The New Egg Salad Sandwich

I am inspired and reminded by Alexis' New Tuna Salad Sandwich Recipe post. I personally love egg salad sandwiches slightly better than tuna salad, but that may be due to the fact I always have eggs lying around, and never tuna. They make a great lunch to bring to work as well.

As Alexis indicated, there are several ways not to make a tuna or egg salad sandwich, with a very fine line separating good from bad. I consider a not so tasty egg salad sandwich to look like a heap of yellow mayonnaise looking mush between two pieces of white bread. It gives me shivers just thinking about it.

A great egg salad sandwich would look very much like one they serve at The Bagelry Co-op in Santa Cruz. The key is to treat your hard boiled egg whites separate from the yolks, and add a very tasty ingredients to spice it up. Egg salad is great between to pieces of toasted wheat-style bread, or toasted bagels. Yum.

The New Egg Salad Sandwich

~Print Recipe~

What's in it (all approximates)

4 eggs

1 Tbl homemade spicy mustard

1-2 Tbl mayo or plain greek yogurt

2 tsp dill

1 stalk finely chopped celery

1-2 Tbl poppy seeds

salt and pepper to taste

optional: 1 Tbl pickle relish

optional: curry powder

optional: 1/4 C shredded carrot

optional: 1 small can diced olives

How it's made

Begin by setting your eggs out so they come close to room temperature, or run them under warm water to bring their temp. down. The less cold they are when they go into the hot pot, the less likely they will crack. Bring a small pot of water to boil. Place the eggs gently in the pot and bring it to a simmer. Simmer on low for 10-12 minutes. Immediately put the eggs in an ice bath to cool them off. This will ensure they are easy to peel.

Peel your eggs and put the yolks in one small bowl, and the whites on a cutting board. Chop your whites coarsely, to about 1/4"-1/2". Add the mustard and mayo/yogurt to your yolks and mix until fluffy. Add in the rest of your ingredients, except for the egg whites, and mix well. Gently fold in your chopped egg whites.

Toast a bagel or bread, and enjoy your egg salad!

Rustic Veggie Melt

The other day I needed a quick dinner and I ended up with a delightful meal worth posting.

My sister works at New Seasons and is able to bring home a lot of produce for free. When ever something is dropped or bruised or on the verge of going bad they set it aside. It's from this group of veggies she can pick some for us to enjoy at home. She brought home a lot of squash, peppers and onions which she chopped and roasted. I walked in when the veggies were coming out of the oven, which drastically reduced my overall cooking time, but it's still easy. Here are the instructions:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Rinse and chop various veggies, in this case we had green and yellow squash, red and green bell peppers, yellow onions and whole cloves of garlic. Toss veggies with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can add fresh herbs too. We had thyme, rosemary, and oregano. Roast in glass baking dish until all veggies are cooked through and starting to brown, tossing at least once. Remove from oven and set aside to cool slightly.

Increase oven to Broil.

Cut thick slices of sourdough and lay them on a flat cookie sheet, covered in foil if you like foil.
Scoop some of the roasted veggie mixture onto each slice of bread and spread it to the edges. Sprinkle with fresh chopped basil or other herb if you have it. Then layer some jack or mozzarella cheese over the top. Place in the oven on middle rack and watch until the cheese just starts to bubble and the edges of the bread are toasty. Remove from the oven and seve immediately.

I didn't have the energy to make a whole salad to go with this so you can see I just tossed some avocado pieces with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Total time with roasting veggies is about 1 hour (most of which you are sitting while veggies cook)
Total time with pre-roasted veggies is about 10 minutes. If you pre-roast veggies they can be stored in the frig for a few days and you can have this meal for an easy lunch or brunch with an egg on top.

Enjoy!

Avocado, Bell Pepper and Caramelized Onion Tuna Melts

What happens when you try to use whatever you have in your pantry...

• 4 slices of bread
• 4 slices of cheese (we had cheddar)
• 2 cans of tuna
• Mayonnaise and mustard to taste
• 1 stock of celery, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
  
• 1/4 of a white onion, sliced into long strips
• 1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• Balsamic vinegar (optional)
  
• 1 avocado, in thin slices
• Salt and pepper to taste
  

1. Heat olive oil in a small saute pan to medium-low (around 4), add sliced onion and bell pepper. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Stir every once in awhile to make sure the mixture is cooking evenly. I added a splash of balsamic vinegar near the end. It's done when everything is soft and the onions turn a caramel color.
2. Prepare tuna salad to your preference. We used a little mayo, some Sierra Nevada Porter mustard, salt, pepper and chopped celery.
3. Heat a griddle (on about 3) and start toasting all four slices of bread. Flip the bread to toast other side and immediately add two cheese slices to two slices of the bread. Spread the tuna mixture over the other two slices. When the cheese has melted, remove both sides from the griddle.
4. Spread the onion and bell pepper mixture over the tuna. Top with sliced avocado. Add a little more mustard to the cheese side and place on top.

* These are big sandwiches! We only had regular small bread and wished we had something a little bigger to hold all of the ingredients.