The Panini Post

I've written about my lunch-related angst before. At long last, I seem to have made a breakthrough.

Hello Panini.  Let's be friends.

Paninis solve several problems.  First, the bread is grilled, so you're unlikely to get icky bits of bread stuck in your teeth, which I hate.  Also, the grilling is pretty forgiving. You can use somewhat stale-ish bread, and it's okay.

I mean, I wouldn't serve it that way if I ran a restaurant.  But this is me, in my kitchen, at lunchtime.  I'm good with stale-ish bread.

Also, there is almost always cheese.  I love cheese.

And the pressing method warms the sandwich through, so you can put all sorts of veggies inside (ones more nutritious, say, than the requisite lettuce leaf).

Did I mention there are hundreds of variations?  This one is a variation on one of my signature sandwiches (I used ham and provolone instead of prosciutto and fontina), and I'm dying to try this one (with less bread, though, the one pictured is a bit overwhelming.

What's also great is that Danny enjoys them too.  We had dinner at Frost Me Sweet here in Richland, and while he was a bit wary going in (the seafoam green exterior paint and girly writing on the sign doesn't really connote manfood within), their Italian panini won him over.

Also, they had french fries.

But back to the panini.  It's pepperoni, salami, prosciutto, mozzarella and marinara sauce - very approachable for the red-blooded American male.  Also very easy to recreate at home.

(Side note - the salted caramel cupcake at Frost Me Sweet? Very good.)

So we bought a panini press.  You can spend a lot of money on them (one at TJ Maxx was going for $80), but I opted for the Hamilton Beach model.  Large enough to accommodate two sandwiches, a nice swivel-y top (so the top presses straight down, not from an awkward acute angle), but not particularly expensive.  Also, fits nicely on top of our mini-convection oven.

Here are some panini ideas in case you're feeling adventurous...

~ Southwestern (kind of) Panini ~

Inspired by the one at Starbucks, not available in Tri-Cities or the city of Memphis.

Flatbread if you have it, ciabatta, or sliced sourdough if you don't

Salsa

Sour Cream (I use light)

Monterey Jack cheese

Deli roasted chicken

Red and green bell peppers

Olive oil

Brush the outer slices of bread (i.e. the bread that will wind up on the outside) with olive oil, or spray if you have a spritzer or Pam-type olive oil spray), lay out on cutting board.  Mix the salsa with the sour cream in equal portions, spread onto bread.  Add some cheese to one side, then chicken, peppers, and more cheese on top (helps everything to stick together).  Grill until golden.

Note: Cheese will ooze.  Lost cheese is sad, so keep your cheese towards the middle.  Don't worry, it'll spread to the edges on its own.

~ Pear and Brie Panini ~

Inspired by a sandwich at Cafe Eclectic, by far one of the best places to eat (sans BBQ) in Memphis.

Brie

Thin-sliced Ripe Pear

Ciabatta Bread

Honey

Honey-Dijon mustard (optional)

Arugula

Slice Ciabatta in half, hollow it out a bit.  Feed the leftover bits of bread to the dog.  Brush the outsides with olive oil.  Mix some mustard and the honey together in a very small container (measuring cup works well), spread onto inside of bread.  Stack thin-sliced brie, pear, and arugula on the inside.  Press until golden and the brie is completely melted.

~ Italian Panini ~

Bread of Choice (sliced sourdough, ciabatta, Italian - really can't go wrong here)

Pizza sauce of choice (I like Boboli; use a pizza sauce rather than jarred marinara - less watery, less likely to soak the bread and get grossly soggy on the inside.  Which isn't what happened at Frost Me Sweet, but has happened elsewhere)

Salami of choice (I use Genoa)

Prosciutto

Pepperoni (I decline, but Danny likes it)

Roasted Red Peppers (optional)

Arugula (optional)

Mozarella cheese (aged or fresh)

Spray/brush bread with olive oil.  Stack ingredients. Cook. Enjoy.

~ Sweet Potato Fries ~

Partly inspired by Frost Me Sweet, who bake their fries with minced garlic, parsley, and shaved Parmesan cheese, and partly inspired by the idea that sweet potato fries are better for you but not quite *there* yet.

Frozen Sweet Potato Fries (make your own fresh and fry them yourself, but this is faster. This is lunch, people)

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh OR freeze-dried (thank you, Lighthouse!) Parsley

Olive Oil

Garlic, minced

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Pepper

Parmesan, grated or shaved

Pour some olive oil into a medium-ish bowl.  Add spices and garlic, let them sit for a few minutes to infuse a bit.  Toss in frozen fries, throw them around with your hands until they're adequately coated. Dump them onto a foil-lined pan; top with sea salt and a couple twists of cracked pepper.  Bake according to the package instructions.  Top with cheese once they're out of the oven; serve when cheese has melted.

Those are my food obsessions - what are you eating and enjoying right now?

BTW, booked my hotel room for ACFW. Who all is St. Louis-bound?

The Super-Secret Formula

I got to go to OCW's fall conference yesterday, and completely enjoyed myself. Since college, I didn't attend many of the day conferences (while I faithfully participated in the summer coaching conferences) because, after a week at class, attending another set of classes, starting at 9am on a Saturday, doesn't hold much appeal.

But now I'm out of school, working from home, living the writer's life...and in desperate need of community.

The way I see it, day conferences are like church for writers. It may not tell us anything we don't already know, but it's nice to be reminded. There are people in all stages of faith/publishing, but the fellowship is beautiful as we come alongside each other.

As a writer in Eugene, I'm an oddity. I'm not in close contact with anyone else who writes full time, struggles with plots, characters, inspiration, or figuring out marketing. It's delightful just talking with other people who have agents. When I'm with the writerly, I'm no longer the odd woman out.

Not the least of which is the fact that we're all a little odd. So I blend in well.

The book buying at a conference is great too - I got to pick up a copy of Linda Clare's The Fence My Father Built, Christina Berry's The Familiar Stranger, Karen Wells' The Miracle of You, and Keynoter Eva Marie Everson's Things Left Unspoken.

No room in any of the bookcases, really, but what else is new?

Eva Marie gave a great day's worth of keynoting. She answered graciously when beginning writers asked questions that were apropos of, well not much.

One in particular struck a chord with me. A conferee asked, "As a writer, how do you get yourself to sit down and write, even when life is busy?"

I wish there were a super-secret formula to easy, breezy writing that the literary world's upper echelon writers guard closely. I really do.

But here's the thing - writing is a job like any other. It's work. No book was ever finished without a great deal of personal discipline. Funny thing - writers aren't the most disciplined bunch. We tend to procrastinate. We tend to eat a lot of chocolate (there aren't a lot of svelte writers out there). Our homes are often cluttered. We work in our pajamas. But God, being gracious, enabled us to be disciplined in the one area that matters, and that's writing.

Anyone considering writing as a career needs to go in with his or her eyes open. Writing is hard work. After you write your first book, you will need to write a second, better book while editing and marketing the first. You can't go into publishing as a lark and expect to succeed.

That said, as a writer, I'm always looking for tricks to help me keep going while I'm sitting and writing. Writing a synopsis, or storyboarding is one - it's like giving yourself a map before you drive off. While big-concept synopses are helpful, so are small ones. My latest technique (because seriously, I'm desperate), makes me think of Winnie the Pooh...

At the start of a new chapter document, I start off with the chapter number (helps keep things straight), followed by what's going to happen in a nutshell. Example:

Chapter 6 - In which Sara gets a tattoo, reads Nick Hornby, and does laundry.

(Note: none of these things happens in chapter 6. Can't give away all my secrets...)

Anyway, I'm hopeful. What I love about this idea is that I have a point of reference for the chapter at all times if I get lost. The chapter innards won't go into the final copy, or even to my reader copies. They're just for me. And if I find that I spend the whole chapter in the tattoo parlor, the Nick Hornby reading and laundry can go into the next chapter without a whole lot of disruption.

Like I said, I'm hopeful. Also hungry. I'm going to move on to lunch, during which I will try Martha Stewart's grilled Ham, Cheddar, and Apple sandwich...

Thoughts on the nature of Lunch

I hate lunch. Lunch is the lame duck meal of the day; the awkward middle child of the meal family.

Look at Breakfast - Breakfast has defined cuisine. Waffles, french toast, cereal, oatmeal, fresh fruit, muffins, omelets, fritatas, sausage links, pancakes - I have no argument with any of it. And it's tough to ruin breakfast food. Shari's makes good breakfast food. That's saying something.

Then there's dinner. It's much more common to spend some time preparing dinner, so there are some wonderful entrees out there. I made this really wonderful pork chop recipe involving pork chops cooked on the stove with salt and pepper, with chopped hazelnuts at the end to toast, then a spash of cream mixed with lemon zest. Yummy, yummy stuff.

But lunch? Lunch is the sandwich meal - and it's not hard to screw up a sandwich. Airlines do it all the time. Forget a condiment and it's toast. And after any length of time, sandwiches become dull eating.

There's leftovers, but that means that your dinner leftovers will be lessened, if not obliterated (in some households, the obliteration occurs during breakfast). You can also go the traditional "soup and salad" route, but soup is tricky to move, as is salad unless artlessly wilted greens are your thing. And the soup is either fresh - making it a leftover - or canned - making it high in sodium.

Because we only get a short window for lunch, we'll often go with high-sodium convenience foods. And let's not forget that lunch brought us the invention of Lunchables (for people who want to call highly preserved deli cuts and crackers a meal) and the oddness of crinkle cut carrots.

Those well-meaning women employed by the public school systems, the heavyset, hairn-netted, intimidating women? They were not Breakfast or Dinner Ladies. They were Lunch Ladies.

Of course, without Lunch Ladies, we'd be left with a serious whole in Children's publishing.

P.S. I have known some lovely, trim ladies who prepared and served lunch is schools. They just never worked at my schools.

P.S.S. It's entirely possible this blog is the product of late-night lunch-related panic. I really do hate lunch. Unless, of course, it's from Café Yumm.