Tomato Cheese Sandwich with Pesto

Blogging Marathon# 66: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: 3 Veggies that are Fruit

Dish: Tomato Cheese Pesto Sandwich

Tomato is probably the most popular vegetable that is in fact a fruit. Today I have a simple sandwich recipe that needs just a few ingredients but tastes absolutely amazing -- Tomato Cheese Sandwich with Pesto.

This dish doesn't really need a recipe. Assemble the ingredients listed in the name, pile them on bread and enjoy as is or if you like the cheese melted and the bread toasted, then grill the sandwich. I like it toasted, so that's how I served it.

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Italian Piadina Sandwich with Roasted Vegetables

Blogging Marathon# 64: Week 2/ Day 3
Theme: Cook from 1 European Cuisine -- Italian

Dish: Italian Piadina Sandwich

After posting 2 well known Italian dishes (Risotto & Pizza), today's Italian dish is not very popular outside of Italy. It is a thin flatbread called Piada or Piadina and is typically made in the Romagna region. The flatbreads are then filled variety of cheeses, meats, vegetables and also with sweet fillings like bananas and Nutella. These are sold as soon as they are made in specialized kiosks called piadineri.

Traditional piada are made with white flour, lard or olive oil, salt and water. I subbed some of the white flour with wholewheat flour and the lard with vegetable shortening. These piada are very much like our kulchas and are leavened with baking powder. These are rolled out very thin unlike the kulchas that are a bit thicker.

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Sabich (Israeli Vegetarian Sandwich) for #Food of the World

We are visiting the beautiful Middle Eastern country of Israel for this month's Food of the World event. Israeli cuisine includes local dishes by native Israelis and the Jewish dishes brought in by the Jews from the Diaspora. One of the most popular Israeli dish, Shashuka (eggs poached in spicy tomato sauce) was my fist pick for today, but then I saw this mouth watering Sabich sandwich on Serious Eats and it looked too good to pass up.

Sabich is an Israeli street food. It is supposed to be influenced from Iraqi Jewish immigrants. The Israelis took a traditional Iraqi breakfast spread of fried eggplants, boiled eggs etc and put it in a pita and made into a trendy delicacy.

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Vegan Tuna Sandwich Wrap & The Florida Keys

Disclosure: I was selected as a member of Honest Cooking for this sponsored post on behalf of The Florida Keys. Some of the content and photos of Florida Keys have been provided by the sponsor.

Sunday was the first day of Spring and it SNOWED!! Oh I wish I was in a warmer place, how about Key West. It sounds just like heaven now. It was a favorite destination for Ernest Hemingway, Jimmy Buffett, and many more.

I have never been to Key West but I have heard a lot about its beautiful palm lined streets, it's distinct mixture of cultures and the island is not only home to a strong seafood scene, but a tantalizing fusion of cuisines. At night, the streets lite up with vibrant sidewalk cafes that lure in passersby with delicious scents of their specialties. Live music and hopping bars are the perfect pairings to watch the sunset into the Gulf of Mexico.

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Vegetarian Gyros with Jackfruit

Blogging Marathon# 60: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Take-Away dishes from Metropulos, Santa Barbara

Dish: Vegetarian Gyros with Jackfruit
Gyro (pronounced as jiro) literally means 'turn' in Greek. But basically it is a dish made of meat cooked in a vertical rotisserie and then served wrapped in a pita with toppings. Gyro is out and out meat centered dish and this vegetarian version is far far away from it's origins.

All this talk about Gyro is because I'm cooking from a Greek take-out restaurant, Metropulos, in Santa Barbara for this week's BM and Gyro happens to be one of their specialties. But they make it meat and I made mine with jackfruit.

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Chocolate-Caramel Sandwich Cookies

Bake-a-thon 2015: Day 8

Bake of the Day: Chocolate-Caramel Sandwich Cookies

I made these cute little chocolate-caramel sandwich cookies for my daughter's Halloween party in school. They were quite a hit and all her teachers wanted the recipe. The recipe is from Martha Stewart site.

Chocolate cookies are very easy to put together, just mix all the ingredients, roll and bake. The only change I made is to use egg replacer powder instead of the egg yolk.

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Avocado Breakfast Sandwich

Blogging Marathon# 59: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Instant Breakfast

Dish: Avocado Sandwich

Day 2 for Instant breakfast and I have another bread based breakfast. Today is a savory sandwich with avocado and other optional toppings.

The idea for this sandwich came from a TV show I watched about an year ago. They had a segment on healthy breakfasts and this avocado sandwich was one of them. I have been making this ever since for myself and enjoy it very much.

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Peanut Butter and Banana Breakfast Sandwich

Blogging Marathon# 59: Week 2/ Day 1

Theme: Instant Breakfast

Dish: Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich

My theme for this week's blogging marathon is 'Instant Breakfast' and Valli wants it to be a quick dish that can be made in less than 20 minutes. So I have 3 easy to make dishes that are filling and delicious.

Breakfast in my household is usually cereal, oats or quick sandwiches, I don't usually cook anything elaborate except for when we have company. So this instant breakfast recipe theme is definitely up my alley and I'm going to share them here this week.

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Cucumber Tomato Sandwich with Hummus (for World Vegetarian Day)

Today is World Vegetarian Day, thanks to Mir for telling the group about this. After the month long mega marathon, I have quite a few posts in the drafts that need to be posted. So today seemed to be the best day to post one of them.

This sandwich recipe is made with Cuban bread, hummus and harissa that I made for the mega marathon. I also had some cucumber and tomatoes from my garden and I added them on top for a colorful sandwich. Serve with a soup and you have yourself a filling meal.

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Cucumber Tea Sandwich

Blogging Marathon# 52: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes

Dish: Cucumber Sandwich
Today's recipe is very very simple with just few ingredients. Many of you might even think that this sandwich doesn't really need a recipe post because it's that easy and simple.

All you need is green chutney, cucumber, cream cheese (or thick curd) and bread slices. With all the sandwich breads that I have been making, I was looking for simple sandwich recipes and I landed on this post by Sala @ Veggie Belly. Her clicks make you want to grab a sandwich right out of the monitor :-)

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Vegetarian Molletes - Mexican Open Face Sandwich

After all the sweet & savory bakes in April, I'm starting May with a baked Mexican open faced sandwich called Mollete. When I think of May, I think of Cinco de Mayo that is celebrated on the 5th of May. The date is observed to commemorate the Mexican army's unlikely victory over French at the battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. So May 5th means make Mexican food and enjoy!!
I was browsing through my 'Cookshelf -- Mexican' cookbook for some recipes and found this Mollete sandwich. It is a Mexican version of open faced sandwich that is filled with refried beans and cheese, then topped with a crunchy cabbage salad.

Molletes are traditionally made with bolillos, a savory Mexican bread that is similar to a baguette but is shorter in length and has a crunchy crust and soft inside. I couldn't find bolillo in my neighborhood, so bought wholewheat crusty rolls and made the sandwiches with them.

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Roasted Vegetable Wrap

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 1/ Day 3

Theme: American Sandwiches

Dish: Roasted Vegetable Sandwich Wrap

For the last day of this week's 'American Sandwiches' theme, I have a quick and easy Roasted Veggie Sandwich wrap. Wraps are less messy and very convenient to pack for lunches. Absolutely anything can go into a wrap, like these sandwich wraps I made for a picnic.

Today's wrap has roasted veggies in it with a healthy smear of mashed bean spread. Any vegetable can be roasted and used here. To expedite the roasting part, broiler is used. But if you want to roast them the slow, methodical way, then roast the veggies in a preheated 450°F for 20~30 minutes. Veggies can be grilled on a stove top or outdoor grill. The mashed bean spread can be easily replaced with some homemade or store bought hummus.

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Veggie Burger Sandwich (Beans & Veggie Burger)

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: American Sandwiches

Dish: Veggie Burger Sandwich

Homemade Veggie burgers have a bad rap -- they are flavorless and have a very high tendency to fall apart while cooking. There are quite a few good quality frozen veggie burgers but most of them are soy based and have long list of unnecessary ingredients with very complicated spellings. There are a ton of recipes for veggie burger recipes on the Internet and after going through a number of recipes I found this recipe by Guy Fieri on the Food Network site.

This recipe uses 3 different types of beans; white, chickpeas and black beans. I used only 2 types of beans and the burger worked beautifully, it didn't fall apart on me and cooked perfectly in the skillet.

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Vegetarian Hoagie Sandwich

Blogging Marathon# 50: Week 1/ Day 1

Theme: American Sandwiches

Dish: Hoagie Sandwich

We are starting a brand new edition of blogging marathon today and my theme for this week is 'American Sandwiches'. Didn't realize that there are around 70-80 different types of sandwiches in the US until I saw the list of sandwiches on Wiki that Valli shared with us. More than 90% of these are meat based, so after carefully looking through all my options, I picked 3 sandwiches that were vegetarian and those we knew I would be making again and again. 

For the first day, I made Hoagie sandwich. This is a kind of submarine sandwich and has quite a few different names like a sub, wedge, hoagie, hero, grinder etc. it is interesting to know that there are about 13 different names for this very sandwich in US. A submarine sandwich basically consists of a long roll of Italian or French bread that is split width wise either into two pieces or opened in a "V" on one side, and filled with a variety of meats, cheeses, vegetables, seasonings, and sauces.

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French Herb Bread

Bake-a-thon: Day 1
Bake of the day: French Herb Bread
It is December 1st and holiday season and count down to Christmas has already started. I have yet to bring my holiday decor out, will probably try and get everything done by the end of this week. I see the holiday lights already lit in some of my neighbors houses, hopefully we will have ours up soon too.
Christmas/ Holiday season means baking season for baking enthusiasts and I consider myself an eager enthusiast. So I've joined few of my blog buddies, led by the very lovely Valli, to do a Bake-a-thon, a month long baking event and we will be posting 3 times a week all through December with a linky tool to track all our baked treats.

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Smörgåstårta - Swedish sandwich cake

When I saw Rajani's Smörgåstårta, I changed my original plan of making Swedish Cinnamon rolls and made this beautiful sandwich cake instead. It is exactly what it sounds like, but nothing like it looks -- funny isn't it. It is a savory cake made with all of the sandwich fixings and they frosted like a cake.

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Vegetarian McMuffin Sandwich

Blogging Marathon# 41: Week 3/ Day 1
Theme: E-N Breakfast Items
Dish: M for McMuffin -- Vegetarian McMuffin Sandwich

For the final day of breakfast week for blogging marathon, I made M for McMuffin. McMuffin is a family of sandwiches served at the famous fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. The egg mcmuffin is the signature breakfast sandwich.

Unfortunately in the US, there are very limited options for vegetarians. It has been years when I last went to McD's. But I've heard that the Indian McD's have quite a few vegetarian options. My son is looking forward to his India trip this summer to visit Indian McD's.

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Hummus Bread

I had no plans of baking bread this morning. When I woke up, it was foggy and raining heavily -- I didn't feel like doing anything at all. Then I opened my Facebook account and saw one of the groups having a 'Baking with yeast' event this weekend. Sun finally peeked out and I decided to bake something for the event.

I got my 'King Arthur Flour: Whole Grain Baking' book out and after looking through some amazing breads, I narrowed it down to this yummy looking Hummus bread. I had a container of store-bought  spicy black bean hummus that needed to used up and that went right into the bread. I was concerned if the bread will turn out too spicy, but it was just perfect.

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Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

Blogging Marathon# 40: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: Yeast Breads
Dish: Banana Yeasted Sandwich Bread

We are back to the regular weeking marathons this month. It has been quite a roller coaster ride exploring the dishes from all the Indian states. So I'm taking a short break from Indian food and decided to bake some yeast breads for the first week of Blogging Marathon# 40.
My husband bought me this Bread maker recently. He wanted to buy one a while back, but I was resisting the idea -- didn't want to clutter the kitchen with another appliance. But when it went on sale couple of months ago, we went ahead and bought it. Since then we have stopped buying bread unless it is absolutely necessary and I bake about 2 loaves of bread every week.
But what I found out was that the bread baked in the machine is rather unsightly -- awkwardly large and has a gaping hole in the bottom. I couldn't even pull myself to take a picture of that monstrosity -- don't get me wrong, it tastes amazing, but it is just not camera ready (you know what I mean.. right!!!!)

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Basic French Macarons -- My First Attempt

French Macarons have been on my to-bake list for a very very long time. Macaron is a meringue based confection made with egg whites, almond flour and powdered sugar. I have never tasted macarons, but saw a lot of them on various blogs. I read that macarons are very temperamental and there are a lot of variables that can go wrong while making them. So even though  I was tempted to make them, I never actually tried for the fear of failure.

When I saw them for this month's Home Baker's Challenge, I thought this might be time to give them a try. Big thanks to Sri Nuggehalli @ The Brave Cook, the host for this month's challenge.

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