Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Elizabeth's Mega Sandwich with Pickled Pepper Sauce

Kids find something awesomely cool about a sandwich made on a whole loaf of bread. What fun it was tonight to investigate the possibilities of mega-turkey-sandwich creation from a ten year old's perspective. Remember, now, that this particular ten year old loves sandwiches that have the sum total of two ingredients for perfection. The two-and-only-two ingredients are a piece of crusty baguette and slices of plainplainplain turkey. We had to modify this duo to include some form of green vegtable. I don't mind that she has not inherited my love for mayonnaise or salt or all things spicy. She may just be on to the deconstructed trend in haute cuisine. I think that the chefs who set up 'deconstructed dishes' may have been among the kids who didn't like anything touching on their dinner plates, just like my favorite ten year old. We can assemble almost any meal and as long as I leave all the ingredients separate and raw (whenever possible) she'll probably eat most of it. Tonight we bought the longest baguette we could find. We sliced it in half horizontally and removed quite a bit of the soft middle. An entire pound of natural sliced turkey breast filled the trench in the loaf. The top was set on the turkey and the "sandwich" cut into four uneven pieces for dinner. Once it was cut apart, each of us decorated our own. We all chose a couple of leaves of romaine. Elizabeth's was on the side of course. The guys had sambal oelek (chili paste), sliced sundried tomatoes, Newman's sun dried tomato vinaigrette and havarti. Travis of course had bacon too. I made up a little sauce with some pickled pepper relish and mayonnaise. This little sauce has one part red spicy pickled pepper relish, one part mayonnaise and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. If I was making this up for a crowd of grown ups I would have layered the turkey, havarti, some pickled pepper sauce, romaine and sun dried tomato pesto. Sun dried tomato pesto can be made easily by putting 1/2 cup of sun dried tomatoes packed in oil into a food processor. Puree until coarsely chopped. Add a handful of fresh basil leaves, a pinch of sea salt, 5 grinds black pepper, 1 Tablespoon room temperature water, a pinch of sugar, a pinch of cayenne pepper, 2 Tablespoons olive oil and a handful of grated asiago cheese. Pulse until the mixture is combined and smooth. This is great on a sandwich of any size or tossed with a plate of pasta.
Hope you like it!
We are off to dance Saturday night in Brunswick. We are trying to learn a new swing dance move every week. The most recent is a kind of travelling footwork. Lead and follow move to the side together- lead/right, follow/left- open position. Weight is on- lead/left foot, follow/right foot. Each partner moves their weighted foot in the direction of the other foot by shifting toe, heel, toe, heel... The foot that is not weight bearing is lightly touching the floor with the tip of the toes. As the weighted foot "walks" across the floor- the non weighted foot moves in a circular motion. This is very much like patting your head and rubbing your tummy, but when performed- it looks great! I'll try to make a little movie to show you what I mean. What are your favorite swing dance moves?

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