The harvest basket is getting more diverse and fuller as the weeks pass by. Even though it’s clearly growing, the harvest isn’t abundant. At this time of year, but also at the end of the growing season, it’s still basically always a mix-and-match affair when it comes to cooking. We use whatever we can harvest and add store-bought stuff whenever needed.

vegetarian spring sandwich - 1

With todays harvest I decided to make an early spring vegetarian sandwich. It’s filled with grilled asparagus, red kale and spring onions, all from the garden and topped off with fresh herbs and the first radishes from the garden. The tiny radishes were perfect in shape and color.

I added some (dutch) mushrooms, which I grilled and finished off with balsamic vinegar. Next to that I used a bit of goats cheese and a few (greek) olives. The two pieces of bread had a bit of hummus spread all over them. It was exactly how I like my sandwiches or vegetarian hamburgers. Full of different tastes and textures.

Eduard served a rosé from Domaine de la Janasse with it. He was able to buy bottles from that wine house from a colleague at his previous job. We have been very satisfied with the quality of the wine we have tasted up till now from there. We’ll be definitely ordering again. The light sandwich combined really well with the wine on this very warm spring evening. It was an easy and tasteful way to start the weekend off. In case you want to try this out as well, I’ve written down quickly what I did. It’s pretty easy and straightforward.

What do you need?*

– bread slices
– green asparagus
– red kale
– spring onions
– mushrooms
– balsamic vinegar
– radishes
– fresh herbs: thyme, marjoram
– goats cheese
– hummus
– good olives
– sunflower oil

*Everything on this list can be replaced by something else, nothing is fundamental! Try to add different types of tastes and textures. I didn’t add amounts as it’s also not very important. Just use whatever you have in the quantities you have. I actually ate the sandwich without the goats cheese and it was perfect as well. It’s easy to convert for a vegan that way.

What to do?

Prepare the mushrooms first. Slice them in half. Place a oiled pan on the fire and heat the fire. Grill the mushrooms quickly on a very high fire in sunflower oil until they get a nice brown crust. Keep on stirring. Turn down the fire and add about four tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (I used about fifteen big mushrooms for your reference). It will reduce quickly. Leave the mushrooms aside to absorb the reduced balsamic vinegar (take away from fire). Grill the asparagus with the spring onions in a bit of oil. When you are almost done, just add the kale leaves and grill them for a few seconds as well. Now you are done, you can start building the sandwich.
Slice the bread. Spread the hummus on one loaf and start adding the warm things you just prepared. Now crumble the goats cheese on top, some radish slices, herbs and olives. Spread some more hummus on the second loaf of bread and place that one on top. Now you are ready to eat. Enjoy your dinner and all the time you have left now that your dinner was so easy to make.

vegetarian spring sandwich - 4