Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches

August 24, 2013 by Mary Frances 22 Comments

Now is the time!! The tomatoes are magnificent! Go and visit your nearest farmer’s market and buy those amazing heirloom tomatoes. Get some nitrate-free bacon and whip up bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches! We had just that for lunch today with an ear of corn, leftover from last night’s dinner, and it was just so delicious. So flavorful, like eating sunshine. Can you eat sunshine? Well it felt like it because this was just so fresh and yummy. So simple, yet full of flavor but light at the same time.

Once again, it’s all about the ingredients. Our bacon, from a local farm, was delicious and crisp. Our bread was toasted and also crisp. It was whole wheat sourdough artisanal bread. The orange tomatoes were vine ripened and just picked this morning. The two red cherry tomatoes I grew and picked this morning. The lettuce was iceberg for the cold crunch and the mayo was Hellman’s, not even homemade. I sprinkled a little fine grind sea salt and fresh ground black pepper on the tomatoes, before closing the sandwich.

Don’t let summer come to a close without making this. You won’t be sorry.

BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICHES – serves 2

4 slices of whole wheat sourdough bread, toasted and cooled
2 – 3 heirloom tomatoes, sliced 1/4” thick
6 slices of nitrate-free bacon, fried crisp, drained on paper towels and patted dry of top grease
3 – 4 leaves of iceberg lettuce, torn in half, folded to fit
Sea salt
Fresh ground pepper
Hellmann’s real mayonnaise

Spread a thin film of mayonnaise on each slice of bread, Top one slice with a double thickness of tomatoes. Salt and pepper the tomatoes, top with 3 slices of bacon, the lettuce and then close with the other slice of bread. Cut in half and serve.

Eat with gusto and enjoy the summer sunshine!! You will LOVE it!

Leftovers

November 28, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

Ours are all gone now and yours should be too! They sadly do not last long, particularly with a really fresh bird.

Meet the gobbler – a favorite of our older son’s – on the day after Thanksgiving, which is actually my favorite time to eat everything. I don’t know about you but by the time I sit down to eat the actual dinner, I have been concerned with so many things, I don’t really enjoy it to the fullest or taste it, until the next day.

I like to have the whole dinner again, in much smaller portions, with a half of a turkey sandwich on my homemade bread, with some mayonnaise. Our oldest, however, likes the whole meal (minus the Brussels sprouts) on one huge sandwich – what he calls the gobbler. He got the idea for this sandwich from the Millburn Deli in NJ, although he said he uses much less mayonnaise because my turkey is never dry (yay!) and added the gravy and sweet potatoes. You can see here the turkey, dressing, gravy, sweet potato, and cranberry sauce. It’s a good thing he can open his mouth this wide!

I just had to share.

Football snacks

January 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 3 Comments

This past week, we had some dear friends over for cocktails and appetizers and then had dinner together at the Red Rooster restaurant, just open a year now, but famed and always crowded. It’s nice!

Charlie Rose was at the table next to ours, (poor guy, he spilled wine all over himself) and the star chef/owner Marcus Samuelsson stopped by and chatted with us. As usual, the Swedish meatballs and fried chicken (yardbird) were great!

I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think I do appetizers well and this opportunity of only having to serve just that and not a whole dinner, was unusual for me. So I wanted to make them different, not too filling, (because I knew dinner would be), and fresh. I think I achieved that.

I relied on my friend Margaret’s recipe for tonnato, a really creamy, bursting with flavor dip. Combining tuna, anchovies, capers and mayo and you can’t go wrong. Throw in parboiled green beans, fresh fennel and red pepper sticks and you’ve got a delicious combo. I also included a marvelous true English cheddar from Todd English’s Food Court at the Plaza Hotel, some crackers, pistachios (Susan loves) and corn nuts.

It worked out great and I think this would also be great for game watching today. Let me know what you think!

TONNATO
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 olive oil
8 oz Italian tuna in oil, drained (or use 1 ½ cans of water packed white albacore tuna, drained – I actually think this is better!)
5 anchovy fillets, packed in oil, at room temperature, drained and patted dry with a paper towel
3 tbs. lemon juice or a bit more to taste
2 tbs. capers, drained
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in the food processor and process until smooth and voila, you’ve got one tasty dip! Do taste before you add any salt and pepper as you may not need any salt at all.

For the green beans, trim the one end, drop in boiling salted water for 2 minutes. Drain and immediately put in an ice water bath to stop the cooking. Pat dry and let air dry. When dry, wrap in a paper towel and place in a ziplock bag in the refrigerator to chill.

Fennel and red pepper strips should just be raw. You could also use carrot, celery or cucumber strips too.

Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches

Leftovers

Football snacks

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