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Open-Faced Sandwiches (aka Tartines) Provide Infinite Variety with Ease
Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day, boosting energy levels, jump-starting your metabolism, restoring important nutrients, and more. It can also be the most boring... but it doesn't have to be.
My standard breakfast most days is a toasted open-faced sandwich — or tartine, a word borrowed from those culinary-focused French folks. The toppings are rarely the same two days in a row, and it requires no special shopping... just stuff you have on hand anyway.
To illustrate this point, I photographed my sandwiches on five consecutive days. Stay with this, because there's a payoff at the end.
Day 1 (in the photo above): Organic avocado slices topped with sheep feta and a few drops of mild hot sauce on an Ezekiel English muffin.
Day 2: Leftover sautéed sugar snap peas (from Nichols Farm & Orchard, Marengo, Illinois) and sheep feta with a sprinkle of Greek seasoning on polenta sourdough (from Dorothy's Chicago).
Day 3: Sunnyside-up fried egg (Finn's Ranch, Buchanan, Michigan) and Roth Horseradish Havarti (Monroe, Wisconsin) on Ezekiel English muffin. I do most of the cooking in our household, but Barb holds the franchise on fried eggs.
Day 4: Sliced hothouse heirloom tomato (from Nichols Farm & Orchard) with grated Parmigiano Reggiano (Italy, of course) on Dorothy's polenta sourdough. I will confess that this got messy: The tomato was juicy and the bread a little porous for this task. It was tasty, but I think I'd go with an English muffin next time.
Day 5: OK, this isn't really an open-faced sandwich, but it is our upscale version of a very popular breakfast sandwich from our largest fast food chain. This is all about banishing boring breakfasts, amIrite?
What we have here is a toasted Ezekiel English muffin topped with Cabot sharp cheddar (sorry, it's Vermont, not local, I just love Cabot cheese), Niman Ranch Canadian bacon, and a Finn's Ranch fried egg. Yes, it was a treat.
Are tartines also your thing? Share your topping favorites at bob@localfoodforum.com. Or any non-boring breakfast ideas will do.
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