Simple summer cooking: make an open-faced sandwich!

The past few days have been hectic and I often got home late, and all I wanted for dinner was something simple. With the sun out till almost 9 pm, I just didn't feel like burying myself in the kitchen heat longer than I needed. I had bought a batard loaf from Oakland's Arizmendi Bakery, and I got a bunch of summer veggies in the fridge, so I decided to make some open-faced sandwiches.

Call it tartine or crostini, the open-faced sandwich is just some savory toppings on toasted bread. I took my inspiration from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Suppers as well as the July/August issue of Vegetarian Times. Once I heated some chopped heirloom tomatoes briefly in olive oil along with minced garlic and red onion, and finished with a couple drops of balsamic vinegar and seasonings. At the same time, I seared slabs of leftover tofu, then placed the tofu and tomatoes onto the toast, and garnished it with chopped mint. Served warm, the combination was simple, elegant, and delicious. The key is not to overcook the tomatoes so they maintain some structure, and let the tofu beneath them absorb their juices.

Sauteed heirloom tomatoes and seared tofu on toast

On another day I warmed some canned black beans with jalepeno chiles, and mixed them with ad-hoc pickled red onions (simply place the sliced onions in a mixture of apple cider vinegar and some salt and sugar for 15-20 minutes) and chopped parsley. For the sake of adding more colors to my meal, I made a quick Moroccan-style grated carrot salad tossed with olive oil, garlic, jalapenos, allspice, cinnamon, parsley, and lime juice. Then I spooned the two mixtures each on a toast. The entire preparation took just about half an hour. It's good to know that as you bite into the toasts with heaps of toppings on them, you are not piling on calories because there's only one piece of bread. Yeah, I guess this is another advantage of having open-faced sandwiches!

Black beans with pickled onions, Moroccan carrot salad on toasts

By the way, the batard bread from Arizmendi was awesome. The bread literally smelled of wheat and had the right chewiness and crunchy crust. I'd say it's better than the batard from another famed Bay area bakery, Acme Bread Company.