Weekend: Camping Sandwiches

Sandwiches are always a great meal, especially when you are on the go. We went camping this weekend and made sandwiches two days. We used the same basic "recipe."

Bread (Whole wheat or Rosemary)
Meat (or fake meat, we used Tofurkey slices)
Cheese (havarti and cheddar)
Tomatoes
Mustard (in this case "Moosetard" Alaskan Smoked Lager Mustard)
Olive tapenade
Avocado

Everyone knows how to make a sandwich! You put all the ingredients between two slices of bread and eat. In this case, the sandwiches were a little bland. I think the bread:filling ratio was a little bread-heavy. Also, toasting the bread is always nice, and since we were camping we couldn't do that. This also made the sandwiches kind of "thick" and dry. A little mayonaise would have helped there.

The mustard was delicious, but too mild. On our last sandwich we slathered it on, and they were significantly improved. Also, we had kind of mild cheese and out tomatoes were bland. They looked good, but what can you expect - they were from the mainstream grocery store.

Overall, disappointing sandwiches, despite the ingredient list sounding good. It's all about the ratio, I suppose.

A Day Off: Frech Toast & Texas Barbeque Tofu Sandwiches

After the Pre-Easter Picnic Brunch, I took home half a baguette, which was left mostly open overnight. This morning I thought I'd better save it by making it into French Toast

French Toast

1/2 baguette, sliced
About 1 cup Milk (I actually used Vanilla Soymilk, Unsweetened)
3 eggs
Cinnamon (optional)
Butter for cooking (or oil)



I never measure when I make it, so I can't tell you exactly how much milk I used, but the basic idea is to mix up milk and egg and dip some bread in it, then fry it (medium-high heat, use a thick pan, and lots of butter helps).

French Toast is really easy, especially once you've made it a few times. The hardest part if getting the ratio of batter to bread accurate. Some people like to lightly dip their bread, but I like my bread to soak up as much batter as possible. I also like to add cinnamon, and usually vanilla extract, too. Today I got the ratio just right - not a drop of batter leftover, and every piece of toast saturated thoroughly. Oh yeah, and I had some "Ambrosia" and strawberries leftover from the brunch so I served those up as well.



After the Pre-Easter Picnic Brunch, I also ended up with a LOT of potato salad! Somehow, I inherited a very large and very full container. I wanted to make something that would go with potato salad. In fact, I think I will be making things to compliment potato salad all week. And what goes better with potato salad than barbeque?

I was really hungry, so I made my quick version. I post it here today with the promise that I will also make my involved version sometime.

(Quick) Barbeque Tofu Sandwiches

1 package baked tofu (terriyaki flavor)
4 slices jalepeno cheese (or jack, cheddar, etc)
1/2 heirloom tomato, sliced
2 foccacia buns (mine had rosemary, which added an interesting flavor twist)
Barbeque sauce

My buns were frozen, so first I heated them up in the microwave to defrost them a bit. Then I sliced them in half. I also sliced the baked tofu into 4 thin slices.

I placed two slices tofu on one half of each bun, then placed two slices cheese on top of that. I put them in the toaster oven, toasted them once, then turned it to broil for 5-10 minutes. Then I added the other half of the bun and toasted one more time.

I pulled out the sandwiches, added the barbeque and sliced tomato, and voila! I served it with a heap of potato salad, 1/2 of a sliced up avocado with slat and pepper, and the leftover brussel sprouts from Friday.



Marshall says: "Yum! That was an amazing sandwich!"
And later he says: "That sandwich was so good!"
Time: 15 minutes
Leftovers: Well, I actually took some of the tofu and cheese I would have put on my sandwich, and put it one piece of bread sliced in half to make a half sandwich for lunch tomorrow.