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…
- 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.
- 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.
- Place tomato slices over the mashed garbanzo/avocado mixture.
- 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.
- 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…
KarmaFree Cooking 