Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Club Sandwiches

Hope you all enjoyed your Mothers' Day.  I know I did.  And I am not even a Mother!  We had a yummy High Tea for my wonderful mum.  Though with so many grandchildren running around it was a more "mess" than "high", but of course that only made it more fun!

As I am all enthused about vegan dining right now I decided to make some vegan offerings.  You just can't have High Tea without some form of cucumber sandwiches, so I decided to make vegan club sandwiches.  With one layer easily decided (cucumber) it took a little thinking to know what to put in the other layers. 

To make these delectable and delicate sandwiches I used 3 loaves of bread of different shades: Wholemeal, Multigrain and White.  The different coloured breads look pretty and help people know where one sandwich ends and another begins.  I wanted to use a nice dark rye for one of the layers but couldn't find a loaf in the neat, square shape I needed.  When the triple decker sandwiches were assembled I carefully sliced off the crusts and then cut each sandwich into 3 "soldiers".

The flavours I eventually decided on were:
1. Cucumber and Tomato Pesto
2. Gherkin and Tasty Corn Filling

The tomato pesto was shop bought unfortunately, but next time I will make sure I have time to make my own!  The Tasty Corn Filling is my own design.  I love inventing recipes so the corn spread is where I got to be a little more creative.  Here is the recipe:


Tasty Corn Sandwich Filling:
1.5 cups cooked corn
1 tablespoon seeded mustard
1 tablespoon margarine
1 small spring onion chopped

I gave all this a brief whiz in the food processor, leaving it still fairly chunky.

Confession - I did feel a bit guilty about cutting off the crusts.  It seemed like such a waste!  But as it was a special occasion I need to make sure that the sandwiches were delicate and high-tea-appropriate.  Also, as I was taking these platters to a very non-vegan gathering I wanted to make sure that the sandwiches were appealing to everyone.  

Overall I think the result was just perfect for High Tea and everyone seemed to enjoy them.  They were complimented perfected by Iced Tea.  I am already dreaming up flavour combos for more vegan club sandwiches.  Of course if I make them at home I will eat my crusts!

2 comments:

Sue said...

Your crusts could be whizzed up into breadcrumbs and popped into the freezer next time.

Then you have breadcrumb topping for any future dishes you make, delicious when sprinkled over Cauliflower Cheese.

Or alternatively, cut them chunkier, tip them into a bowl drizzle with Olive Oil, stir around so they are all lightly coated and then bake in a warm oven on a flat tray for a while until they are dry and crispy and you have croutons for soups of salads.

Sue xx

Mandy said...

Hi Sue! Thanks for visiting and commenting.

Those ideas are fantastic! I will definitely try one or both of these next time I make club sandwiches. I do use bread crumbs in quite a few recipes (eg Nut Loaf and stuffed Eggplands) so the breadcrumb idea will particularly come in handy.

Thanks :)