A sunny day in the upper 80's put me in the mood for something cool and simple for lunch. A tuna salad sandwich sounded spot-on, but the red onion I had in the fridge was sadly moldy. Tuna just isn't the same without a little crunch in it, so I uncovered some healthy looking scallions, and decided to toss them on the grill I had going to prep some dinner fixings for later tonight. While I was at it I figured I should grill the rye bread too, and I ended up with a delicious tuna salad sandwich with garden lettuce and grilled scallions on grilled rye toast. A surprise great summer sandwich.

Egg salad is a lunch I haven't had in at least 5 years, maybe more like 10. I'm not really sure why as I love eggs, I love mayo even more, and lunch options typically suck so you'd think I'd make this a standard lunchtime meal! Well, my wife made some egg salad the other day, and after telling me what she did i made it the following day. This is truly outstanding, the secret is the pickles! 

Ingredients:

• 5 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped into pieces sized as you'd like to eat in a sandwich
• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup chopped pickles (we used this fridge pickles recipe) but any good dill pickle would work
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4-6 slices of fresh sliced bread (this makes two big sandwiches, or three more reasonably sized sandwiches)

Process:

• Mix it all up and spoon onto your bread. Simple! 

The other day I found myself wondering what I should make for lunch when it occurred to me i had half a baguette on the counter left from a pasta dinner courtesy of Pulling Weeds the night before, and one link of chorizo left over from my gumbo making last week. A quick check in the fridge revealed I also had a red pepper and half a spring onion. A sausage and pepper sandwich was in order.

I whipped out the cast iron pan, heated it to very hot with a touch of oil, and tossed in the chorizo (sliced in half lengthwise), a quarter of a red pepper sliced, and about a 1/4 cup of sliced spring onion. I fried this up for about 10 minutes, then added the sliced baguette to the pan to toast it up a bit. I served it with a healthy serving of spicy brown mustard and a handful of potato chips, alongside a shandy (lemonade/beer 50/50mix). 

Wonderful makeshift lunch out of leftovers from previous meals, and man, sometimes a shandy is just about the best thing one could ever drink on a hot afternoon. 

After last week's Gumbo-fest I was left with a healthy portion of gumbo, but no rice. It was lunchtime and I didn't want to go through with the effort of making rice (it's soooooo hard, after all)... But I did have a roll on hand, and presto! A gumbo sandwich was born. I should have toasted the roll and then panfried the whole thing under a brick, but aside from those missed opportunities this was one great sandwich. Leftovers!

Made grilled cheeses today for lunch and sometimes you realize how amazing total simplicity can be. Ingredients = parmesan, grafton cheddar, sourdough (not mine), and butter:

Grating the cheese blends them amazingly.... It almost becomes a new cheese.

I say this a lot, and I'm saying it again: cast iron rocks. I cooked these over medium-low, for roughly 7 minutes per side, with about half a tablespoon of butter:

Served with left over broccoli and pea risotto from last night (more on that later). Here's the final plate:

I had this with a glass of Sancere... it was the perfect lunch for a diseavingly cold spring Saturday. Simple. Crisp. Salty. Rich. That about sums it up!

I had an iPhone catastrophe and lost my photos of this weekend's treat: oyster and shrimp po'boys. Yikes! And the photos were good too. So now i have a new phone, and will try to make these again sometime soon. They were deep-fried in that same "batter" i used for the fried pickles. Perfect batter for this. Very tasty. I suggest everyone in the world use it to make fried oysters. yum!

But the bigger news was a make-shift slaw i used as a sandwich dressing... out of Radicchio! Totally awesome. I shredded it on a mandolin, and then soaked it in 1tsp mayo, 1 tsp horseradish, 1 tsp coarse mustard (i think it was dijon), and 1 tsp cider vinegar. Really great. And very easy. Make it today!