Goat cheese, pesto, and green apple panini

So this whole working 10 hours a day thing has really been messing up my cooking schedule.  My day usually goes like this: I get up by 5, work out, work from 7:30-6, walk 30 minutes home because I'm too cheap to take the bus every day, get home, and try to muster up some energy to make dinner.  That's when there's the problem.  I want to cook because I adore cooking but I am also so hungry that my neighbor across the hall can hear my stomach growling.  It's dinner time and I need food FAST!  


Lately I've been turning to the ultimate go-to quick meal: sandwiches.  Now, I'm not talking about turkey and cheese sandwich on crappy bread.  I'm talking about hearty whole grain bread, with fresh vegetables and quality ingredients.  All of the sandwiches I have made have turned out to be pretty tasty, and there is one in particular that I felt the need to share with the blog world.  It involves thick and chewy whole-grain bread, creamy goat cheese, pesto, spring greens, and sliced green apples.  It was inspired by a bakery in Minneapolis called Rustica, where I had one of the best sandwiches I've ever had.  This sandwich was the best I could come up with to replicate it and it came dang close.  


While I had to use spring greens instead of arugula, everything else was spot-on.  I cooked it up panini-style to get the goat cheese all melted and creamy, which also gave the bread a nice crunchy layer on the outside.  Another note, the quantities of pesto, goat cheese, and spring greens are estimates.  Add however much you please.  


Goat Cheese, Pesto, and Green Apple Panini
makes 2 sandwiches


4 slices whole grain bread
1/4-1/2 cup goat cheese
1/4 cup pesto 
1 green apple, sliced thin
1 cup spring greens
2 tbsp olive oil


Directions:


Spread 2 pieces of bread with goat cheese, and the other 2 with pesto.  Place the apple slices on the side with the goat cheese, top with spring greens, and then top with piece of bread with pesto.  


In large skillet or panini grill, heat olive oil over medium-low heat.  I don't have a panini grill so I cooked my sandwich ghetto-panini style.  I placed my sandwich in the skillet, then topped with a plate and then a heavy cookbook to weight it down and get it "pressed."  It's important to cook it over medium-low heat so the inside gets warm, without the bread getting burnt.  After 5 minutes, flip and cook other side, adding more olive oil if needed.  Cook 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat, slice in half, and enjoy!