Category Archives: sandwiches

Spring Recap

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Adventures, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , , , , , ,

Wow! Time flies – It is already July and I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like to. Here’s a little recap of my spring!

My garden bloomed with bleeding hearts and green ferns:

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I made and ate this amazing steak sandwich:

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I found this amazing aged goat cheese at Mandro’s Imported Foods ~and I highly recommend eating it if you get the chance!

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My indoor peace lily bloomed with a double flower… which I can only take to mean that my life will be very peaceful for a while.

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I went to Smorgasburg in DUMBO and ate some amazing foods! Post on this later to come.

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Spent a bunch of time enjoying music with friends in downtown Lancaster:

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I grew a potato plant from an organic potato and it started sprouting little potatoes. The students went crazy over this at school! They were amazed at how potatoes grow:

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I celebrated Derby day/ Cinco De Mayo/ my friend’s birthday in style with hats and mint juleps:

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I started grilling and ate a lot of salads that looked like this:

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Backyard gatherings started taking place… rain or shine.

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It became nice enough outside to bring Monk to the Fridge for outside snacks!

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We started taking a lot of hikes again in Lancaster County Central Park. It was warm enough for monk to dive in the river and wet enough to see a lot of fungus:

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My husband and Monk looking extra cute and picture perfect:

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Fire season started! I love sitting around a fire outside on beautiful evenings enjoying time with friends!

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I learned how to run the cotton candy machine for the dance at school! I got pretty good and swirling that blue floss around a stick… I am now available for hire for all of your cotton candy needs 🙂

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We took a field trip to Hershey Park at school. I’m not sure who had more fun… the teachers or the students.

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The strawberry festival took place at Lancaster Central Market – and those homegrown strawberries and Thom’s Bread shortcake tasted delicious!

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I’ll tell you about June tomorrow – Happy Summer!

 

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Sandwich Wednesday: Prosciutto Caprese

Posted by marisa rosemellia in sandwiches, Uncategorized and tagged with , , , , , ,

I enjoyed a sandwich last Wednesday with one of my friends (Dan Z) who also has summer afternoons free. This summery sandwich was made with Washington Boro tomatoes that I bought at the tomato festival. I got the rest of the ingredients at Mandro’s Imported Foods. They have a great selection of meats and cheeses. I got a frozen baguette made by Slow Rise Bakery (they carry it at Mandro’s). These baguettes are baked, froze, and then placed in your oven for 5-10 minutes. They taste like they are freshly baked right out of your oven in your home! And they get nice and crispy, but not too hard. They are perfect for sandwiches because you can bite through them easily. I hate when I get bread that is hard to bite into… then all of your sandwich fixin’s squeeze out of sandwich… you know what I mean… bummer.

To build this sandwich, I started with the warm toasty baguette and drizzled good olive oil and fig balsamic vinegar from Global Gardens over the inside. I laid two slices of very thinly sliced prosciutto down – don’t over do it, two is plenty. Top that with sliced fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, sliced summer tomatoes, salt and pepper, and cover it with the top of the baguette. Simple and delicious. A perfect summer sandwich.

Washington Boro Tomato Festival 2012

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Events, Places, sandwiches and tagged with , , , , , , ,

The Washington Boro Tomato Festival took place this past Saturday at Washington Boro Park. If you missed it this week you have one more chance next weekend. The festival always runs the 2nd and 3rd Saturdays in July, at the peak of Washington Boro’s tomato season.

I had a great Saturday this weekend! It started with my usual Saturday morning visit to Central Market. I rode my scooter and had quite an enjoyable ride downtown. A couple pulled up next to me at a stop light on a bicycle built for two – how cute!

As I pulled up to market, I heard the lovely music of Leo DiSanto and Jeff Bryson. They were standing outside on Market Alley playing to promote their music show that took place that evening – the Lancaster Original Music review, part II. I’m sure there will be a part III, so check the Lancaster Dispensing Company‘s website for show times and updates.

I went into market and loaded up on veggies – they are all local right now! Everything has come into season around Lancaster and all the veggies are fresh, vibrantly colored, and taste delicious!

I walked back out of market and I was going to head home, but Leo and Jeff were still playing outside. I couldn’t really leave when they were singing “All I Have to Do is Dream…” It made everything seem to slow down and seem dreamy. So I sat down next to my friend Steph and her kiddos and wasted some time listening to the rest of Jeff and Leo’s songs… or maybe it was time well spent…

I rode the scooter home and unloaded my veggies. Monk really needed to go for a walk and it was slightly cooler than the rest of the week, so we took him up to the dog park .

We made a little stop to celebrate National Ice Cream Day – one day early. We went to Splits and Giggles, our neighborhood ice cream shop. They had two awesome flavors of frozen yogurt – wildberry (I got this one) and honey cinnamon (Dan got this one). I am getting a scoop of each next time!

We headed down to the Boro and the Tomato Festival was in full swing. We were greeted by a giant tomato and her red tomato bug.

The band was playing and the line for tomato sandwiches was quite long by the time we got there.

Don’t worry… we got our fill of sandwiches and enjoyed some time down by the river.

I don’t think white squishy bread has ever taste so good…

You still have time to get down to the Boro and get yourself a sandwich – next Saturday (July 21st). Don’t miss it, the tomatoes are yummy! You can also buy the famous Washington Boro tomatoes at the Tomato Barn on route 999. The Tomato Barn is open pretty often but you’ll have to make your own tomato sandwiches at home… and they probably just won’t taste the same..

Sandwich Wednesday: Banh Mi

Posted by marisa rosemellia in sandwiches and tagged with , , ,

Last Friday, we ordered take out. I really wanted Vietnamese so we ordered from Rice and Noodles.

I always get a vermicelli salad bowl but Dan suggested trying something different this time. We decided to get one of the Banh Mi sandwiches.

The first time I had one of these sandwiches was in NYC in the East Village. I visited Nicky’s Vietnamese sandwich shop because I saw it featured on a Food Network show. That place had bangin’ sandwiches! I tried a classic one with the chicken liver pate and one with a grilled pork chop. I really liked Nick’y version that included cilantro, carrot, and cucumbers on a crispy toasted bun.

Back to our take-out adventure…

We decided on the Banh Mi Pate Thit:

It’s made with their own homemade rolled ham with chicken liver pate. It’s built on a short loaf of French bread. They also make their own mayonnaise. The other additions include Chinese radishes, carrots, sliced onions, a thick slice of English cucumber and a sliver of jalapeno.

I would recommend it! I thought it was really good and I am happy I tried something new.

Sandwich Wednesday – Rosemary Ham

Posted by marisa rosemellia in sandwiches and tagged with , ,

I took a walk over to  Mandros Imported Foods a few times this week to gather up some snacks for Christmas gatherings. Mandros is my favorite place to find different cheeses to try. It is a great little corner store that has a lot of gourmet food items. I love that it’s only a block away from my house because I can run over there when ever I need something special. They have everything you need to make a great cheese plate or antipasti appetizer.

The selection of Italian deli meats is excellent. I love the Genoa salami that they carry… and I am pretty picky about my salami. I decided to try the rosemary ham to make a sandwich to eat with my mushroom soup. It is super flavorful, fresh, high quality ham in wrapped in a rosemary crust and thinly sliced, perfect for sandwiches.

My sandwich is made with salted basque bread from Ric’s Bread. I spread a thin layer of Dijon mustard on one slice and piled up the rosemary ham, creamy Havarti cheese, alfalfa sprouts, and my homemade chopped pickled fennel. It’s a good sandwich of wintery soups.

NOLA Eats – Po’Boys for Sandwich Wednesday!

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , , , ,

I started looking through some of my vacation photos this week and it’s been making me miss summer. I never finished blogging about my week in New Orleans. I was really on the go with no time to hang out at the computer. I’ll be sharing some more vacation posts this week, just because I’m kind of missing summer…

I ate a few Po’boys throughout the week. After our day at the Audubon Zoo we stopped at Mahony’s, one of Dan’s favorite spots.

In addition to being all talked up by Dan, Mahony’s has been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives on Food Network. Dan keeps telling me of this Pork Belly and Pepper Jelly sandwich that they make sometimes… if you’re lucky enough to be there when they have it on the menu.  He claims that it is his favorite sandwich ever. That’s a big claim, to say a sandwich is your favorite sandwich of all time. So I was excited to try this elusive sandwich… no luck the day we were there – it’s a special they rarely have, Dan must have gotten lucky last time… or is he making it up? We will never know.

I ordered the grilled shrimp and friend green tomato po’boy with remoulade sauce, along with super skinny fried onion rings.


It was good, I was stuffed by the time I got to the end of it. The shrimp was cooked well and not over done. The Fried green tomatoes were great and it had remoulade sauce spread on it. I think it probably could have used a little more remoulade.

Dan got the cochon sandwich with creole cole slaw. I have to be honest… this was the superior po’boy. They meat was cooked perfectly and the cole slaw was creamy and delicious. It was very well-balanced. yum.

I ate my second po’boy at a restaurant outside of New Orleans in a way smaller town called Lafitte. It was on the way back from our awesome air boat ride through the swamps where our boat captain feed marshmallows to the gators.

The restaurant was called Restaurant des Familles because it was right on the Bayou des Familles. It doesn’t look like much from the front but it was actually a pretty fancy restaurant inside. The whole back of the building is a wall of windows that’s right up against the water and you can gator watch while you eat.

I started with a cup of Gumbo.

And then I had the fried catfish po’boy.

It was pretty awesome.

I think I had a pretty good po’boy experience while in Louisiana. There are a bunch of places that I didn’t get to go to… so I already have my sandwiches picked out for my next visit!

Sandwich Wednesday! – Italian Filone

Posted by marisa rosemellia in sandwiches and tagged with , , , , , ,

Sandwich Wednesday! Why? Because Wednesday is right in the middle of the week, sandwiched!

For my first Sandwich Wednesday I’m featuring my Italian Filone.

This is another photo taken by Jason Bleecher. I think he made this sandwich look extra good!

Filone is a type of bread that is like a big fat baguette with crusty outside and soft inside. I stuffed it with Italian meats from Mandros Imported Foods. They have the best selection of cheeses in Lancaster – if you’re from around Lancaster, you have to stop in and try some! They also have awesome salami.

The Sandwich starts of with an olive tapenade made with kalamata olives, capers and roasted red peppers. I layered on capicola, mortadela, genoa salami, and provolone cheese.  It’s topped with spring mix and red onion. I hollowed out the top to the bread so that all the sandwich filling could fit inside.

Vacation Eats – Tar Pits and Hitting the Road

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Beer, dessert, Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Back to the California trip… It’s about time for a famous eatery stop. So on Wednesday (August 3rd) we had hot dogs for breakfast.

We choose Pink’s Famous Hot Dog Stand on LaBrea Avenue in Hollywood. Pinks has dozens of condiments and topping combinations on their famous dogs. The specials are named after famous stars, chefs, TV personalities and landmarks.

I chose the Emeril BAM! Dog. Emeril has a new show called The Originals that featured Pinks on one of the episodes about LA. It airs on the Cooking channel if you’re interested in finding it.

This special dog had cheese, jalapenos, mustard, onions, bacon, and cole slaw. I had to take a lot of the jalapenos off because there were so many they were falling out of the bun. I also am not a huge fan of pickled jalapenos, or bacon for that matter, but the cole slaw pulled me into picking this dog. The combination overall was BAM good, I would get it again!

Janeen got the Pastrami Reuben Dog, not named after any celebrity but I think it was famous all by itself. it was loaded with sauerkraut, pastrami, swiss cheese, and mustard. I tried it and it was a mouthful of meat. there was so much pastrami on it, it was falling all over the place. It was a fine dog.

With our bellies full of hot dogs we drove through Miracle Mile and into the La Brea Tar Pits. I’m kind of a science nerd so I thought this stop was great. The Page Museum held a lot of the fossils they excavated from the tar pits. There are also open sites that they are working on that you could observe.

We drove back across Hollywood into Echo Park to eat a late lunch at The Park restaurant, which the wonderful Erin caters to the lunch time crowd. Janeen and I had an identical lunch today. We both got Lucifer Ale, a nice light Belgian with hints of apple.

The Park has sandwich specials that all looked so good it made it really hard to choose just one. I went with some thing kind of light because I ate the hotdog for breakfast… I enjoyed the avocado and Gruyère sandwich piled high with avocado, Gruyère cheese, tomato, and lettuce. I added crispy onions, as per Erin’s recomendtion and spread some Dijon on the grilled whole wheat sourdough bread.

It was nice light and delicious, perfect after a morning of looking at gas bubble out of pits of black asphalt smelling pits.

So we headed out late that afternoon to drive up the coast. We had one perfect stop as we made our way North. I was reading “taste of Santa Barbara” magazine in the car and telling Janeen about this amazing looking Gelato in Montecito. A little bit later she noticed that we were passing Montecito on the highway and said “wasn’t something in Montecito? oh yea, isn’t the Gelato place there?” So I checked the magazine and yes! So we pulled off the exit and 2 minutes down the road we were stopping at Here’s the Scoop for a Gelato dinner.

This place it definitely worth the stop! They let you try any flavor you want and they make everything with local ingredients. Yes, I realize I keep writing about these places using local, organic ingredients, but I am drawn to that so I am either a sucker for people writing local on everything or I just pick really awesome places… probably a little bit of both. Anyway… The gelato and sorbet are out of this world awesome at this place.

I tasted the lavender lemon flavor which was crisp and refreshing but I ultimately decided on one scoop coconut, one scoop chocolate strawberry in a waffle cone. Janeen got Italian chocolate chip (which tasted like cannoli filling) and espresso in a chocolate waffle cone.  All flavors got my stamp of approval and left me wanting more.

Vacation Eats – Malibu and Jeff Goldblum

Posted by marisa rosemellia in Places, Restaurants, sandwiches, Travel and tagged with , ,

We have been having some jam-packed days here in LA! I have been so busy that I hardly have time to write. On Monday (August 1st), we headed to Malibu for some beauty and beach time.
We started off the day right with a good breakfast. We went to there’s no place like Home restaurant in Los Feliz. I went here once before when I was in California. Last time, I had the breakfast burrito. It was giant and really good. Erin got the breakfast burrito this time (I think it is her favorite). This place has a good deal on breakfast. There’s a special before 11am – $6.50 for any of the starred menu items – what a deal! And all the starred items looked like they were the best things on the menu to me.
I couldn’t decide what to get so I shared two things with Janeen. We ordered the California breakfast sandwich. It had eggs, two kinds of cheese, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, and chipotle mayo on sourdough bread. I ordered the side of fruit. It was fresh and full of watermelon, honeydew, blackberries, and cantaloupe.

We also shared the Pomodoro Omelette. It was filled with tomatoes, basil and feta cheese. It also came with sourdough bread and a side of Spanish style home fries that were kind of like short french fries with peppers and onions. I haven’t eaten lunch or dinner here, but I give this restaurant a big thumbs up!


We took highway 101 to Malibu Canyon Road and drove through a deep cut canyon into Malibu. We stopped at a grocery store to get some supplies called Hows Market. Unfortunately, it is going out of business so I don’t know what will be there in the future but it was a deal for us because everything was 20% off. We packed a cooler with goodies and headed to the El Matador state beach.
You have to climb down the cliffs to get to the beach, but it is totally worth it! The beach is rocky and beautiful. There are large outcrops of rocks jutting up out of the water.

There were numerous professional (and unprofessional) photo shoots happening. We took a bunch of pictures and relaxed on the beach.

It became rather windy just as we decided to bust out our discount goods to eat. We made some salami and cheese sandwiches, and I mean SAND-wiches. We also noshed on olives, pickles, and Trader Joe’s black bean dip… awesome beach snacks.

We headed back down to LA after a great day on the beach. We didn’t have that much time to get dinner so we went to Leela Thai, right by Erin’s house in Silver Lake. There are countless Thai places in LA. There are probably two or more per block in some places! So I’m happy we had some since it is so abundant.
Leela Thai is a nice little restaurant with outside seating. I ordered a Thai Iced Tea. Thai Iced Tea is usually too sweet for me but this one was pretty good, it was sweet but not overly done. They also brought us our water in small metal cups that seemed to keep the water ice cold (with no ice in it) the entire time we were eating.


I had the Pad Thai with chicken. It was pretty standard but really good. It really hit the spot after a sunny beach day.

So… we went in to Hollywood for the evening and what we saw was pretty amazing. We walked into a guest only event at Cafe Was… The Jeff Goldblum jazz ensemble. yes, that is correct, Jeff Goldblum has a jazz band, and he plays piano. He is also extremely excited and animated while he is playing the piano.

One thing I noticed about Hollywood places is that they really don’t have a good beer selection. Either people don’t like good beer around here or they are just really into wine and cocktails (probably the latter). We did get to meet Jeff Goldblum at set break. He was pretty excited to take a picture with three hot girls. That was beautiful, yes, thank you…

Janeen had her first In-n-Out Burger experience after the show. We went to the location in Hollywood that was packed late at night. I thought it was pretty funny that we went when we were all dressed up!

We ordered a standard cheese burger with lettuce, tomato, onion, mustard, ketchup and their In-n-Out Burger sauce. While I didn’t love it, it was definitely better than the Whopper/Big Mac. It at least had a real toasted bun and way better lettuce and tomato. People really love In-n-Out Burger here. I don’t know how often I would eat it but I have a feeling I would stop here more then McDonald’s or Burger King, it is way better than those two places. I think we might give it another shot while we are out here and try ordering from the “secret menu” next time.