I hope you're all doing great and in good health. Big thank you to @sirenahippie for hosting the Foodie Contest, 😁 and to @sagarkothari88 for all the support 💙 Check out the link and join in! Or just come for the food.

LO, sandwiches! 😁

Origins, origins:

I'm sure that if the Greeks already had cheesecake BC, they surely already had sandwiches as modern as today. In fact, I'm sure that 3 or 4 million years ago, as soon as Lucy's cousins were able to roll food into edible sheets, the first gluten-free wrap was born, ha ha ha ha ha. Let's just say that according to me, who has zero authority on the matter, humans have been eating sadwiches since much longer than the 18th century, as known in pop culture: which has it that sandwich was supposedly named after the 4th Earl of Sandwich (mid-18th century), who ate his food inside two slices of bread so as not to leave the gaming table. What do you think? I think the Flinstones did eat sandwiches, LOL.

We only need one or two slices of bread and put our favorite fillings on them, et voilà! We have a sandwich.

When I was a child,
my favorite sandwich was the simplest you can imagine: cheese sandwich. My mother would butter it with Torondoy butter and fresh cheese; then she would toast it in a pan, pressing it hard with a lid until it was nice and flat and crispy; then she would serve it to me with a cup of latte. This sandwich has a special place in my heart and I like to make it when I'm feeling sick or sad. Food therapy.

But we're not eating cheese sandwiches today. Instead, let me treat you to some good sized, very tasty and quite healthy sandwiches.

This is my entry to the Foodie Contest for Sandwiches.

This sandwich has homemade beet and rosemary skillet bread; you'll find in its filling different flavors and textures. The challenge was to be able to fill this sandwich with nine ingredients, among which we could not count the bread or the dressings.

These were the fillings I used:

• 5-ingredient coleslaw: cabbage, carrot, granny smith, green onion, and green pepper

• cucumbers with yogurt

• grilled eggplant slices with oregano and pepper

• meat with sesame seeds

• red onion

It was a challenge for me indeed, as I don't think I have ever put more than five ingredients on a sandwich. The same criteria applies for pizza.

• First of all, there was the issue of taste:

I believe that too many flavors together end up being no flavor at all. It's different with textures, with which I prefer as varied as possible.

• Then there was practicality:

Too many ingredients make it almost impossible to eat your sandwich without making a mess; fillings fall out and everything drips onto your plate, or even your clothes.

The truth is that after a lot of thought, I decided to do something similar to what I often have to do with the leftovers that clutter my fridge after a crazy week...

I usually check what's in the containers and decide what foods I could wrap up and whether I should use ketchup or mustard, or rather yogurt--or something else.

At home, our favorite combinations are vegetables with yogurt or meats with cheese. This time I opted for some of both.

Also, even though bread wasn't part of the inredients, I made my own: skillet bread (which are so good for pressed sandwiches).

I have a skillet grill that leaves a very nice decorative striped pattern on the bread, like the ones in the panini.

The bread makes a thick and nice crust, which allows me to open it up without cutting the edge, which acts as a barrier that holds both food and sauces. Zero mess.

Also, it's soft on the inside, but less fluffy than when baked. It is perfect to put many fillings inside, which was exactly what I needed.

Time for delicious fillings!

5-ingredient Coleslaw, Grilled Eggplant,cucumber & yogurt, Loin Stripes, Red Onion

For the coleslaw, I used

• 1 cup finely striped cabbage
• 1/2 cup shredded carrot
• 1/4 cup sliced green bell pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped spring onion
• 1/2 cup finely sliced granny Smith
• dressing: apple cider vinegar, olive oil, and salt

I finely chopped the cabagge, grated the carrot, chopped the spring onion, and finely sliced the green bell pepper and granny Smith (half peeled).

Besides being delicious, sandwiches can be really healthy if we choose the right fillings.

Dressings also matter. A greasy dressing can spoil yur healthy vegetables. I added aopplecider vinegar, olive oil, and salt. Not too much so that the bread wouldn't become soggy.

For the cucumber and yogurt, I used

• 1 cup finely sliced cucumber without the seeds

• dressing:

• • 3 labneh balls
• • 2 tablespoons greek yogurt
• • the juice of a lemon
• • 1 tablespoon freshly crushed garlic
• • 4 tablespoons olive oil
• • salt to taste

I washed the cucumber well, half peeled it, and took all the seeds out. This way, the yogurt dressing gets to keep firm and more flavorful.

The dressing was pretty simple to make. I just mixed the labneh, greek yogurt, lemon juice, crushed garlic, olive oil, and salt.

Finally, I mixed the sliced cucumber and dressing together.

As for the eggplant slices, I used

• 2 cups sliced eggplant
• 1 tablespoon oregano
• freshly cracked black pepper
• olive pomace oil
• sal to taste

After cutting the pedicel of the eggplant, I cut it into slices of about 1 cm wide. I drizzled enough olive pomace oil over them...

Then I rubbed them with the rest of the ingredients.

I fried them in a little olive pomace oil, a couple of minutes on each side, until they browned a little.

And for the meat,

• 200 gr loin strips
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons ground garlic
• the juice of a lemon
• olive pomace oil
• salt to taste
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds

I rubbed the loin strips with all the ingredients, let them marinate for ten minutes, and cooked it in a hot pan with a little olive pomace oil.

The sesame seeds were not cooked. I added them after the meat was done, which took about 15 minutes over medium fire.

Let's assemble these delicious and healthy sandwiches!

I filled two pieces of bread as you can see in thepictures below.

I liked the result!

We had skipped lunch, and it was 8 p.m. when we ate. We were starving. Every bite was glory. Crunchy bread, fresh vegetables, creamy yogurt dressing, and the right amount of tenderloin strips with an intense flavor: as a whole, this was a sandwich that reminded us of delicious Arabian food.

We had enough fillings for another sandwich, but we had no room for more!

Bon appetite!

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

Thank you so much for your visit :)

Banner by @andresromero 🖤