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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Goat cheese and Roasted tomato panino



So my parents recently went to maine and when they came back they raved about this sandwich they had made there, with some fresh goat chees, tomatoes and some really good bread. Sounds simple enough right? well I decided that in an attempt at improving it and also trying to improve my food photography (I can admit it, my photo's are pretty amateur) I would make this sandwich for them. It's a Saturday, I have some time, and I need to eat lunch.



The way that I decided to improve it was by taking some locally grown tomatoes(plucked from the garden of my dad's nurse), and roasting them into soft melty perfection. You know those sun-dried tomatoes they sell in stores are always too dried and shriveled up and the flavor is almost too pungent. I roasted these enough to be soft and browning around the edges and I found the flavor to be just perfectly sweet enough to complement the herb and garlic goat cheese I found. TRUST ME, as you can see from the gorgeous photo's this sandwich is good, and simple, so give it a try!


Goat cheese and tomato panino
Makes 3 panini

Ingredients:
For roasted tomatoes:
3 ripe tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic, minced
extra virgin olive oil
salt
pepper
For panini:
roasted tomatoes
goat cheese (any kind- I used garlic and herb)- 4 oz
spinach- about a cup
fresh bread (very important! also its better with crusty bread, none of that soft sandwich bread) about 3-4 oz per sandwich

To roast tomatoes:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and coat the bottom of a baking dish with about 2 teaspoon of olive oil.
2. Cut the tomatoes in half, scoop out the seeds and water juice and place bottom side down in the dish
3. mix together the garlic, 2 tbsp of olive oil and spoon a bit into each tomato half
4. sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
5. roast in the oven ( I did for about 85 minutes but the longer, the sweeter and more dried they become- however watch for burning the edges)
To prepare the sandwiches:
Take the good french bread (I used about 3 oz of bread per sandwich)
1. Warm the bread in the oven you used for the tomatoes for about 4-5 minutes, just to warm it up and make the crust a bit firmer (only if its not already too crusty). Cut off 3 portions and slice each portion lengthwise in half
2. Divide the goat cheese in 3rds and spread onto each half of the bread.


3. Top one half of the bread with spinach leaves and the other half of bread with 2 roasted tomato halves.
4. Sprinkle each tomato half with some salt.
5. Smoosh together and enjoy!!! Buon appetito!

1 comment:

  1. I really like the idea to roast tomatoes with garlic and pepper!
    That's the part of the recipe I prefer!=)

    ReplyDelete