s favorite snack and she urged me to try it.

Katy is part of our Foodie Group for a reason… these toasts are amazing!!! I loved the earthiness of the morel mushrooms and how easy they are to put together. A great vegetarian snack or light lunch suitable for any foodie out there.

 Morel Toast

MOREL MUSHROOM TOASTS

½ bag of dried morel mushrooms
½ medium onion, sliced thinly
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small garlic clove, smashed
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Cream Cheese
A whole wheat ciabatta roll, sliced in half

 

  1. Bring a small saucepot with water to a boil. As soon as the water boils, add the dried morel mushrooms to the water, cover and turn off the stove. Allow the mushrooms to reconstitute in that hot water for about 30 minutes.
  2. After the mushrooms are softened again, strain the mushrooms over a fine sieve reserving the liquid for another recipe.
  3. Take the drained mushrooms and pat the dry a bit. I cut the larger ones in half, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
  4. In a small skillet over medium heat, add the olive oil, the onions and the smashed garlic clove. Sautee them lightly for a few minutes. Add the softened morels and the thyme leaves. Season with salt and pepper. Cook everything together until the mushrooms have dried out a bit and looked cooked and “kinda alive”. Discard the pieces of garlic and set aside.

morels Sautee

5.  While the mushroom cook, drizzle some olive oil over the bread halves and toast in toaster oven. Slather some cream cheese or other spreadable cheese of your choice and place the morels and onions over the toasts with cheese.

 Morel Toast - Closeup

This is a great snack or even a light lunch served with a simple salad on the side. Thanks Katy for introducing me to morel mushrooms… I had eaten them in restaurants, but never made them at home. And now, this has also become one of MY favorites, thanks to you.

 

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My first Bánh Mì in NYC

18 Nov

I have been reading about Báhn Mì’s for about a year now… maybe even longer. These Vietnamese sandwiches are all the rage in the US.

I have heard about them during the first season of The Great Food Truck Race via the successful Nom Nom Truck from Los Angeles. They were selling these sandwiches like there was no tomorrow… And even in Serious Eats, Kenji went on a dissertation of what makes a Báhn Mì a Báhn Mì and he even went on a search for the best Báhn Mì in NYC.

Báhn Mì’s are a Vietnamese sandwich that originated as a fusion of cultures when Vietnam was under French rule… According to Kenji, the main aspects of a Báhn MI are:

  • Bread – French-baguette type bread usually made using rice flour for added crunch and lightness
  • Main Ingredient – we will concentrate on vegetarian, tofu-based Báhn Mì’s for the purposes of this vegetarian blog post
  • Sauce – the traditional Báhn Mì has a spreading of mayonnaise or butter cut with mayonnaise. These sandwiches are considered vegan, so there were no spread included. However, we should introduce these Báhn Mì people to Vegenaise. I think it would add a certain something- something closer to the traditional offerings.
  • Vegetable toppings – usually made of pickled daikon radishes, pickled carrots and cucumbers all cut into small thin sticks. Cilantro stems and some sort of spicy chili pepper. Some people put Sriracha sauce on theirs, but according to expert Kenji, this is neither typical nor respectable in the Báhn Mì world.

In the search for my first Bahn Mi, I deferred to Kenji, the expert in the matter and decided to head to Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich located at 369 Broome Street, New York NY; 212-219-8341. Saigon was rated third best sandwich in Manhattan so I knew it would be a good choice over all and was easily reachable by subway. Something I liked about them as well, they had 4 vegetarian options on their menu… so we had plenty to choose from.

Mom and I were super hungry and decided to try two of their tofu sandwiches – the Bánh mì chay đạc biêt – House Special Vegetarian (with tofu, mushroom, pickled carrots and radish) and a Bánh Mì Chay Đậu Hũ, Xả Ớt Rau  with Vegan chicken (tofu) with lemongrass.

I tried both versions… and my favorite was the House Special Vegetarian. Way more flavorful and interesting than the tofu lemongrass in my opinion. The House Special Vegetarian has a delicious sweet/salty peanut sauce that made the sandwich. As for the cilantro, I can certainly do without the stems. Only a few leaves on mine, please!!! I added a few drops, literally, 2-3 drops of sriracha to mine and the heat level was too much for me. I am still a spicy wimp… sorry!!!

The verdict… I loved the Báhn Mì. And if I have it again in Saigon Vietnamese Sandwich, I will order the House Special and not bother with anything else. I will try to bring some Vegenaise to use on mine… I will try to scope out other places to get a more complete sense of what a true Vietnamese báhn mì is… but for now, the intrigue is OVER!!!

Have you had a vegetarian báhn mì before??? Where are your favorite spots???

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