Edible Tulip

Retro Lunch

I've had a pissy 9 days - a lovely date with disastrous repercussions, a bout of impulsive behaviour which makes me feel compulsively obsessive, acupuncture (it may be good for me but it sure ain't a massage), 2 completed then lost essays (one that mirrored falling in love with the umeboshi Japanese pickled plums - you try to find the mental energy to rewrite that!), cutting holes accidentally into my new stockings that I walked through a windstorm and 3 hours to buy, getting on the wrong bus in the dark and not noticing until I was so lost that I got off in what looked like a ghetto and had to chase down a cab, finding myself actually browsing over those 1.5 litre bottles of wine, dropping a lit cigarette into the radiator making me very late for work, and realizing after way too much money that natural deodorant just does not work. Things are looking up though. And I've just eaten a deliciously simple sandwich of health-food bulk bin naturally crunchy peanut butter spread onto Portuguese floured pada buns heated under the broiler and packed thick with dense spinach leaves and chopped iceburg lettuce. It's much much better than you would imagine. I wanted peanut butter because I wanted comfort and warmth but I didn't want sweet like grape jelly or marmalade so I opted for chlorophyll as a filling.

The leaves are still on the trees outside which is marvelous for mid November. There's nothing more depressing than the skeletal reach to the sky of bared limbs while the stores start to fill up with Christmas decorations.

Sundried Tomato Cheese Spread

I realize this image won't be winning any food photography contests but it does taste good which is the ultimate goal now isn't it.

I'm not a sandwich fan. Never have been (unless it's a toasted piece of thin chewy dense bread, spread with lemon mayo or garlic aiolli, thinly sliced tomato, thinly sliced cucumber, and a wedge of avocado all sprinkled with coarse salt and chunky bits of pepper then I'm yours forever). But other people seem to be and since I cook for other people a lot I figured I'd better keep coming up with new sandwich arrangements.

I'm a composed salad type of girl which means I like to combine a dense leafy green salad with 2 other kinds: maybe a legume, maybe a grain, whatever, the choices are endless and I have a repertoire of too many to list here. Others like salads but mostly as a side to their sandwich. This I have come to respect. Today at lunch I made a curried lentil salad with chopped parsley and grape tomatoes quartered, a large green cabbage and carrot coleslaw with mint and cilantro, a green baby spinach salad with sunflower seeds, some polenta slices grilled with pesto and a melted butter/parmesan dressing (decadent!), and these tomato basil wraps. The sundried tomato cheese mixture was spread over the wraps, lined with fresh spinach and basil leaves, layered with long cucumber spears, sprinkled with salt and pepper and then WRAPPED.

Ham & Cheese Quesadilla

There are times in life when escargot and caviar and filet mignon just won't do. Eating fancy foods while dressed in one's finest duds and looking across a table to a charming smiling date is all fine for a formal summer evening out but some days we crave tradition blended with memory. This is often found in the grilled cheese sandwich. Forget crying into ice cream, why not into melted aged cheddar cheese?

Although the ingredients are basic in this grilled sandwich, some of them have been modified slightly. This asks the eaters to muse "Hmm, why is this soooo good?".

It's so good because it uses a flax seed wrap which gives it a nutty crunchiness. Then it is layered with a thin coating of the finest mayonnaise (insert your favourite brand, Hellman's in this case), topped with another layer of Russian honey mustard (that thick gooey slightly sweet, slightly hot incomparable taste when combined with cheese), then lined with ham, then sliced tomatoes, and finally the King of cheeses: Balderson Cheddar, aged 10 years. I had the pleasure of living a few kilomtres from the Balderson Cheese Factory/Outlet store in Lanark County Ontario. Some days there were long lines of fans waiting for cheese curds. Those nubby ends of leftover cheese I couldn't bring myself to try, but their cheddar is truly Canada's finest. If you get a chance this summer to visit the Ottawa area take the lovely trip to Balderson and treat yourself to a 3 scoop ice cream cone as reward.

These sandwiches/quesadillas are best panfried in a bit of butter until browned and the cheese has entirely melted in the centre. Serve with a green salad with fresh herbs and a summer tomato soup or gazpacho for lunch.

3 Takes on the Concept of the Sandwich

Now I know there's a story behind the sandwich and it involves an Earl and putting something, anything, between two slices of bread. In this day and age where we have advanced out of the 1970s lunch of spam and French mustard between two slices of wonder bread (really, it's a wonder anyone ever called that bread), the things you think of as your fillers consist of pretty much anything edible and the bread itself can no longer be just an assumption; it is considered an equal actor in the production that is the sandwich.

Today I made three sandwiches because they are easy, tasty and pretty to look at (and they didn't require the frustration of trying to get the oven working).

Entrant #1 was a spinach wrap (as seen in the picture) filled with baby spinach and a spread I blended in the food processer which consisted of 1 package of cream cheese, 1 package of goat cheese, 1/4 cup of whole milk, and 1/2 jar of sundried tomatoes in oil (which I drained). The resulting spread was creamy and pinkish with speckles of red. Wraps are a little finnicky and so I try to keep the ingredients in the flat category (i.e. tomatoes just squash and ooze everywhere and they don't do the gymnastics that are required for a wrap very effectively).

Entrant #2 was a old fashioned multigrain loaf with oats on the crust. I cut thick generous slices and spread homemade hummous on top with caraways seeds. I then begin the layering process: thinly sliced english cucumbers, avocado, and roasted red peppers in coiled mounds.

Entrant #3 is loved by kids and adults alike. It's a take on a grilled ham & cheese. I used flax tortilla shells and spread one shell with a sweet Russian honey mustard and a bit of mayo and then layered thinly sliced blackforest ham to cover the whole shell, then I layered roma tomato slices in the same way, round and round the ham, and then I covered it with another shell. The oven is still broken so I put one in a large frying pan with a little bit of butter and cooked it until the shell turned dark crispy brown and the cheese was melted. I flipped it into another pan to cook the other side and started a chain of fying and flipping.

Everyone was happy with the choice of sandwich. I put out little bowls of olives, pickles and jalapeno peppers, and radishes. And I made a large salad of sunflowers seeds, currants and spinach.

And now I rest for a few hours before returning to cook the closing dinner.