The Pursuit of Tastiness

Ratatuletta (when a muffuletta meets ratatouille)

  My father went to school down in Louisianna and would talk great tales about the wonder that is a muffuletta.  A true muffuletta is sort of like an Italian sub with an olive tapenade on a special round bread.  There are usually 4-5 types of sliced spicy meats and a few types of cheese. This is not it.  

Ratatouille is a french peasant food style stew of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, garlic and what ever else you have on hand, really. (Its of a clean out the fridge bin kind of a dish).  This is not it.

These two are a bit of star-crossed lovers. Their families would definitly not approve of their absorbing the other's flavors.  But, the wonderful flavor of olives and salami with the freshness of roasted veggies all on an easily accessible Italian loaf bread is not in vain, it is not a tragedy in the least!

The other great thing about this sandwich is that it is great for a picnic, as it's made a whole day in advance (so you can spend the morning of said picnic tearing through your closet looking for your picnic blanket and basket that you know you have somewhere . . . maybe behind your punch bowl in the closet?)

I also kind of like this because its a bit of a sneak attack of veggies, perfect if you have a someone in your family who wrinkles his/her nose at the word "eggplant".  I mean there are at least 5 whole vegetables in a sandwich that serves 4 (that more per serving than that tomato sauce with the commercial where the kid gives everything to the dog. . . but I digress)

I think the hardest part of the sandwich is not spilling it on you when you eat it, so just make sure you pack napkins!

Ratatuletta, adapted from Muffuletta from Cooking Light, May 2004, serves 4

Part 1

1/4 cup Italian dressing (really any vinegrette is fine here, but maybe not the fruity kinds)

1 medium sized eggplant (the less round, the less seeds it will have!), sliced in 1/2 inch slices

1/2 Vidalia onion sliced in 1/4 inch thick slices

1 yellow squash, sliced in 1/8 inch slices

1 red bell pepper, sliced in 1/2 inch rounds

Part 2

1 cup chopped cherry tomatoes (about 14 of these golf-ball sized tomatoes)

8 pepperoncini peppers, chopped (if you dont feel like investing in a big bottle of these, check out your goccer's salad bar)

12 green olives with pimentos, sliced

1/2 tsp dried thyme

2 Tbsp pepperoncini juice (or olive juice if you dont have enough, but don't substitute water!)

dash of pepper

Part 3

1 loaf Italian bread, cut in the middle lengthwise (like you would a big sub roll)

8 slices provolone (thinly sliced)

12 slices salami (thinly sliced)

If you haven't yet sliced all the veggies in the first section, go ahead and do that.  Then put them all in a big bowl and pour dressing over and mix to cover.  In an ideal world, let this marinate for a couple hours before broiling them.  I've made this several times in various ways and I would say the 2 hours marinating makes a 5% difference, so if you've got the time, go ahead.  Next set oven to broil low (or just broil if you've got an old school oven, and put the rack a bit lower).  Pour veggies onto baking dish and broil for 5 minutes.  Remove and flip veggies, returning to broil 2-5 minutes.  You want the stuff to just get kissed with burn marks, not be totally charred, so watch carefully throughout this part, and remove from oven to cool a bit when done.

Mix all the ingredients from part 2 in a small bowl and set aside.

To assemble the sandwich you can remove some of the inner bread so that the final product isn't too tall or if you want to cut out a few calories.  Next, layer cheese on bottom piece of bread.  Add salami.  Add roasted veggies, trying to get a bit of each vegetable throughout.  Dollop on olive/tomato mixture on top of roasted veggies and finish with top of bread.  Wrap tightly with saran wrap and put in fridge for the better part of the day or 24 hours.  Unwrap, cut into 4ths, serve and enjoy!

the BLT became BLAT which becomes the TALT

  For a while we were going meat-free and during that time I ran across a recipe for something called a TLT, a Tempah, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich.  I am definitly a big fan of the BLT, despite a mediocre fondness of bacon on its own.  My first truely excellent BLT was in Nebraska, of all places, on homemade bread with warm from the garden tomatoes, and good ol' Oscar Meyer Bacon. mmmm, yummy.  Then I met the BLAT, Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato.  This basically substitutes the mayo thats on the BLT (mayo, the modest player of the BLT, no fan-fare in the name at all!) for a shmear of super ripe avocado.  This is also delicious, and a good way to use up left over avocado.  Personally, I dont know if its a reason to buy an avocado, if I didn't have one on hand, I'd go for the original BLT.  Anyway, while perusing 101 cookbooks, I came across the TLT, Tempeh, Lettuce and Tomato, but since the recipe also called for avocado, its more of a TLAT (but it makes a better acronym if we rearrange to TALT).

I had never used tempeh before and if you are like me, wondering what the heck I'm talking about, tempeh is fermented soy beans, sometimes with other stuff added, sometimes not.  It comes as a "cake" which kind of looks like ground turkey if its been cooked.  I know, I make it sound REALLY tasty, don't I?  Well, the truth is this sandwich WAS really tasty!  The use of adobo sauce definitly gave the tempeh its flavor, and the roasted tomatos added just a wee bit of sweetness.  The only thing that would improve it overall would be not burning your   buns (douh!).  I have to say though, that I felt this was more in the hamburger vein, than the BLT vein.  That may be partially because I did use rolls, rather than bread, but the tempeh seemed to dense to be well supported by the sandwich bread I had.  In fact, this might be a good choice for grillin' with vegans, as it really just needs to be warmed up, and I believe it would hold up quite well on a grill, not fall apart between rungs, and since it needs to marinate for a while, it would be all ready once guests were there.

TALT, adapted from the TLT

3 Tbsp olive oil

1/4 c soy sauce

2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp brown sugar

4 Tbsp adobo sauce (the juice in a can of chipolte peppers)*

8 oz tempeh, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 pint cherry or grape tomatos

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

romaine lettuce, 4 big leaves, folded in half, or 8 smaller leaves, doubled up

1 avocado

4 rolls/ 8 slices of hearty bread

Mix 3 Tbsp olive oil, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar and adobo sauce in a flat bottomed dish.  Add tempeh and turn, so covered in sauce.  Cover and refrigerate for 2-24 hours (I did 6 hours and it was good).  

While the tempeh is marinating, preheat oven to 350F.  Cut the tomatos in half and place on baking sheet, toss with olive oil and salt and then place cut side up.  Place in oven and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until wilted.  

When you are ready to prepare your TALT, heat saute pan over medium-high heat, add tempeh and heat on each side for about 3 minutes.  To assemble sandwich, spread each side of roll/piece of bread with avocado, add lettuce, tomatos and then temeph.  Enjoy!

*you can use the chipolte peppers in your next batch of chili, or a little, pureed, to mayo for a tasty spread on your next sandwich