Grilled Vegetable Sandwich
This is one of my all-time favourite sandwiches. Why? It has so much nutritional goodness and uses 10 grain baguette. It’s so simple and quick to make yet a totally guilt-free and satisfying meal. In any great sandwich, I believe the most important ingredient is the bread. I mean you can almost always eat the everything between the bread layers on its own, so why eat the bread! The bread has to be worth it to eat those extra carbs! 🙂
When I think about some of my favourite sandwiches, the actual bread is the main thing that comes to mind. For example, in the US, Panera Bread and Publix use the yummiest bread! That said, by far the most variety that I have seen is in German bakeries, it was like walking into bread paradise! When I was in Munich last year for about five months, I truly fell in love with German breads (not because I had nothing else to eat in the country where people love their meats :)); so many whole grain varieties packed with flavour and goodness!
We all see whole-grain this and that, but what does that really mean and why is it good for us? Whole grains contain all the parts of the wheat stalk without its bran and germ removed by milling. Whole grains are naturally packed full with vitamins, minerals, and other essential nutrients including fibre, iron, and zinc. As this is a high-fibre food, it makes you feel full for longer and helps you reach/maintain your healthy weight. Not only that, many studies have shown whole-grain to help lower your risk of diabetes, heart disease and certain types of cancer.
It’s easy to meet that daily allowance of whole-grain: you don’t really have to try as it’s actually hard to avoid it :). Use whole-grain bread instead of white bread, eat oatmeal or buckwheat cereal, whole-meal waffles or pancakes, corn tortilla, brown rice, etc. Nowadays, most of the products you will have a whole-grain option! Next time when you are shopping, be sure to check for the word “whole” as part of the first ingredient.
Feeds 2/ Foot Long Sandwich/Total Time: 15-20 minutes
Ingredients:
1 Zucchini/Courgette
1/2 medium Eggplant/Aubergine
2 Portobello Mushrooms
2 Red/Orange bell peppers
Handful of fresh spinach leaves
3-4 tbsp of Pesto
Hard cheese of your choice, sliced
Foot long baguette, preferably multi(7-10) grain
Olive oil (‘Extra Virgin’ for drizzling and cold-pressed or blended for grilling)
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1. Cut all vegetables into long thick slices/chunks, except for spinach.
2. In a pan, heat some olive oil and grill all the vegetables on high heat for about 5-7 minutes until tender and season with salt and pepper.
3. While the vegetables are grilling, slice the baguette, spread pesto on the inside of the two halves. Once vegetables are prepared, layer each of them on the baguette. Next, place the slices of cheese and finally, layer fresh spinach. Drizzle little bit of extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper over spinach and cover with the other half of baguette. Delicious!
Thanks to the kind and generous gift from my close friends in Atlanta, Ni and Monisha, we now have a Cuisinart Grill/Griddle machine that makes grilling anything so easy and you always get that charred flavour coming through. We are yet to crack into the packet of paneer that has been in the fridge for a few weeks so watch this space for the tikka recipe!
On a final note, for those that wondered whether my blogging career was already over after 30 posts, fear not: we have a family wedding over this weekend for which I was quite thrilled to be asked to prepare some bite-size desserts. I will post up how I got on in the coming days 🙂
Stuffed Peppers
One of my favourite vegetables and a very versatile one is the (bell) pepper or capsicum. As usual with my meal ideas, I had a few ingredients at home and wanted to create a healthy warm side dish. I stuffed these peppers with a basic filling but you can add rice and your favourite veggies. If you are going to make the effort, you might as well just add a few more nutrients by combining some sort of protein such as beans, lentils, or mock meat in your filling.
In this recipe, I personally do not like to use green bell peppers. Compared to green peppers, red, yellow and orange peppers have more vitamins and nutrients (twice the vitamin C content). That said, I just personally think they are just more flavourful.
Serves 2-3/Total time: 25 minutes
2 medium to large bell peppers (capsicum), sliced in half and remove inners
50 g fresh spinach, roughly chopped
2 spring onions stalks, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced
1/4 cup sweetcorn
3/4 cup mock meat mince
4-6 cherry tomatoes, cut into fourths
1 cup vegetable stock
sprinkle of fresh coriander, chopped
3/4 cup grated cheese
1 tsp tomato puree
1 tsp oil
1/4 tsp of salt or salt to taste
dash of black pepper
1. Heat oil in a pan. Add onions and garlic. Sautee for a few minutes. Add sweetcorn, cherry tomatoes, tomato puree, salt, pepper, minced mock meat and stock. Cover with lid and cook for 5-7 minutes or until water is absorbed.
2. Meanwhile, boil the peppers in salted water. After 5 minutes, drain the excess water. This will make them tender and reduce the time it will need in the oven. I am always looking to save time without compromising quality! 🙂
3. Now add spinach and coriander to the cooked mince mix and stir. Take it off the heat. Scoop 1/4 of the mince and fill the half the pepper, sprinkle generously with grated cheese. Repeat for the other 3 halves.
4. Place the stuffed peppers in a baking tray and place under the grill for 5-7 minutes until the cheese is melted. Serve immediately.
If you are preparing the dish in advance, let’s say for a dinner party, instead of grilling, place them in the oven for 15-20mins so that the filling heats through.
VegDelights 