Frontega Chicken Panini

 

Ok. I've mentioned this before...I Truly. Madly. Deeply. Love me some Panera. Their pastries, breakfast, bread, lunch and dinner make my heart skip a beat. Really.

It's the perfect place. Right?

Well, with two little ones on the go, a perfect place is virtually non-existent.

Wait, I take it back. If it has a drive thru and they don't ask, "Do you want fries with that?", then it's perfect. Unfortunately, those places are EXTREMELY hard to find.

Anyway, back to Panera. My Go-To order is some combo that includes the Frontega Chicken Panini. I love it. I love it so much I don't even know why they bother to put any other panini options on the menu.

So one day, I was curious and looked up copy cat recipes.

Bingo! I found it here.

Except, it wasn't exactly what I had envisioned. So I changed it up a little bit and didn't bother with measuring.

The result: Wow! Could it be?! Did I manage to one-up Panera on this one? You be the judge!

Here's what I did:

Frontega Chicken Panini

Focaccia Bread, sliced sandwich style
Rotisserie Chicken (seriously, who has time to cook chicken and then make a sandwich?)
~1/2 c. mayonnaise
~1 T. diced green chile
~1/2 t. crushed red pepper
Basil leaves, cut into strips
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 tomato, sliced (and for me, seeded...seeds...bleh!)
Shredded mozzarella cheese

Mix mayo, green chile, and red pepper until combined. Set aside to let the flavors meld.

Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Saute red onion slices until onions are tender and start caramelizing. (Why do I do this??? Because I don't like raw onions - the one exception is white onions in piping hot albondigas soup. But I digress. This is the one thing I don't like about Panera. You can't ask them to remove the raw onions. They just won't. So I just remove them before eating. But at home, I can have onions any way I want. And sauteed is the way I like it.)

Spread the mayo mixtures on the top and bottom slices of the focaccia bread. On the bottom slice, start by spreading the rotisserie chicken first, followed by the cooked onions,a single layer of tomatoes, the basil strips, and lastly the mozzarella cheese. Top it off with the other slice of bread.

Bake in a 350 deg oven for ~7-8 minutes. (I don't have a panini press. This could possibly take this sandwich to a whole new level for me. I don't plan on buying one any time soon. But I can dream.)

BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches

I'm totally making this again!
BBQ Pulled Pork - based off Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork'wich featured on Tasty Kitchen

• 2-½ pounds Pork Tenderloin
• ¼ whole Large Onion, Chopped
• 1 clove Garlic, Minced
• 1-½ teaspoon Dry Ground Mustard
• ¼ cups Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
• 24 ounces, fluid Coke (2 Cans) Or Any Caramel Color Soda- NOT Diet
• BBQ Sauce, To Taste

Place pork, pepper, onion, garlic, dry mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and Coke into a slow cooker.

Cook on low for 4 hours.

Check the pork for tenderness. Shred with the tines of 2 forks. Continue cooking, covered, for 1½ hours. Drain any excess liquid. Coat the pork, to taste, with your favorite BBQ sauce. Continue cooking for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, make the slaw.

Red Coleslaw - based off of Red BBQ Slaw featured on allrecipes.com

• 4 cups finely shredded cabbage
• 1 cup shredded carrots
  
• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes, or to taste

Place the cabbage and carrots into a salad bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together apple cider vinegar, ketchup, sugar, and red pepper flakes until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the dressing over the cabbage, toss thoroughly, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving.

Top the pulled pork with slaw and serve on any type of bun. Enjoy!

These are pictures of my leftovers the next day. We ate all of the yummy buns the night before, so today I had to settle for French bread. Still tasty!

Pavo Panini

Lagarto’s is one of my favorite restaurants. Their panini’s are THE best. Sadly, I hear they are closing in the near future because the rent is too high. This is surprising to me because every time I’ve been there it’s been busy. Hopefully they won't completely close and will find another location. Anyway, one of my favorite paninis there is called the Pavo. I’ve made it at home and it's pretty close.

If you don’t have a panini grill, you can just to what I do, use two heavy skillets. One skillet not heavy enough? Stack the second one with a couple cans of tuna :)

Pavo Panini

Pesto Sauce (Preferrably home-made – I made a sauce using almonds instead of pine nuts because I had them already on-hand and they’re cheaper)
Cranberry Sauce (I used canned and jellied sauce)
Oven roasted turkey breast
Brie cheese, sliced
Focaccia bread, halved

Heat the grill or skillet medium-low to medium.

Generously spread some pesto sauce on one half of the bread. Generously spread some cranberry sauce on the other half of the bread. Layer a few slices of turkey breast and the cheese between the bread slices.

Place the sandwich on the grill and press. Heat until bread is toasted and cheese is melted.

If using two skillets, place the sandwich on the heated skillet and top the sandwich with the other skillet. If the sandwich doesn’t get pressed down, weigh down the second skillet with a couple of cans (tuna works well – they have a low center of gravity :)). Flip the sandwich over to toast both sides.

Sometimes, if I can't grill my sandwich fresh, I'll just eat it un-heated, which is also yummie.

Enjoy!!!

Grilled Veggie Sandwiches

Ok....these are our new favorite sandwiches...no lie!

Grilled Veggie Sandwiches

And to make Alex a little happier, next time we have these I'm going to add some oven roasted turkey breast with it. I'm sure he's not alone when he's not fully satisfied with just veggies in his sammy.

Enjoy!

Sloppy Joes

1 T. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 t. chili powder
3/4 lb. ground beef
1 t. brown sugar
Salt and Pepper
1 c. tomato puree
1/2 c. ketchup
1/4 c. water
Tabasco
4 hamburger buns

Heat the oil in a skillet over med-hi heat. Add onion and cook until lightly browned (~5 minutes). Add garlic and chili and cook for ~1 minute. Add beef, sugar, 1/4 t. salt, 1/3 t. pepper. Reduce heat to medium and cook until no longer pink (~4 minutes). Stir in tomato puree, ketchup and water. Cook until thickened (~5 minutes). Season with Tabasco, salt and pepper to taste.

Sometimes it tastes a little too tart for me, so I add about a two rounded teaspoons more of brown sugar in the end.

Also, we don't eat them sandwich style. Instead we eat them open faced for more filling and less sloppy. I guess you could just call is Joe-style. Hah!

From The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook