Call It What It Is: “The Sandwich”

This is a story about a beloved sandwich with no name of its own. It’s just The Sandwich.

The Backstory

My bonus son, known here as The Best Eater, married a wonderful woman, whose Glover Gardens moniker is The Girls Who is Always Hungry. You heard about it here a few years ago.

When The Best Eater and The Girl Who is Always Hungry visit us at Glover Gardens, we hear about the great meals they have at her parents’ home, and vice versa. A dish that gets a lot of air time is one of her family’s favorites: The Sandwich. It needs no other name to distinguish it in their family. I heard about The Sandwich so many times that I asked for the recipe and some pictures so that I could share it with you, and the lovely Stacy, who is the mother of The Girl Who is Always Hungry, sent both my way.

So, for this Sandwich Wednesday, here’s a guest recipe. It bears some resemblance to a muffuletta, but is only a distant cousin. I present to you The Sandwich, from Stacy.

Recipe for “The Sandwich”

Ingredients

• 1 large loaf French bread
• ½ of a 16 oz. jar of spicy pickled vegetables or giardiniera (Stacy uses Mezzetta – see Notes below)
• ¼ cup sliced green olives with pimentos, drained
• ¼ cup mayonnaise
• 5 oz. sliced ham
• 5 oz. sliced roast beef or turkey (optional)
• 5 slices swiss cheese
• 5 slices provolone cheese
• 3 oz. grated cheddar cheese

Cooking Instructions

Combine the vegetable mix / giardiniera and olives in a food processor and pulse a few times until they are chopped, but not pureed. (You can also do this step by hand.) Transfer to a small bowl and add the mayonnaise, stirring to mix well. Preheat the oven to broil.

Cut the French bread lengthwise to split it open, but do not cut it all the way through. Press it to lay flat, then add spread the vegetable/mayonnaise mix to both sides of the bread. Put the lunch meat on a plate, cover, and microwave for 1-2 minutes on medium just until the meat is no longer cold. Layer the meat slices on one side of the French bread, then put the cheese slices on both sides. Add the grated cheddar cheese to the side without the meat. Broil in the oven until the cheese is melted. Fold the sandwich carefully together, slice and serve.

Notes

About Those Spicy Vegetables

According to their web site, Mezzetta California Hot Mix Vegetables are “a melange of carrots, celery, cauliflower, jalapeño and colorful summer veggies”.

You can use another brand of hot pickled vegetables or giardiniera, or even olive salad in place of both the olives and vegetable mix.

Hmmmm, How About a Panini Version?

Looking at Stacy’s recipe, it occurs to me that it could easily be transformed into a panini format, using bolillo/torta rolls, or submarine sandwich rolls, and cooking low and slow in the panini maker to achieve the gooey-melty goodness that Stacy gets in the broiler. This note is specifically for The Grill-Meister, as a request for the next Sandwich Wednesday. 😁

Join Stacy in the Kitchen

All photos of The Sandwich courtesy of Stacy, along with the recipe.

They Also Made the Texas-Tuscany Goat Cheese Spread

I was pleased to hear from Stacy, when she sent all of these photos and the recipe, that they also made one of our Glover Gardens standards, the Texas-Tuscany Goat Cheese Spread (and not for the first time, either). It has made its way into their repertoire; their version looks great!

It makes me inordinately happy when people make my recipes from the Glover Gardens Cookbook section of the blog. It is so rewarding when someone can replicate the goodness you’ve created in your own kitchen. And as I said to Stacy, “Family recipes are a connector!”

Here’s the post with the Texas-Tuscany Goat Cheese Spread recipe, in case you want to make it, too. And, don’t tell anyone, but at Glover Gardens we just call it “the goat cheese thing”.

In Closing

I know that The Sandwich will become part of our standard repertoire, but I think we will call it The Stacy Sandwich, in honor of its creator.

That’s all for this edition of the intermittent Sandwich Wednesday series; The Grill-Meister’s creations will be back in the headlines soon.

© 2020, Glover Gardens