Let’s face it, with the holiday season in full swing, our wallets are feeling a little tight. A great way to stretch those dollars even further is to create meals with leftovers in mind. This flank steak two ways from goodLife {eats} will not only help you woo that Friday night date, but makes for a great lunch on Saturday and Sunday as well.

What meals do you cook with the day after sandwich in mind?

Flank Steak & Marinade – Two Ways [goodLife {eats}]

Coconut & Lime is firing up the panini press for a series of recipes this week, and taking some beautiful pictures along the way.  Rachel Rappaport’s mouthwatering recipes are making us hungry for crispy pressed sandwiches like Sesame-Ginger Pork and Prosciutto di Parma with Capicola.  We will be checking back throughout the week to see the tasty combinations that Coconut & Lime is sure to put between grilled bread.

We caught up with Coconut & Lime’s creator Rachel Rappaport:

Unbreaded: Can you give us a little background about C&L?
Rachel Rappaport: I started Coconut & Lime back in 2004 as a place to share my recipes with friends. It slowly grew until the point where I now do it full time. I really enjoy creating my own recipes for food and sharing them with my readers. It is a lot of work but worth it when I see how well my recipes are received by people who make them in their own kitchens!

UB: You’ve made a lot of sandwiches.  Can you give us some lessons learned?
RR: While I enjoy buying fancy meats and cheeses to make my own gourmet sandwiches, I really love making sandwiches out of leftovers from other meals. It makes the idea of eating leftovers much more palatable; it is almost as if you weren’t eating leftovers at all.

UB: If you could eat any sandwich in the world right now, what would it be, and from where?
RR: Luckily my favorite sandwich is easily obtained at our local Italian deli. It is called the Old World Italian and has great Italian meats and cheese and an olive spread that is truly divine.

UB: What’s your favorite sandwich to throw together in the middle of the night?
RR: Grilled cheese! Made with sharp Cabot cheddar and occasionally some Canadian bacon or tomato.

Via [Coconut & Lime]

Eggplant caponata is an easy and delicious way to cook up lots of vegetables from the garden or farm.   Summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, onions, celery, and, of course, eggplant, are cooked down to a pulp and mixed with tangy olives, capers and vinegar to create a classic Sicilian sweet and sour vegetarian antipasto or side dish.  Served as a pressed sandwich on Tuscan bread with fontina cheese, a caponata Panini is the perfect light summer meal.

Ingredients

Olive oil
2 nice large purple eggplants, cut into large chunks
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and stems finely chopped
2 tablespoons salted capers, rinsed, soaked,and drained
a handful of green olives, pits removed
2—3 tablespoons best-quality herb vinegar
5 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
optional: 2 tablespoons slivered almonds, lightly toasted
Serves 4

Directions

1.    Get yourself a large pan, pour in a couple of glugs of olive oil, and place on the heat. Add your eggplant chunks and oregano, season with a little salt, and toss around so the eggplant is evenly coated by the oil. Cook on a high heat for around 4 or 5 minutes, giving the pan a shake every now and then. (Depending on the size of your pan you may need to cook the eggplant in batches.)
2.    When the eggplants are nice and golden on each side, add the onion, garlic, and parsley stems and continue cooking for another couple of minutes. Feel free to add a little more oil to the pan if you feel it’s getting too dry.
3.    Throw in the drained capers and the olives and drizzle over the herb vinegar. When all the vinegar has evaporated, add the tomatoes and simmer for around 15 minutes or until tender.
4.    Taste before serving and season if you need to with salt, pepper, and a little more vinegar. Drizzle with some good olive oil and serve sprinkled with the chopped parsley leaves and the almonds if you like.

Excerpted from JAMIE’S ITALY by Jamie Oliver. Copyright 2006 Jamie Oliver. All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold.

We know that a great sandwich starts with great bread.  But what makes great bread different and better than ordinary breads?  We asked a true expert: Metropolitan Bakery’s head baker, James Barrett.

The answer is fermentation, and they figured it out hundreds of years ago in Europe.  Today, while most commercial bakeries pump out breads at breakneck speeds, Metropolitan takes 48 hours to let the dough rise under unique parameters of time, temperature and fermentation (Barrett’s approach is long, slow and cool.)  After spending 8 years as pastry chef at White Dog Café, Barrett developed his sourdough natural starter in 1987 and has kept the cultures alive and active for almost 20 years.  He considers himself a vessel for an age-old technique, allowing the natural bacteria and acids in the yeast to impart blisters on the crust.  Many bakers seek to avoid such imperfections, but that is exactly what Metropolitan aims for to bring out the flavor of the wheat.  Barrett believes their process results in chewier, moister breads with flavorful crusts.

Of course, it also starts with great flours, which the yeast eats three times a day.  Sourced primarily from Lindley Mills, an organic miller in North Carolina, the flour comes from Central US wheat fields.  Metropolitan uses no additives, fillers or conditioners, and grains and seeds are mixed and roasted by hand.

The French baguette is Metropolitan’s top seller, and always has been.  It is perfectly suited for a sandwich like prosciutto, fennel, onions and mustard.  The whole wheat sandwich bread is moist, fresh and light; great for a toasted sandwich or panini.  The multigrain bread pairs well with cheese and apples; and the nutty, sour, crisp and moist organic miche with rye flour is ideal for a chicken salad sandwich with tarragon mayonnaise.  For James Barrett, who prefers sandwiches toasted and pressed, it doesn’t get much better than a Reuben on NY rye – gooey, creamy, crisp and bursting with flavor.

After 15 years, Metropolitan now has 5 retail locations.  The Rittenhouse and Reading Terminal Market stores are managed by the company; the University City, Chestnut Hill and Old City (inside Farmicia) locations are managed by licensees.  At the University City store, breakfast and lunch sandwiches are made fresh to order.  Metropolitan also provides bakery and training for the H.O.M.E. Page Café at the Philadelphia Free Library.  Metropolitan breads are available at gourmet markets in the region, and can be found on the menu at restaurants including Rouge, Butcher & Singer and Pumpkin.  New cookies and pastry items are introduced frequently, and both breads and pastries change seasonally.

Gallery

Metropolitan Bakery
262 S 19th St., Philadelphia, PA 19103 (Google Map)

Capogiro is widely acclaimed as the premier gelateria in Philadelphia.  The city has welcomed Stephanie and John Reitano’s Italian artisanal know-how like a breath of sweet, creamy air.  Capogiro uses the freshest seasonal ingredients, sourced primarily from farms around Pennsylvania, including Kensington’s Greensgrow farm.  An authentic Italian café, where the “bar” refers to the espresso, Capogiro’s food is artigianale, meaning made by hand on site.

Just next to the rainbow of frozen bliss, Capogiro has a lengthy Italian sandwich menu that incorporates some American influences along with the European.  Sandwiches are balanced; meaning, no one flavor overwhelms and fillings do not spill out of the bread.  Panini, like the Carne with Lancaster roast beef, gorgonzola and caramelized red onions, and the Formaggio con Jambon (swiss cheese with ham) are served on focaccia and pressed hard until the bread crisps, the cheese melts and the fillings are warmed through.

Toast sandwiches are gently heated so that the outer bread (from New York’s Hudson Bakery) crisps golden brown and the cheese melts but the ingredients do not get overly hot.  The Vegetable toast sandwich offers robust pomodoraccio sundried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, creamy fontina cheese and verdant pesto.

Tramezzini are sandwiches with three breads and two layers of filling.  They are meant to be mild, simple, delicate bites during cocktail hour.  Made with a combination of breads – country white and country wheat, tramezzini are minimalist sandwiches by design, but they are a flavorful and light accompaniment to a cocktail.  Capogiro’s tramezzini menu includes the Tonno, Italian tuna with sliced hard-boiled egg; the Speck, with salty ham and creamy stracchino cheese; and the Goat Cheese, where cool cucumbers and robust roasted tomatoes compliment the tangy, creamy goat cheese.

One of the tramezzini we absolutely had to try was the PBJ sandwich, an example of the American influence on the menu.  The peanut butter is different than the home-made product that goes into the PB gelato; it is actually Cream-Nut by Michigan’s Koeze Company, made with nothing more than peanuts and salt since 1925.  The strawberry jam, which is made fresh, is sweet and bright.  We must admit, we wished the PBJ was a little heavier on the PB and the J, but then it wouldn’t quite fit the tramezzini mold.

And of course, we had to try out the gelato con brioche, which is more of a sandwich than traditional ice cream sandwiches.  Two scoops of the divine gelato are served in a lightly sweetened brioche from Au Fournil bakery (which also provides the croissants) and is meant to be picked up and eaten like a proper sandwich.  Avocado and Coconut gelato gave us a lighter, fruitier flavor and Pistachio with Dolce De Leche offered a traditional, hearty fix for our sweet tooth.

Stephanie Reitano is an admitted cheeseburger fanatic, and names the Good Dog right at the top of her list.  She also frequents the sandwiches at Sansom Street’s Kabob House, a banh mi from any of the city’s great purveyors, the pizza sandwich at Ishkabibbles, and the braised shortrib bocadilla at Tinto.

Capogiro now has four locations (University City offers the most sandwiches) and is developing a large production facility and planned café in East Falls.  The production kitchen will allow the Reitanos to grow their business even further and expand their craft with the space and resources to try new flavors and new techniques.  And if patrons of the East Falls café take their gelato to go for a walk down by the river, they will be embracing another Italian tradition: gelato is the only food that Italians eat while walking.

Gallery

Capogiro
3925 Walnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (Google Map)

Philadelphia’s favorite gelateria, Capogiro, is opening two new locations at the same time – on Passyunk in South Philly and in University City at the Radian building (whose gray/black façade looks too much like the Death Star for our taste.)  We expect that the newly minted Capoyunk Scoop Shop (1625 East Passyunk) and CapoPenn (3925 Walnut) will thrive in their new neighborhoods; the Capogiro brand of fresh artisan gelato is unmatched in this city, and they are expanding their menu significantly.  We are thrilled to find a wide selection of sandwiches on the menu.  From the Vegetable Toast to the Classico Panini to the Formaggio con Jambon, Capogiro is adding a selection of flavorful Euro-sandwiches to the ever growing Philadelphia sandwich landscape.  We especially want to try out the PBJ sandwich: artisanal peanut butter and homemade jam.

Check out a sneak peek of the new Capogiro at Penn.

[Via: fwts.net]

Editor’s note: CapoPenn? Really?

A grilled vegetable panini is an easy, healthy, rustic weeknight meal that satisfies with a crunch of the toasted bread and the bite of creamy soft vegetables and cheese. Add chimichurri sauce to give the sandwich an herby fresh flavor that seeps into the bread and makes the last bite even better than the first. The sweet, smoky onion, juicy burst of tomato and tender squash make this sandwich taste like a warm summer night.

Ingredients

-2 zucchini
-2 yellow squash
-1-2 red onions
-1-2 beefsteak tomatoes
-Sliced Tuscan pane
-¼ lb fontina cheese

-1 cup cilantro
-1 cup flat leaf parsley
-½ cup basil
-½ cup oregano
-½ cup thyme
-1-2 garlic cloves
-1/4 cup olive oil
-2 tbsp salt
-1 tsp pepper
-Red pepper flakes to taste

Directions

Slice the zucchini and squash on a bias in 1/2” segments. Cut wide slices of onion and tomato, approx 3/4” – 1”. Toss all with olive oil, salt and pepper.

In a food processor or blender, combine all herbs and garlic with a few drops of olive oil and buzz till all herbs are finely minced. Stir around, then add olive oil, salt and pepper and pulse to combine. Texture should be similar to pesto, but not as creamy. Grill vegetables over high heat till charred on both sides. Toast both sides of the dry bread over medium heat till flame kissed and crisp, but not burned. Remove from grill and spread a layer of chimichurri on the inside faces of the top and bottom bread.

Layer tomato, then zucchini and squash, then onion, then thinly-sliced fontina. Heat grill to at least 400 degrees before placing sandwich on grates, then placing a cast iron pot or other heavy (oven-safe) weight to press the sandwich. (Can use a brick wrapped in foil.) Turn off heat and close grill lid. Allow sandwich to sit for 8-10 minutes.

Note: Cooking instructions are for gas grills. For charcoal, create heat zones to manage temperature.