What's for Dinner?

These days, with the weather being so warm, I find I don't particularly enjoy working in a hot kitchen. Also, Jojo and I are rarely in the mood for hot and heavy dinners. So the last couple of nights, we've been having mostly sandwiches and salads for dinner.

Salads are easy especially with all the fresh produce here in California. I love how there are so many different types of lettuce you can find these days. When I was younger, all I knew were icebergs and romaines (which was pretty much what my mom could find back then in Manila). These days, there is so much variety for salad greens - from lettuce varieties like butterhead, green leaf and red leaf, to other salad veggies like radicchio, arugula, baby spinach, watercress, microgreens and mesclun. Then there are so many other possible salad add-ons too. We favor mixing up a couple of these at a time: avocados, black beans, cheese, grilled chicken, fresh corn, red peppers, tomatoes, croutons, and olives. And then there are the endless salad dressing choices, please don't get me started on that.

It's also pretty easy to slap two pieces of bread on deli meats and call it a sandwich. But since I am officially a "housewife" now - I try to jazz up our sandwiches a little bit. I've taken down my panini press (a wedding present I have not used in ages) and try to come up with more imaginative sandwiches. Last night, we had this:It is a panini made with whole wheat sourdough bread, oven roasted turkey breast, basil pesto and provolone cheese. (You need to click on the picture to see it up close). Does that not look scrumptious? I swear, 5 minutes with a panini press and you have yourself a gourmet sandwich!