Sandwich Recipe - Antipasto Sandwich for me please!!!

Another sandwich recipe? Can this blog possibly post another sandwich recipe? My answer is yes, yes, yes!!!! Our school year has approximately 195 school days and I have 3 members of my family that need a packed lunch. You make the sum......in one year I pack 585 sandwiches!!! That excluded all the picnic and outing sandwiches!! Phew, do you still think I post too many sandwich recipes? I think NOT!!

To me a good sandwich consists of 3 vital elements....













Let me give you my feelings about each of these topics, maybe you never thought about that....



1. Good quality bread



Old, stale bread can never make a good sandwich. Maybe it is good for French toast, Croque Monsieur or bread pudding, but for sandwiches your bread needs to be fresh, preferably from the oven....



The choice of bread is entirely up to you and the choices are endless.......paninis, whole wheat bread, rye bread, white bread, corn bread, flat breads, soda bread, sourdough bread and these are just a few that comes to my mind straight away.  It is important though that the bread is suitable for the filling. I like egg salad on white bread, but I do not like it on a heavy rye bread. On the other hand, when you make a roast beef sandwich with pickles you can use a bread that is more intense and bold in flavor like a sourdough for instance...



2. Now for the filling.......



  We all grew up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and sometimes still today, that is what I crave, but it does not have to end there. My favorite sandwich(and I can be woken in the middle of the night for this) is a simple tomato sandwich. Just that! Good organic tomato on fresh bread with lots of salt and pepper. Classic combinations for sandwiches are Chicken and Mayo, Salmon and Cream cheese, Roast Beef and mustard, Ham and cheese, Ceasar Sandwich and the well known BLT Sandwich. I dare you to be bold, try new ones....... you'll be amazed at what you will get your famlily to eat if it is slapped between 2 slices of fresh bread.!!!

Or if you cannot think outside the box, just add 1 or 2 ingredients to the classic, like ...



3. Packing sandwiches



This can be tricky, but it just needs a little bit of thought and planning. My hubby hates a messy sandwich so whenever I pack one of my gourmet sandwiches, I have to take special care with the packing. I always wrap the two halves of the sandwich individually so that it stays fresh for second break. I use wax paper so that the other items in the lunchbox such as fruit or yogurt do not make the bread soggy or wet. I use sturdy lunchboxes that is easy to open for the children and that is preferably not too big. If the children are going on long day trips, the sandwiches must be kept in a small cooler box as to prevent food poisoning.

Ok, I think I have covered all the important bit, so let's get busy with today's sandwich....

Yesterday at the market they had crates filled with Paprika peppers. It is said that a paprika pepper is a mildly flavored  pepper, still has the robust flavor of other peppers, but eliminating much of the heat. They were dirt cheap so I got a couple of bags full and also a heap of brinjals. On my wayhome I was racking my brains to think of ways to use this, but I  knew that whatever my idea was, it had to involve roasting these babies. On arrival, I quickly sliced the brinjals, oiled and seasoned them slightly and placed them on a baking sheet. I de-seeded the peppers and gave them the same treatment and into the oven they went(about 200C) until they were soft and delicious. At this stage you can remove the skin from the peppers, but when it is young peppers, like the ones I had, I find this step to be unnecessary.

Now I had a pan full of roasted peppers and brinjal and I thought: "What about a Antipasto Sandwich?"



You will need the following





4 fresh paninis

8 slices of prociutto

4 slices of roasted brinjal

some roasted peppers

1 round of ripe Camembert Cheese

fresh leaves such as butter lettuce, rocket or watercress



Simply slice and butter the panini and stack the filling to your delight. I served my Antipasto Pininis with Spicy Beetroot, Cranberry and Orange Chutney that I got from my dear friend Colleen.