sandwich

After visiting my dad's for dinner the other night, he gave us some leftover steak to take home. My dad makes the most amazing steak I've ever had. Leftover meat poses a small problem (at least for the picky of us): it never tastes quite the same as when it was freshly cooked. Now, my husband would have no issue with just eating the leftover steak and some grilled veggies like we did the first night.

I grew up with tuna from a can and didn't realize until much, much later in life that there is a such thing as "ahi tuna" and other forms of tuna that do not come out of a can. In fact, these fancy kinds of tuna are served at fancy kinds of restaurants! I remember the first time I went out to eat at a classy restaurant and my mother-in-law ordered tuna.

If you've ever been to Arby's fast food restaurant and tried a beef 'n' cheddar melt, you know how tasty, but simple they are. If you've never been, you're not really missing out because I'm going to teach you how to make your own version but even better than the restaurant one.
My husband always had two major gripes about Arby's:
1) they were not particularly well-valued (i.e. expensive for what you actually got)

As was mentioned in the "Focaccia versus Focaccia bread" entry, my favorite paninis used to come from the Blue Note Cafe. Unfortunately, as the cafe has closed, I am forced to look elsewhere for the tasty paninis. I requested the recipe from the owner and tried it out for myself. It was incredible! Now you can try it too!!!

Before we assemble our panini, we need to make the special tomato sauce.