My rediscovery of egg salad sandwiches!

Yesterday for lunch: egg salad on olive bread. 

Today for lunch: egg salad on olive bread with fresh hand-harvested baby arugula salad.

I have a feeling egg salad sandwiches will be a staple for me this summer, until I get sick of them. But what's to get sick of?? Ohh egg salad, I'm so sorry I've neglected your goodness for so long... 

Easiest Egg Salad

2 fresh farm eggs from pastured hens

1 tablespoon mayonnaise

a pinch of salt

cracked black pepper

First make hard-boiled eggs by putting them in cold water in saucepan and bringing it to a boil. Remove from heat and cover for 10 minutes. Drain off the hot water, and add cold water to the pot. Once the eggs are cool enough to handle, peel them and mash them in a bowl with a fork. Add mayonnaise, salt and pepper and mix until incorporated. Spoon onto olive bread and devour. 

  

Radishes and butter love each other.

Got my hands on some wonderfully young and mild radishes at the greenmarket on Wednesday. Radishes aren't my favorite vegetable and yet there's two things I love to do with them: 1, put them in a chopped salad (as I will do tonight) and 2, make this sandwich. 

Radish with Raw Butter and Salt on Baguette

Butter both sides of the baguette with raw butter. 

Use a mandolin* to thinly slice a big radish. 

Arrange the radish on the bread, salting in between layers. Use more salt if you're using unsalted butter, and less salt if using salted butter.

That's it, four ingredients! It's so simple, and you may not think it would taste great, but believe me, it's a wonderfully refreshing, tasty sandwich! Great on a hot afternoon, like today. 

*Mandolins need not be big complicated things with lots of parts, I use this one and it makes prepping vegetables so easy! It also makes these radishes so delicate and wonderful to eat... they've got a little crunch but are soft as well! The salt especially makes them melt a little... 

Asparagus and what to do with them!

I made my way through the Union Square greenmarket yesterday with $4 and a desperate craving for spring veggies and luckily for me, the greenmarket was bursting with spinach, radishes, ramps and other enticing edibles... and mmmmmm asparagus! 

Avoiding the $8 bunches of asparagus, I found a vendor selling asparagus by the spear, and ever the frugal shopper, I hand-selected my 6 perfect chosen asparagus and handed over my money.

Now, what to do with asparagus you might ask? Well the answer is simple. Roast them!

Preheat the oven to somewhere between 450 and 500 degrees. Wash your asparagus and snap the tough ends off. Arrange on a baking pan and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and toss them around a bit to coat. Roast for 10 - 15 minutes... the bottom will get browned and a little charred. 

These are good as a side for anything, one of those go-to vegetable recipes where you want something that's guaranteed to be delicious with a prep time of 1 minute. 

If you want, you can serve them the way I did today, with 2 poached eggs, shaved parmesan, a drizzle of creme fraiche and lemon juice, a slice of buttered multi-grain toast and some cracked pepper on top. Everything else was prepared while the asparagus were roasting. Couldn't be easier!

Yum.