Mess of Greens

full bellies | warm welcomes

Sandwiches and Salads

From the Garden Summer Sub

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My mama had about two things that if they were on a menu, she’d order them without even thinking about it. One was a Reuben, and the other was eggplant ANYTHING.

This year, I grew mama some in my garden…but now she’s not here to enjoy it with me. If she were here, I’d make her this sandwich combining eggplant with all the other things growing in abundance this time of year. I’d add in some creamy cheese, lots of basil, and toasted french bread and together we’d get our faces covered in red sauce, cheese, and summertime.

This isn’t totally my recipe… it’s a riff on my very first food blogger crush, Smitten Kitchen’s ratatouille sub..but focuses exclusively on what grows in my vegetable & herb garden and uses different cheese and spices. As it turns out, no matter how much I like an original recipe, I inherited my dad’s inability to follow one to the letter (well, we CAN do it…but we just always seem to want to do it just a little bit differently to see what happens). It drove my Mama crazy.

Anyway, I’ve been making this sandwich every summer for years with multiple variations–usually about July when we find ourselves elbow deep in homegrown eggplant, zucchini, summer squash and tomatoes—I think it tastes like summer on bread.

Got a plethora of summer garden vegetables? Looking to TASTE summertime? Love eggplant like Mama? This is your gooey, summery, fresh supper tonight (and then lunch again tomorrow!) OR a super easy and divine summer meal for when your friends come over and rather than slave in the kitchen getting everything put together you just want to  watch the kids play and drink G&Ts.

 

From the Garden Summer Sub
 
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Recipe type: Sandwich
Serves: 4-8
What You Need
  • FOR THE SUB FILLING
  • 1-2 thin Eggplant (I'm growing the Japanese kind) cut into thin rounds and halved if they are large
  • 2-3 Summer Squash, cut into thin rounds and halved if they are large
  • 1-2 Zucchini, cut into thin rounds and halved if they are large
  • 3 small Tomatoes, cut into rounds
  • 3 garlic cloves
  • 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 5 Basil Leaves, chiffonaded
  • 1 Tablespoon chopped fresh Oregano
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
  • FOR THE SANDWICH
  • Burrata Cheese
  • Basil leaves, chiffonaded
  • Salt, Pepper to taste
  • 1-2 Large French Bread loaves, toasted and halved (or quartered)
What to Do
  1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
  2. Cut up the vegetables.
  3. In a baking dish (ideally round), spread the tomato sauce, stir in the minced garlic, 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, a few pinches of salt and red pepper flakes to taste.
  4. Arrange the slices of eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes so that they overlap.
  5. Drizzle the remaining olive oil, another layer of tomato sauce, and basil & oregano.
  6. Bake for 1 hour.
  7. Split the sub rolls and warm up for 5 minutes in the oven or bake according to package directions.
  8. Once the bread is ready, layer the vegetables on top of your rolls, spread the cheese, and sprinkle salt & pepper and basil.

 

burnt fig, burrata, fresh greens salad

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Well, y’all, if I could eat this salad every day for lunch, I probably would. It was creamy, and sweet, and tart…. why can’t we eat fresh figs year round? (well, I guess we could but they probably wouldn’t taste the same, right?)

Also, let me be clear, I don’t like to make salads at home. I always want WAY TOO many “toppings” and by the time I’ve cut it all up, or mixed up the dressings or roasted the almonds I’m too tired to eat it. This salad, that I modified from one I read about in Food & Wine though, was easy and SO fine. The freshness of the ingredients matters here, so you don’t need a ton of them to make something that will make you feel like you’re a Roman Goddess laying on a chaise lounge by a fountain eating the finest food.

A note on ingredients: now, I live in South Mississippi…and it’s safe to say that Burrata cheese isn’t really *easy* to find, and when you can find it, it’s kind of on the expensive side. It is Worth the expense? If you love creamy, fresh, mild mozzarella, then um, 100% Yes. However, down here no one seems to want it or want to pay for it, so I’ve noticed that the grocery store that carries it always has to mark it down a few days before its expiration date. Uh, NO PROBLEM for me as it doesn’t last longer than a day in my house anyway. ;)I can’t tell you which grovery store as you might come steal my stash, but safe to say, look for the bargains if $4.00 seems like a little too much to pay for cheese. Also, worst case scenario (which isn’t all that bad) use fresh mozzarella. The flavor is the similar though the texture is real different.


burnt fig, burrata
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Salad
Serves: 2
What You Need
  • 3 Cups mixed greens
  • ½ Cup Burrata (or more) broken apart
  • 10 fresh figs, halved
  • ½ Tablespoon butter
  • 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • Kosher Salt and Fresh black pepper
What to Do
  1. Slice the figs and dip the inside into the sugar, covering the flat side.
  2. In a cast iron skillet, melt the butter until it sizzles.
  3. Place the figs cut side down into the butter and cook, without touching, until the sugar is dark brown and starts to smoke a little. The figs will be soft.
  4. While the figs are cooking, place/arrange the greens and burrata on plates.
  5. Mix the lemon juice and olive oil together.
  6. When the figs are ready, put them on top of the greens and drizzle with the olive oil/lemon juice dressing.
  7. Sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper to taste.
  8. Eat immediately

 

The easiest Pizza Dough alive, plus a rad chantrelle/bacon topping

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IMG_3194Ok lovelies, its time for me to share a secret with you.

 

I have the easiest, fastest, most delicious pizza dough recipe and I’ve been keeping it from you. I know. It’s terrible and mean and horrible that I haven’t already shared this because it’s so darn amazing. And to top it off, I made pizza this weekend with fresh chantrelle mushrooms, bacon, ricotta cheese and arugula. Do you hate me?

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Bacon-Dijon Brussel Sprout Slaw with Cornbread Croutons

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IMG_1443

I refuse to be ashamed. I made this absolutely delicious slaw-salad ONLY for myself for lunch this week. I didn’t share it, I didn’t even offer to make it for my honey or my folks. I just whipped it up and ate it. In my defense (but, I’m not ashamed…) no one else was even home for lunch this day, and even if they  HAD been, there were only a couple of brussels sprouts left over from supper the night before. But it was so good…maybe I should have made it for the anyway. ugh. I guess I am a little shamed. At least I can share this crazy fast, easy-peasy recipe with y’all and YOU can make it for whoever happens to be home for lunch.

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The BEST (for real) Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

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As a toddler mama, I spend roughly 2/3 of my time in the kitchen trying to figure out how to make something that Dubs will eat that has at least SOME nutritional value. Low-sugar Peanut butter on whole wheat waffles, oatmeal with raisins, avocado toast, and colby-jack cheese cubes are my standby snacks (obviously kale pesto and sweet potato mac ‘n cheese are also on this list.) Thankfully,  ALL of us love tacos, and sweet potatoes, and black beans, so this recipe has risen to the top of our dinner menu pretty quickly.

Also, it’s like the easiest thing ever.

I’ve seen some really gorgeous recipes lately with cubed sweet potatoes. Y’all, that makes for a LOVELY photo and also probably a little less messy eating, but you can’t beat the flavor of roasted sweet potatoes mixed with smoked paprika and cumin. You just can’t. So, that means these photos maybe aren’t as lovely as a few others out there on the interweb,  but the recipe is WORTH IT. Also, you can make this recipe into burritos, tacos, OR quesadillas. It’s so versatile and awesome. Enjoy!

What you Need for the Potatoes:

2 medium sweet potatoes, roasted then peeled

1/2 tablespoon cumin

1 teaspoon smoked paprika (if you like spicy food)

Salt to taste

For the Beans:

1 can of black beans, drained

1/2 Tablespoon chili powder

1/2 onion diced

Cilantro

2 tablespoons of lime juice

To Serve:

Flour tortillas

1 ripe avocado

cherry tomatoes, cut into fourths

sour cream or greek yogurt

shredded cheese

Salsa (if desired)

What to Do:

Prick your sweet potatoes all over with a fork and wash them. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake them for about 30-45 minutes on 400 WITH their skin. You’ll know they’re cooked because their skin will puff out a bit and they will be squishy to the touch. They’re SO much easier to peel once they’ve been baked.

While they are baking, drain your black beans. In a medium saucepan, sautee the onions, and sprinkle the chili powder over the onions. Sauteeing the seasonings brings out a better, richer flavor. Dump your beans in and cook briefly, just enough to warm them. Mix the cilantro and lime juice in. Voila!

Once your potatoes are cooked and have cooled enough so that you don’t burn your fingers off when you touch them, mash the potatoes with the cumin, salt, chili, and paprika. Stir it in very well.

Serve by putting the potatoes, black beans, and toppings in a flour tortilla. Eat until your belly is full and your heart is content. 😉

The BEST (for real) Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos
 
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Author:
Serves: 4-6 tacos
What You Need
  • What you Need for the Potatoes:
  • 2 medium sweet potatoes, roasted then peeled
  • ½ tablespoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (if you like spicy food)
  • Salt to taste
  • For the Beans:
  • 1 can of black beans, drained
  • ½ Tablespoon chili powder
  • ½ onion diced
  • Cilantro
  • 2 tablespoons of lime juice
  • To Serve:
  • Flour tortillas
  • 1 ripe avocado
  • cherry tomatoes, cut into fourths
  • sour cream or greek yogurt
  • shredded cheese
  • Salsa (if desired)
What to Do
  1. Prick your sweet potatoes all over with a fork and wash them.
  2. Place them on a cookie sheet and bake them for about 30-45 minutes on 400 WITH their skin.
  3. You'll know they're cooked because their skin will puff out a bit and they will be squishy to the touch.
  4. While they are baking, drain your black beans.
  5. In a medium saucepan, sautee the onions, and sprinkle the chili powder over the onions.
  6. Dump your beans in and cook briefly, just enough to warm them.
  7. Mix the cilantro and lime juice in.
  8. Once your potatoes are cooked and have cooled enough so that you don't burn your fingers off when you touch them, mash the potatoes with the cumin, salt, chili, and paprika. Mix it in very well.
  9. Serve by putting the potatoes, black beans, and toppings in a flour tortilla

The Mississippi Bahn mi

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For our anniversary, Boone and I took a jaunt to New Orleans in May for a two night get-away. My parents’ next-door neighbor and long-time friend has an apartment RIGHT IN the French Quarter, so we had a pretty lovely spot to drink, eat, and wander. This is, of course, exactly what we did. Our first stop was Dong Phuong Bakery, a place my dad had heard about from friends. This tiny spot had a sit-down noodle shop on one side, and a pick-up bakery and banh mi shop on the other. Oh, y’all. I’d never had a Banh mi sandwich before, so we ordered THREE different ones (before you judge, you take look at the menu and see how you’d choose just one.) There’s nothing nothing nothing good to say about colonialism. However, I guess Banh mi is one example of a food fusion that was created in French-controlled Vietnam, AND is also an example of a sandwich that was basically MADE for life in New Orleans, home of one of the strongest (if not the strongest) Franco-fusion culture in our country. It turns out that there’s a pretty large Vietnamese-American community in south Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and they are shaping and molding local flavors to their own tastes, and in return, influencing the local cuisine to reflect their presence (SO AWESOME). I fell in love with the sandwich, but unfortunately, my sweet little town doesn’t have our own Vietnamese Bakery. (Here’s hoping.) In the meantime, I started trying to figure out how to make my own at home.

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Channeling Little Bankok: Collard Greens & Venison Larb

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For the past 5 years of  my life, the closest Thai restaurant has been two hours away in Memphis or Jackson. Since this is one of my MOST favorite kinds of food, and we lived around the corner from an AMAZING hole-in-the-wall place in Atlanta where we ate at least once a week, this had been one of the hardest parts of small-town Mississippi life. It meant that I needed to figure out some approximations of my favorite dishes…and I can say that I’ve gotten pretty good at massaman and green curry and larb.
But y’all! NOW, we live 30 minutes from a nice little spot in Hattiesburg, so we can basically eat Thai food whenever the craving strikes. It’s so fantastic.

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Spicy Sweet Potato and Black Eyed Pea Burgers with Cilantro-Avocado Crema

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Can I tell you a secret? I actually don’t like black eyed peas. Whenever New Year’s day comes around  (the one day of the year when I absolutely HAVE to eat some for luck– one part superstition and one part tradition), I try to think of ways to cook black eyed peas that make them NOT taste like damp earthy mush. I’ve had some pretty good luck the past few years (ha! no pun intended) with pickled peas, bep and pecan hummus, lucky soup and mess of greens soup, but this year I wanted to try something new.

I’ve also been looking for new ways to get my little to eat vegetables, because my standard tricks of roasting or giving him a dipping sauce or covering them in cheese weren’t working anymore. I needed to up my game. So, recently I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and make a BEP-based veggie burger that is fit for a toddler (but also delicious for grown-ups). This wasn’t ALL fun and games as I ended up having to do some modifications after the first taste test (have you ever had a mashed potato burger? no? well, I don’t recommend it.) But NOW, I’ve got a recipe where the flavors just knocked my socks off, and my little guy LOVED the burger and nearly ate all of it. My honey (a carnivore all the way) even had thirds.

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pimiento cheeseburger in paradise

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i did a bad thing, y’all. this summer (if you haven’t been able to tell by the recent recipes) i fell off the weight watchers wagon…not just fell, but plummeted.
 the fact that i cooked this for dinner tonight really says it all: pimiento cheeseburgers. YOLO, right? 😉

by itself, pimiento cheese is a delicious, classic southern staple…boone goes crazy for it and eats it on crackers, on sandwiches, and cheese toast. my grandmother LOVED it..and there are not one, but two different recipes in my favorite southern cookbook, Come On In. i can usually take it or leave it, but when i read about the pimiento cheese hotdog and the pimiento cheese burger in the new Garden&Gun, i started to salivate…weight watchers, what? and trust me, it was worth it.

Spicy Pimiento Cheese (burgers)
recipe adapted from Garden&Gun and Come on In
Serves 4

What you need for the Pimiento Cheese:
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup pimientos (about one small jar)
3 green onions, chopped
1/2 mayonnaise (again, helmann’s…i know Carolinians use Dukes, but seriously, people..use dukes.)
salt (no more than 1/2 tsp)
black pepper (1 tsp)
cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp)

And the Burger:
1 lb lean ground beef
salt
pepper
garlic powder
red onion
4 sesame buns
ketchup

What to do:
Mix the cheese, pimientos, green onions, mayo, and seasonings together and refrigerate until you’re ready to serve.

 

mix the seasonings in with the ground beef and make 4 balls. Flatten the balls into patties, and press your thumb into the center (this helps distribute heat evenly, i guess.) cook the burgers on the grill or in a skillet until medium rare or medium.

Turn on the broiler and spread the pimiento cheese onto the top half of the hamburger buns. Put both sides of the buns into the oven for about 1-3 minutes, or until the cheese is melty. make your burger the way you like it, and enjoy.

 

 

BLT salad

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this morning we got up early-ish and went in search of the nearest farmer’s market. we’ve been out of town a bunch so we thought we could get to know our new corner of the delta a little better.
we went the wrong directions and then made it back to greenville for their market just in time to buy some beautiful cherry and pear tomatoes, some speckled butter beans, and lady peas.
the tomatoes were too small for a BLT sandwich, so tonight for dinner we made the next best thing… a BLT salad. 😉 something about the lemon juice, garlic, and mayonnaise in the dressing was the perfect combination… boone had thirds. if you find yourself wanting something easy and summery, this adaptation of a southern living recipe might be just the ticket.

What you Need:
1.5 quarts cherry, pear, or other tiny tomatoes
1/4 Cup hellman’s mayonnaise (don’t you dare substitute with ANYTHING but homemade)
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper
1 garlic clove
1/2 yellow onion
1/2 head of green leaf lettuce
What to Do:
first, slice your the tomatoes in half, lengthwise using a serrated knife. if you don’t have a tomato knife, you should seriously consider investing in one since it makes things in summertime so. much. better. truly…how did i live without this thing?

 

crush the garlic into a paste, and slice the onions into thin ribbons. cook the bacon in a skillet until it’s crispy and brown. Once the bacon is ready, drain it using paper towels. Now comes the healthiest part…cook the onions in the bacon drippings until they’re translucent. i know… my weight watchers’ commitment isn’t looking so good right now. don’t judge me. 😉

mash the garlic clove into a paste using the flat side of a knife or a garlic press. combine with the mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and lemon juice to make the tangy dressing.

 

combine the bacon, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, then mix in the dressing. voila! a light, delishy summer salad.