Spinach pesto panini

Welcome to To Vegetables, With Love, a celebration of a vegetable life, less ordinary. Find archived recipes on my new recipe index.

My book Tenderheart is available from Books are Magic, Kitchen, Arts and Letters, Book Larder, Bold Fork Books and also here or here.

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For every great sandwich in the world, there is a hundred bad ones. The world is full of mediocre sandwiches, the ones you eat because you’re in a hurry or because there were no other options (thinking of the airport here), prepackaged ones where the bread has become dry, or soggy ones we took to school.

I don’t eat a lot of sandwiches. But when I think about my life in sandwiches, surprisingly, there are clear memories that stand out. There’s:

…the punchy Vegemite sandwiches I took to school, which my mother made with too-little-margarine and too-much-Vegemite,

…the genius open-faced char siu, scallion, and Kraft cheese melts which my mum made for breakfast,

…the mushroom, alfalfa sprout, Swiss cheese and whole grain mustard Turkish bread sandwich I ate for lunch most days during my first job out of university,

…the Australian milk bar salad sandwiches that dripped with sour beetroot,

…the sandwich that I have dubbed the ‘Strand Arcade Foccacia’, filled with breaded and fried eggplant, zucchini, watercress, ricotta and semi dried tomatoes, which my sister and I bought from a small cafe in The Strand Arcade in Sydney on Saturdays when we would shop in the city

and

…the adult Vegemite sandwich, made with crusty Bourke Street Bakery sourdough, slathered with avocado, Vegemite and sharp cheddar cheese.

And then there are New York sandwiches, a dish this city does so well:

…the superlative VegItalian at Court Street Grocers that is packed with sweet butternut squash, countered by peppery rocket (arugula) and pickly accoutrements,

VegItalian from Court Street Grocers, on GF bread

…the broccoli reuben from the same place,

…the ‘Valentino’s special’ at Red Hook’s Del Fonte’s stuffed with fried eggplant, provolone and peppers,

Valentino’s Special from Del Fontes

…the collard greens sandwich at Superiority Burger.

I keep a running list of dishes and ideas that I’d like to develop into a recipe. On that list, and for several years now, has been a listing for LATTERIA PANINI.  When I was a young working girl slogging away at a fledging PR career, I’d have lunch a couple times a week at Latteria, a sliver of a cafe in Sydney’s Darlinghurst (to be honest, I didn’t know it was still around, all hail Sydney cafe scene!). I always ate the same thing - the pesto foccacia panini and a skim flat white. The panini was not fancy - spinach pesto, tomato, provolone. But it was perfectly melty, green and salty. I still think about this sandwich a lot. Making my own version made me feel young again.

They key to this sandwich is the pesto - make it the star and slather both sides of the bread liberally. For the memories,  I like it toasted, but if you have fresh bread, it is fine un-toasted. The choice of cheese is yours, but I like a sharp, salty cheese like provolone or cheddar.

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🥦 My cookbook, Tenderheart is for cooking vegetables, all year round. Pick up your copy here. It is also mostly vegan (or vegan-izable) and gluten-free adaptable.

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COOK / EAT / SHARE

This week, there’s been a lot of love for my luscious creamy vegan noodles - the cream base is made from tofu, it’s topped with a vinegary, salty, spicy topping. I am reminding you to make my tofu larb - I made it for dinner this week and my daughter exclaimed that it is one of “my favourite things you make”. It’s high school baseball play off season which means I need to prep dinner during the day - I will be making a pot of spanakorizo for later eating and this roasted potato salad with avocado-jalapeño dressing.

SEEKING READER PARTICIPATION: The New York Times Cooking wrote a very apt piece about Chickpea Anxiety this week - the moment in the supermarket when you suddenly struggle to remember whether you have a certain essential ingredient in your pantry so you buy some anyway. I do this constantly. At one point, I had 8 cans of chickpeas in my pantry. But my ‘anxiety’ extends to other items too…I’ll share mine next week (there are a lot 😂) and I’d love to hear about yours too. Leave your pantry anxiety items in comments and I’ll be sharing some of your stories in this newsletter next week.

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THIS WEEK’S RECIPE

Spinach pesto panini

© Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love

Serves 4

Spinach pesto
2 cloves garlic, chopped
180g (6-ounces) spinach (if using bunched spinach, roughly chopped)
1/3 cup (80ml) extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup (35g) toasted pine nuts
Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast or grated parmesan
sea salt black pepper
1/2 cup (15g) basil, finely chopped

Sandwiches
4 bread rolls or Focaccia
2 Roma or beefsteak tomatoes
4 slices cheese such as provolone, mozzarella, cheddar or gruyere
salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

To make the pesto, add the garlic, spinach, olive oil, pine nuts, lemon juice and zest, nutritional yeast or parmesan into a small blender or food processor and blend until mostly smooth (it doesn’t have to be completely smooth, some texture is fine). Season generously with sea salt and black pepper. Stir in the chopped basil.

To assemble the sandwich, spread the spinach pesto on both sides of the bread, top with tomato, black pepper and cheese. Close the sandwich. Place the sandwiches in a panini press, close lid and heat for 3-4 minutes until the bread is toasted and grill marks are showing. Slice in half and eat immediately.

If you don’t have a panini press, you can either use toast it until the cheese is melted, cook it in a skillet like a grilled cheese or, if your bread is fresh, eat it un-toasted.

Spinach Pesto Panini

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