I was going to call this sandwich the P.A.S.T., or even the B.A.S.T., figuring that pancetta is a bacon, albeit Italian bacon, coming as it does from the pork belly, the same cut that provides us bacon. However, I don't think either acronym is going to catch on quite as well as B.L.T. has. Then there's the additional issue with B.A.S.T. being, well, so easily bastardized and, yes, mocked. And no one has any business mocking this sandwich, I can assure you of that.
While I was outside shooting photographs of my rapidly cooling, yet stunningly gorgeous, sandwich, JR was inside devouring his, such that when I returned from my pre-lunch photo shoot, he growled through mouthfuls of asparagus, bread, and pancetta, "ohmmmygoddd, thisisthebesssstsandwichI'veeverrrrrhad, maybethebessstANYthingI'veeverrrrrhad." "Seriously?," I asked, cutting diagonally through the now tepid model sandwich. "Yes. Absolutely," he said clearly, now that the mash that had been garbling his speech had moved on to the digestion phase of its short life. "I'd like another one. Right now." "We'll have them again tomorrow. I have enough for tomorrow, too." A brief silence, then a look of acceptance, followed by happy anticipation, "Ok, that sounds good," he said, "I can have it again tomorrow." Amazing what a little bacon flavor will do to a person. Bring him to the brink of disappointment, and then back from the edge with dreams of pork bellies future to keep him going.
If you could use a bit of cheer in your day - and let's face it, who couldn't? - I suggest you make this sandwich. And be sure to have enough ingredients on hand to make it again tomorrow, ok?
Pancetta, Asparagus, and Sundried Tomato Sandwich (for four):
8 slices (approximately 4 ounces) pancetta
8 fresh asparagus spears, woody bottom ends snapped off, cut into 3 pieces per spear
8 slices deep dish focaccia bread or good-quality bakery bread (such as Iggy's Deep Dish Onion Focaccia)
4 1/4-inch slices fresh mozzarella
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped, and if packed in oil, drained of excess oil
In a medium saute pan over medium heat, cook the pancetta to desired crispness. Remove the pancetta to a paper towel-lined plate to allow oil to drain. Add asparagus to saute pan and cook until bright green, for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring frequently to coat with pancetta fat. Remove asparagus from the pan until you're ready to construct the sandwiches.
In a food processor or mini food processor, blend the mayonnaise and sundried tomatoes until mayonnaise is a light reddish color. Chunks of sundried tomato will remain.
Toast or broil the bread slices. Once toasted, place one slice of fresh mozzarella on each of four slices and place them under the broiler until mozzarella has begun to melt. Meanwhile, spread each of the other four slices with 2 tablespoons each of the sundried tomato mayonnaise. Place two pieces of pancetta over the mayonnaise, then lay 6 pieces of asparagus over the pancetta, including two of the tops, unless you are an asparagus mizer and want to keep all the tops for yourself. Which is not a very nice thing to do at all, now then, is it? Place the four pieces of bread with the just-melted mozzarella on top of the whole pile, smoosh it down slightly, and cut it in two - either on the diagonal or straight down the middle, whatever works for you. Serve the P.A.S.T. forth (see, that's plain old weird), and determine whether anyone in your family thinks it's the very best sandwich they've ever had. Just be sure to remind them not to talk with mouth full, it all sounds like one long word to everyone else when they do that.
Dinner tonight: Fiddlehead crostini and Pasta Carbonara. Estimated cost for two: $8.05. The fiddleheads - edible parts of springtime ferns that are harvested in the wild - were $6/pound at the farmers market. I will use at most 1/4 pound for this appetizer tonight, which is $1.50. The bread will be no more than a quarter of a bakery loaf (I am getting lazy - I haven't made a yeast bread in weeks - this will change soon, I promise) from a loaf that cost $3.29, so that adds 83-cents to the tally. I set out to buy some locally-made fresh goat cheese, but opted instead for this Chavrie cheese - why, you ask? Because, first, they are following me on Twitter, so when I saw it at Whole Foods, my curiosity was piqued; second, it was only $2.99, and we all know I'm rather parsimonious; third, the packaging intrigued me with its claim that it "spreads like silk". Now, this could be total b.s. (not B.A.S.T., b.s.), but if it isn't, $2.99 is a small price to pay to find an economical goat cheese option. I'll let you know. In any case, I don't imagine I'll use more than half of the Chavrie cheese, so that's $1.50. These fiddleheads are a springtime and springtime only snack, people, so I have to splurge. So the app is $3.83. Splurging, I tell you! The pasta carbonara will consist of 1/2 pound of pasta at $1.99/box of the Whole Foods store brand variety. I'll use two eggs from our chickens, but if you purchased them, they'd be no more than 52-cents. I'm going to use two pieces of bacon at an estimated cost of 50-cents each, so that's another dollar. Lest you thought this dish was getting too low-fat, I'll also use a stick of unsalted butter, which is 70-cents, and a half cup of grated Pecorino-Romano, which I estimate is two ounces (I should really weigh this, no?), and that's $1.00 at $7.99/pound. That gets us a Grand Total of $4.22 for the calorie-laden pasta dish. Hey, at least we got some greens in there, right? Granted, they're on goat cheese and bread, but they're still greens. And, hey, $8.05 isn't bad for a Saturday night dinner, now then, is it?
oooh....ahhhhh....cute
But perhaps the smugness comes, too, from this: in just about three months, from right here in our yard, a meal including meat will also be available. Yesterday afternoon, I collected twelve Cornish Rock chicks - not to be confused with Cornish game hens, for these fluffy yellow chicks will grow up to be large roasting chickens, not dainty white-tablecloth fare - from the local feed supply store.
Their arrival prompted much celebration among our family, with visitors arriving to admire them, and pre-school nieces oohing and ahhhing over them, their mother and I exchanging knowing glances as they fawned over the lot of them. Come August, we'll be eating these little balls of adorableness. Of course, they won't be anything close to adorable by that time, though we do have to gear up for the actual slaughtering of the chickens. Which means we may have to find a technique that works slightly more efficiently than chicken hypnosis, which, for us, anyway, is a failed method.
As has been duly noted by many a chicken slayer, the meat chickens will grow to be homely and quite possibly ornery, so it is conceivable that it will be easier to stab them through their little brains than it was for us to consider the same for our laying hens. Our laying hens have been a fixture here for nearly five years, so in many respects, they have the familiarity, if not the cuddly tendencies, of pets. But if you mention in public that you are going to eat birds that you raise yourself, beware the pained looks of the bystanders. While paying for these dozen chicks at the local feed store, a woman a few years further on than I am - which is to say, not young - stood behind me in line, grimacing and shuffling uncomfortably from one foot to the other as the proprietor and I discussed the chicks. Roasters, we called them, and she shuffled a bit more quickly and scrunched her face tighter. And this caused me to wonder, does she eat meat? For if so, someone - and yes, clearly not she - is killing that chicken in order to get it to her table. So then do I feel smug because I understand that someone must kill the meat? Hmmmm. That's worth pondering. And then, does that make me an asshole because I frown upon people squirming when thinking about these cute baby birds three or four months on being gutted, plucked, and roasted to a beautiful golden brown? Like I said, definitely worth pondering.
oooh, uh, not so cute prehistoric-style talons
As I type this, the chicks are in a large cardboard box in my dining room, peeping like mad. There were too many visitors yesterday and some here too late for us to finish the chick run construction in the barn - which, yes, should have been done in advance, I know, I know. Please do not lecture, for JR and I are able to beat ourselves up perfectly well without outside assistance. The chicks aren't quite at the point of smelling horrendous, lest you envision my dining room reeking of barnyard, and they are young enough to still be working out the execution of small necessities such as eating and drinking. I've scattered food on a newspaper in the bottom of the cardboard box, and found a shallow enough container in which to put their water. A few of them have figured out that this is meant for drinking, while others seem unable to maintain balance around it and have bathed themselves repeatedly. The rest huddle together trying to keep warm, while I worry that they will die of exposure - yes, even within my dining room, for normally they would be under a heat lamp - and when I mention this to JR he says, "Well, if they do, we'll make chicken nuggets."
While this would certainly speed up the farm-fresh meat schedule here at my house, I'm thinking I won't feel very smug about that at all. And so there is the conflict - trying to be kind now to the animals that, in a few short months, we will kill. Please excuse me, I must go squirm and wince while I make sure no chicks have drowned or frozen to death.
Dinner tonight: To try to recapture that self-congratulatory I-grew-it-myself vibe that writing this piece - probably rightly - took from me - I am going to make a spring herb frittata and serve it with fresh lettuce from the garden as well as lightly grilled asparagus from the garden. So for us, this dinner is free. Except for the olive oil, that is, so, ok, the dinner will cost us 90-cents. However, if you were to make this meal from purchased items, it would break down like this: 8 eggs at 26-cents each is $2.08. Fresh chives, oregano, and thyme we'll call $1.50 for the 3, figuring you'd use about a quarter of a grocery store package of them each, and those little packages tend to cost $1.99. I'll sprinkle some Pecorino-Romano over the whole thing, and that will cost us 50-cents for 1 ounce at $7.99/pound. The total cost for the frittata is $4.98 including that 90-cents in olive oil, and it will feed at least 4 people, so $1.25 per person. The asparagus would be about half of a bunch costing $3.99, so that's $2.00. The lettuce would cost $1.33 if you were buying one of those packages of Romaine hearts that costs $3.99 for 3. So the total for two people making this meal from items not in your backyard is $5.83. Not free, but not too costly, either.
