I saw a caramelized apple and cheddar grilled cheese sandwich on Tastespotting and wanted something similar.  Caramelized apples.  Why not caramelized apples and onions?  No cheddar in the fridge.  Manchego.  Some arugula for good measure.

Dining companion:  April’s Bon Appetit

For this sandwich, I …

1. Sauteed (one) sliced onion in a little olive oil and butter over med-high heat.  Kept watch, stirred often.  Still got some too-dark bits.  About 10 minutes later (or longer if you have more time, I was hungry), added a chopped apple (I had Pink Ladies) and a little salt and pepper.  Continued to stir and saute until apple was tender.

2. Drizzled some pain au lait (post to follow eventually) with a little truffle oil and broiled in the oven until lightly toasted. (Only a few minutes, keep watch.)

3. Layered some manchego, arugula, apple-onion mix, and more manchego.  Broiled again until toasty and cheese was nicely melted.  (Again, not long.)

Is it cheating if I have cereal for breakfast?

The beauty of a big city is choice.  Especially a big American city.  When it comes to food and restaurant choices, New York is very comfortable assuming a Top Dog place. Having been there a few times now, I must admit that New York is less of a foodie heaven for me now.  Not because there isn’t good food, but because you know it’s everywhere.  So, it’s simply about making a choice.  I tend to get more excited searching and trying to separate the wheat from the chaff—that’s the Edmontonian in me, I think.  And because visiting there for me is now more about spending time with good friends and feeding off New York’s unrelenting energy, I’m less concerned with my choices.  With so many, you make good, you make bad, but in the end, you’re always in a city that is a feast for the eyes. This visit, some previous favourites solidified their status in my life more because of nostalgia than for what was served.  Some new tries were fun, but not necessarily requiring a return or recommend.  I’ll make a giant leap to say that perhaps it’s a sign of the economic times that the best tastes of the week were the comforting ones that came from Dumont in Williamsburg; pear and parsnip soup, a burger and fries, and an amazing mac ‘n’ cheese warmed some souls on a lovely fall evening.

The seeking out of specific spots happened more often during the day when I was wandering alone.  And this seeking out was about two things:  sandwiches and ice cream.  I’ve been craving these a lot lately (or always) and being in New York meant that I could easily find some delicious options.  I find great pleasure in a good sandwich.  Nice bread, fresh fillings, the right amount of chew, two-fisted without being insurmountable.  It’s surprising to me how hard getting these attributes can be at times.  Not in New York, however. In addition to Bread and Snack for some yummy sandwiches, I made a trip to the Hampton Chutney Co. in Soho for what essentially is a South Indian sandwich:  the dosa.  Since being introduced to Hampton Chutney a few years ago, it’s become a place I must make my way to when in New York.  Although nowhere near authentic in terms of fillings, the crepes themselves are as crispy and chewy as they should be and the accompanying chutneys always fresh.

Fontina & grilled veg at Bread

Seasonal dosa with mint and pumpkin chutneys

I have no problem admitting that I’m a big fan of Tasti-D-Lite.  I never say no to soft-serve treats and because I grew up in the 80s around all things sugar-free, my palate is completely immune to chemical aftertastes.  That being said, I had none this journey because I had my sights set on more exciting options.

At the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, I had my first try of frozen custard.  It’s correctly described as the meeting of soft serve and hard ice cream:  the give of hard ice cream with the texture of soft serve.  I loved my cone of that day’s flavour, salted caramel.

Another soft-serve adventure was to Milk Bar, of the Momofuku clan.  Essentially the clan’s dessert outpost, the Milk Bar has quite a following for its cakes and pies, delicious cookies (the Compost variety I tried were crazy good), and inventive soft-serve flavours.  On offer were sweet and salty cucumber, watermelon, horchata, and cereal milk—and guessing what flavour of cereal it is that day is part of the fun.  I sampled what I’m sure was Corn Pops.  I think my afternoon treat of horchata soft serve was one of the highlights of my trip.  Especially as it complemented my walk around the East Village on a warm, fall day.

Gelato is a form of frozen milk I can never say no to.  So, knowing that I would be on the Upper West Side one afternoon, I made my way to Grom, a chain from Italy.  Creamier than most gelato I’ve tried, I was happy with my cone of vanilla and seasonal cinnamon.

After a turn at the Atlantic Antic, I got my first scoops of gelato from my most favourite gelateria—Il Laboratorio del Gelato—at One Girl in Brooklyn.  Ricotta and caramel.  Later that week, I celebrated/bemoaned my last day in New York by heading to their Lower East Side shop to partake in fresh mint, rum raisin, and malt.  There is never enough.

And there is never enough time in New York.

Vietnam still holds me.  I miss the food, I miss the weather, I miss the people, I miss the noise, I miss the energy.

So when an opportunity arises for me to somehow connect back to it, I grab on.

At the last book club meeting I hosted, we were discussing a book that took place partly in Cambodia.  And for my purposes, Cambodia is close enough to Vietnam to make a culinary cheat leap when deciding what to make for snacks.  The book does mention a character often eating a baguette sandwich… which of course is Vietnamese banh mi by any other name.  So really, I wasn’t cheating all that much.  And when I found the perfect recipe for a banh mi mise en place, the menu was shaping up perfectly.

While the chicken was well flavoured from the marinade, the standout ingredients were the pickled carrots and fresh bread.  I kept to the recipe closely with the exception of the onions, daikon, lime (a member’s allergy caused me to use lemon), and the salad.  I marinated the carrots for about 6 hours and everyone raved about them.  I placed a special order at Cobs for the small baguettes.  They were all chewy, golden goodness.

Unexpectedly, banh (loosely, bread/cake) became another theme of the evening.  While walking aimlessly one night in Hue, I decided to try a sweet I had seen a few times in display cases.  Simply labelled “banana cake,” it had the look of an upside-down cake; caramelized bananas atop a moist, white cake.  The flavour, however, was more like a bread pudding.  When I started searching for a recipe, I found that the cake I had tasted and had wanted to make for book club was called banh chuoi nuong.

Like any good bread pudding recipe, eggs and milk make over stale bread.  And like many good dessert recipes from tropical climates, coconut and banana have leading roles.

After a few bites, you immediately understand why banh is such a widely used prefix in Vietnamese cooking.  Everything it touches turns delicious.

Banh Chuoi Nuong

8 bananas

2 day-old/stale French loaves (not baguettes)

2 eggs

1.25 cups sugar

2 cups milk

2 cups coconut milk

4 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

0.5 teaspoon cinnamon

Slice bananas and mix with flour, 0.25 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons of the butter, and cinnamon.  Beat eggs with the remaining cup of sugar.  Then add coconut milk, milk, vanilla, and remaining butter.  Remove crusts from bread.  Slice into 0.5-inch slices.  Grease a 9-inch glass pie plate.  Quickly dip the bread slices in the egg mixture and lay the slices into the bottom of pan to create the first layer.  Squish bread down as much as you can.  Add half of the banana slices.  Repeat bread layer, squishing down again.  Finish off with the rest of the banana slices.  You may have leftover bread and banana slices.  Bake at 350 degrees F until golden, about 45 minutes.

Let cool completely.  Serve at room temperature.  A scoop of vanilla ice cream wouldn’t hurt it.

The ease with which we tend to take Sundays—the day of rest—often means dinners that can take time and involve the word “slow.”  But, the phenomenon of a Lazy Sunday also exists.  And it exists a lot in my life.

So, a post about a lazy meal on a lazy Sunday is going to be just that.  The laziness also extends to it being posted a week late.  But as it’s Sunday again, it all works.

The most effort this lazy salad required was making the red wine vinaigrette and slicing the fennel.  Otherwise, everything was simply chopped:  pre-washed baby romaine, kalamata olives, tiny sweet peppers, avocado, yellow tomatoes, fennel, fresh basil, store-bought rotisserie chicken.

The modified ham and cheese required the use of the broiler.  Therefore, I technically cooked.

After slicing the cheddar biscuits (from the freezer), I placed shaved prosciutto, sliced Granny Smith, and goat cheese on top.

Dessert was Breyer’s.  The digestif was a good dose of laughing while watching the gang of 30 Rock with my Lazy Sunday partner in crime.

I did not make a Sunday roast, but I did turn the oven on and the chicken had been roasted at some point.

So there.