Yankee-Belle Cafe: lunch

Showing posts with label lunch. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Replicating a Panera Fave at Home - Sort of

Mindy here and I love Panera Bread. However, until recently, there wasn't one near me. Now that there is, though, I get to visit regularly and one of my favorite things on the menu is their Frontega Chicken Panini. Smoked chicken, mozzarella, tomato, basil and chipotle mayo on grilled focaccia. Delicious!

So one day while I was contemplating what to fix hubby and I for lunch, I spotted this is the fridge.

Smoked chicken breast.

That's when it struck me. I could duplicate that delicious Panera sandwich at home. After all, I had most all of the ingredients, plus a few extras to make it my own.

Best of all, I could do it on a Joseph's pita and keep it low-carb.

Score!

I sliced up my chicken, grabbed the mozzarella, tomatoes, chipotle mayo and an avocado (my addition).

Now for the assembly.

I laid some mozzarella on one half of the pita, then topped that with some chicken.

Added the chipotle mayo, which is quickly becoming a fave in the Obi household.

(Sorry, I got so excited that I couldn't hold the camera still)

Now for some tomato, avocado and more mozzarella. Notice I used cheese on the top and bottom. Just think of it as glue.

Fold the top half over the filling and place in a skillet over medium heat until the cheese is melted, flipping halfway through. At least this is what I did the first two times I made this. Then, in a rare moment of inspiration--which is kind of like a V8 moment that makes you smack your forehead--I realized that I could use my George Foreman grill and do both sides at once.

With the grill on medium-low heat, close the lid and let it cook for 2-3 minutes, until cheese is melted.

As I bit into this one a short time later, I realized that something was missing. It didn't taste the same as what I'd made before. Why? Because I forgot the bacon!

Seriously? How can anyone forget bacon?

And while it was one of my own additions, crisp bacon was a perfect match for these ingredients. But I guess I'll have to wait until next time. And with some chicken still left, that might just be tomorrow.

Now it's your turn.

What's your favorite Panera dish? If you don't have a Panera, tell me about one of your favorite places to eat.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

More Salmon Recipes

I saw an article today that said something about the key to healthy eating at lunch is not waiting until lunchtime to decide what you are going to eat.

Ideally, we would plan healthy meals in advance.

Good luck with that!

I try. I really do - well if trying means thinking about it. But if I'm honest, when I get home after a long day of teaching followed by tutoring followed by a train trip home - being creative with lunch for the next day is pretty much the last thing on my mind.

I've thought about making food ahead on the weekends - and sometimes I do - but more often than not, I'm trying to steal writing time on the weekend and cooking would just be an excuse not to write. I don't need more of those.

But today gave me pretty good evidence for why it's essential that I pack healthy lunches. I had a prep period right before lunch. I still hadn't had a chance to drink my coffee so I sat at my desk drinking coffee and eating sugar cookies. Mistake #1 was buying the cookies at the bakery. Mistake #2 was eating them instead of getting lunch. By halfway through the period, I was so tired I didn't know how I was going to teach my afternoon classes.

Fortunately, I had made lentil/hummus pita pockets for dinner last night and had brought one with me. I ate that and drank water and soon felt like a new woman.

Okay, lesson learned. Be prepared. Normally I rely on nuts to snack on, but as I've mentioned, I have students with lethal nut allergies.

So tonight I was wandering the grocery aisles looking for inspiration. I decided to find some horseradish, but they didn't have what I wanted. I found this instead.

Have you had Honeycup Mustard? Years ago when I was working at Columbia Pictures, there was a cafe that made amazing paninis with ham and cheese and Honeycup Mustard on peasant bread. I think I lived on them for a year!!!

When I saw the mustard tonight, I thought - another salmon glaze!

So that's what I did. I bought the mustard, took a salmon steak out of the freezer and put a dollop of mustard on it, wrapped the whole thing in parchment paper and foil and baked at 400 for about 40 minutes.

The result was amazing! I almost didn't have any left over for lunch. I mean this took WILLPOWER!!!!

I know the picture doesn't look like much, but that crust of mustard was so good!

I had to run out to a meeting which is really the only thing that probably saved it.

When I returned, I took my mini-pitas, layered more of the mustard and warmed that in the oven. Then I took the chilled mustard-coated salmon and stuffed it in the pita. Oh, so much deliciousness!
Actually my first thought was that it tasted more like lobster.

So good. I can't wait until lunch time tomorrow!

So what do you do about lunch? How do you handle it when you're at that certain age where skipping meals doesn't really cut it anymore?