The Week of the Sandwich, cont.

I'm starting to think that April should just be designated "sandwich month" in our house. I know Kyle wouldn't mind.

Anyway, late last week, I did make Philly cheesesteaks, but because I was also sick, corralling two small kids, and charging a dead camera battery, I failed to take any photos. For tonight's sandwich feature, I won't be so lazy.

I've been reading a lot of this book:

and Breads from the La Brea Bakery by the same author.

Both are excellent, and are elevating my obsession with food, bread, baking and making-things-from-scratch to a whole new level.

However, in Nancy Silverton's Sandwich Book, Silverton showcases some amazing sandwiches. Amazing in two ways: first, the ingredients and presentation are both phenomenal, but second, the approachability of the sandwiches is very tangible. While she's not afraid to step outside the brown paper bag and add things like pears, mushrooms, goat cheese and arugula, none of these additions struck me as odd or gross or too fancy to belong in said brown bag.

Anyway, I had originally thought I would fix BLT's for dinner tonight but since Kyle refuses to eat T's and the only L we had was "baby spring mix", it just didn't seem like it was going to work. Then, Kyle suggested that he'd eat the T if it was in a different form, like roasted tomatoes.

So I roasted tomatoes. While they looked fantastic enough to eat right out of the oven, I still knew that Kyle wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole, so I wound up making tomato confit out of them, which turned out really well.

Still, once Kyle found out that we still had all the trimmings for another Cuban sandwich, he requested that, which meant that I was left to create something fun and Leslie-friendly. So I set aside my tomato confit, caramelized some onions, sliced an avocado, and shredded some rotisserie chicken that I found in the fridge.

I love the flexibility of a sandwich. I basically just pulled odds and ends from around the kitchen and made things up as I went along.

Here I am halfway through the sandwich:

I spread the confit on one slice, then added the onions. That's Dijon mustard on the other slice. I could honestly eat Dijon mustard on hot French baguettes all day long. I have issues. I really like mustard.

Anyway, then I piled on the shredded chicken, a slice of provolone and the avocado until it looked like this:

Because of the cheese, and because I had already fired up the ol' panini press for the Cuban, I pressed my sandwich until it was warm and toasty and the flavors had melded nicely.

It was pretty fantastic.