Sandwich Salad

Panzanella (blurry with excitement!)

Ok, it’s true. This blog is supposed to be about me learning how to cook. Thing is, I am cooking some but I make a lot of repeat, boring dinners—which I love—but I don’t think they are very interesting. And my food is usually kind of ugly. I’m just not there yet... But I am getting more confident in the kitchen. I’m sure I’m learning something.

And on the flip side, JustAwesome gets really excited about what she wants to make, always trying new things—reading new blogs, buying new cookbooks. So I post her stuff...

I’ve mentioned the new Heidi Swanson book a few times recently. By now, I think “we’ve” tried about 9 recipes and all have been really unusual, simple and delicious. I should mention that we had her first book and only made a few things because the recipes were too involved and had too many complicated ingredients (for us). The second book is AMAZING. I’d (almost) be willing to bet you $15.64 that you’ll love it, but I won’t, because I don’t have extra money to bet.

Last night JA made Panzanella which is a grilled bread (multi-grain pullman from Pain D’avignon) and tofu salad with oven-roasted tomatoes and peanut butter. Sounds crazy, right? All of her recipes kind of do but at this point we’ll try any (and all!) of them. This book has not been wrong. This tasted like a sandwich and a salad. The tomatoes were sweet from the oven and went great with the peanut butter sauce. I’d venture to say that besides the oven being on to roast the tomatoes, this was a pretty exceptional summer dinner.

And we chased it with two cold treats: a mocha sherbert and a peach sorbet. (Merci beaucoup, David Lebovitz.) What is the difference between sherbert and sorbet? I don’t know. (I didn’t even think sherbert was a real thing.)

What have I learned recently? Let me ask JA...