Pressed

A sandwich is one of the most versatile creations. As long as any random ingredients are between two slices of bread, it's a sandwich, right? You can use any type of bread, condiment, vegetable, seafood, meat, basically anything edible. It's the easiest thing to get creative with and the ingredients you prefer in your sandwich are as unique as anything else about you. I bring this up because today's post is about a sandwich, a panini. And while I think this is a pretty tasty sami, I'd like to encourage you to get creative with it and add whatever like ingredients you prefer.

For example, I use baby arugula here, but maybe you would prefer baby romaine or watercress, or to leave out the lettuce all together. I use pears but apples would probably be just as good if you like them better. Brie works really well with the combination of other ingredients I've chosen, but maybe you would like to use Swiss or gruyere. I think the melty brie mixing with the juices from the pears is condiment enough, but my boyfriend tried his sandwich with grainy spicy mustard. Feel free to use a different bread - maybe a baguette. The point is, this is kind of an outline and you can switch up ingredients to make it work for what you like. Though I think you should try it one time my way because it is really tasty, as I said ;-)


One thing to note before we get started: I don't have a panini press, so I make due with a grill pan and some heavy skillets to set on top of the sandwiches to press them down and make them panini. If you have a panini press, get the sucker out and use it to make this recipe!

Let's get cookin'!


Baked Pear & Brie Panini

Servings: 3 1/2 sandwiches
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
1 pear, sliced thin
2 teaspoons butter (I prefer unsalted)
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 1/2 little loaves of ciabatta bread, sliced in half long-ways
1/2 large wedge brie cheese, sliced thin
1 1/2 cup baby arugula leaves

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Divide one teaspoon of the butter into dollops and spread them around the bottom of a medium-sized baking dish. Place the pear slices over the butter in an even layer. Sprinkle the top of the pears with cinnamon and the rest of the butter.

Place in the oven to bake for 20 minutes. At the ten minute mark, stir them around and then leave them alone for the last ten minutes. After the full 20 minutes is up, remove them from the oven and let cool while you assemble the rest of the sandwich ingredients.

Pre-heat a grill pan (or skillet if you don't have a grill pan) over medium-low heat.

Now let's assemble our samis. Start by placing the slices of cheese on one side of each sandwich, about three slices per sandwich.

Then spread a little less than a third of the arugula leaves over the top of the cheese for each sandwich (leaving a little for the half sandwich).

Last, place the pear slices on top of the arugula, as many that will fit on there without falling off.

Place the other side of the bread on top of the pears for each sandwich.

Lay the sandwiches on the grill (or in the skillet) and put a heavy pan on top of the sandwiches to press them down.

After about five minutes, remove the pan and flip over the sandwiches. Put the pan back on top of the samis and let cook for the last five minutes, until the cheese is all melted.

Remove the panini from the grill pan and immediately cut them in half. Place on your serving plates alongside a lightly dressed mixed greens salad and enjoy. Salute!