Mele Kalikimaka!

I'm off to Hawaii and then Alberta for the holidays, so there won't be any new posts here for a few weeks. See y'all when I get back!

Cookbook Challenge #3: Very Nice!

Soft, fresh bread is probably my biggest food weakness. I love it as part of a sandwich; I love it plain, topped with creamy butter; I just love it. As such, I was psyched when I first came across the original ACE Bakery Cookbook a few years ago -- so many great recipe ideas using yummy, yummy bread! Beacuse of this book, one of my more exciting realizations when I moved to Toronto was that I could finally buy fresh ACE bread from my local grocery. Yay!

Last Christmas, my mom gave me the second ACE cookbook: More from ACE Bakery. This sequel is pretty similar to the original, with lots of mouth-watering photography and amazing-sounding recipes. Even so, I just never got around to using it. Until now.

Flipping through its pages the other day, one photo really jumped out at me: creamy-looking egg-salad piled high on fresh multigrain bread with fresh tomato slices and lettuce, topped with three beautiful asparugus spears. It looked So. Good. I decided to make the "Really, Really Nice Egg Sandwich" myself, and found the most difficult part to be finding plain 2% yogurt at the grocery store (note: this wasn't very hard). I'm happy to say that this sandwich tasted as good as it looked -- the eggs were perfectly creamy and tangy, and paired nicely with the fresh veggies. I used the best-quality unsliced multigrain bread I could find, and its pillowy soft interior went great with the smooth eggs, while its nutty, crisp crust made things interesting. I served these sandwiches with some extra steamed asparagus and a nice, garlicky aioli. It made for an extremely satisfying light meal. Enjoy!

Really, Really Nice Egg Sandwich

3 eggs, hard boiled and peeled
6 asparagus stalks
3 tbsp 2% or 4% yogurt
heaping 1/4 tsp Dijon
generous 1/4 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
heaping 1/4 tsp kosher salt
2tsp fresh chives, minced
2 to 4 leaves boston lettuce
2 thick slices flax or multigrain bread
1 large tomato, sliced
freshly ground black pepper and salt, to taste

1. Steam the asparagus until cooked through, but still crisp. Shock with cold wate, drain, and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the Dijon, yogurt, chives, lemon juice, and kosher salt. Grate the hard boiled eggs into the yogurt dressing (use the large holes in your grater) and gently toss. Salt and pepper to taste.
3. Place the lettuce on the bread slices and top with tomato slices. Pile on the egg salad and arrange the asparagus on top. Finish with a generous grind of fresh pepper and serve open-faced.

serves 2