May 22, 2014

the perfect tea sandwiches


Over the weekend, I had a little time to indulge in watching the food network, and found a new cooking show that I absolutely love. It's called Southern at Heart, with Damaris Phillips who I guess won the food network's next Food Network Star.  

Anyhow, she’s the cutest little thing and she really got me when she started preparing Benedictine sandwiches, which is a staple in Kentucky, but having never been to Kentucky, these were new to me. It's basically a yummy tea sandwich with cucumber and bacon.

In my family, I am known for my cucumber and cream cheese open-faced tea sandwiches, which my boys all love, but this recipe takes the cucumber sandwich to a whole new level, with the addition of BACON!! omg, I had to make these!  

I made it to the market yesterday to buy all the ingredients and got down to business. One of my boys even helped me grate and drain the cucumber, which only took a few minutes. This recipe is very easy and cooking the bacon is the the most time consuming part.

The sandwiches come together very quickly. We opted out on the borage flowers, which boys don't really care about anyways and substituted a little watercress and arugula. This recipe is perfect for a tea party as Damaris showed, or just a yummy lunch for the clan.

Borage, Benedictine and Bacon Sandwiches

Yield: 16 tea sandwiches
ingredients

8 strips bacon
1 large cucumber, peeled and seeded
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 slices country wheat bread
2 cups fresh borage petals or microgreens or baby arugula
Directions

Working in batches if necessary, cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crispy, about 10 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

While the bacon is cooking, grate the cucumber on the large holes of a box grater. Wrap the grated cucumber in cheesecloth and squeeze to remove as much liquid as possible.

Combine the cream cheese and mayonnaise in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix until smooth, about 1 minute. Add the cucumber and red onion and mix until combined, about 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

To assemble the sandwiches, divide the cream cheese mixture evenly between 4 slices of bread. Break the strips of bacon in half and top each sandwich with 4 halves. Sprinkle the borage petals over the top, then cover with the remaining four slices of bread and press down firmly. Cut away the crusts. Slice the sandwiches diagonally in half and then diagonally again, to make triangles. Serve.

Damaris and her cute friend Terra after preparing a scrumptious tea


ciao! fabiana

p.s  the boys loved the Benedictine!



photo credit:
Damaris on Facebook



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey!

I love your blog :) It caught my attention thanks to the quality of your recipes. We would be delighted if you would join us on Mytaste.com so that we could link to your blog.

Mytaste.com is a search engine that compiles the best American cooking sites and blogs from the Internet. We are one of the largest in the world with sites in 37 markets and thousands of blogs are already enrolled here and benefit from the traffic we are sending to their sites.

To join Mytaste.com, just go to mytaste.com/add-your-food-blog

Sincerely,

Emilie
Mytaste.com

sub



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

more recent posts...



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...