My Sandwich

Today I'd like to tell you about the most awesome sandwich that I made this weekend: My Sandwich.

I specifically call it My Sandwich because it is in fact my sandwich, not yours.

Over the last week I've spent a lot of time with 2 year olds. Not my own, of course, but when you have a lot of friends with children, you tend to be around them quite often. I find that it is around this age that children start to grasp the understanding of possessive pronouns, specifically My/Mine.

Without having children of my own, I can only draw the following conclusions by observation. But I suppose children pick up this sense of ownership from their parents. If your child wants some water from your glass, you say no. Why? Becuase it is "mine," or "it is mommy's/daddy's." Or if the child wants some of your pizza you say "no, it is mine, that is yours (pointing to their own piece.)" Or the child tries to play with something sitting out that you do not want them to play with: "that is not your toy, it is mine."

Now I perfectly understand this. After all, there are probably very few people who would choose to have their child's (or any child's) drool and spit all over their pizza or floating as a little island in their water cup. And sometimes young children just don't understand a long complicated explanation, even if they have the patience to sit through a 6 word sentence.

"You can't play with that knife, it is sharp and you may stab yourself, and then we have to go to the hospital and you may die" is just such a long explanation for "don't touch that." Usually followed by "why" and then "because it is mine." or "it is my toy."

So at some point children have a desire to also feel this sense of ownership. And thus everything becomes "Mine." And so, today I will tell you about "MY sandwich."

This weekend I started a two week trial of eating more healthy. I know, it's very noncommittal.

But I am going to try, for the next two weeks, to avoid anything that tends to make my stomach hurt. Namely, heavy cream sauces and deep fried things, also foods with a lot of butter (cookies excluded).

So instead of grabbing whatever randomness looked tasty in the fridge, I set out to make a healthy sandwich. See exhibit A.

Exhibit A:

This is my sandwich.

I started out doing a light saute on some red onions and green pepper. I used a slight amount of olive oil and turned the heat up to about 7. I wanted to get them a little brown, warm, and only slightly soft. I had no intention of caramelizing them.

I then removed them from the pan and added a slice of whole grain bread schlepped on one side with some garlic hummus. Hummus side up, of course. And heat turned down to 3.

I will caution you, do not add too much hummus. Especially if you are putting some on the other slice of bread as well. Otherwise you could end up with a very mushy sandwich... ick.

I added my onions and peppers to the bread, followed by some spinach, tomato, and a little cheese. (The cheese is more of a slight binding agent than a dominant flavor). I topped this off with another slice of whole grain bread with garlic hummus. (hummus side down this time)

I then pressed the sandwich, flipped the sandwich, and covered the pan with a plastic cover of sort. This allowed the heat to be trapped in to help melt the cheese while the bottom side finished getting crispy.

Transfer to plate, and ta-da. It was fantastic. Nice and light, and very refreshing. And, healthy!