big giant smooshed sandwich

Summer time is picnic time. Every Wednesday I try to make it to the Missouri Botanical Gardens for the Whittaker Music festival. Basically, it's free admission to the gardens to hear some live music and hang out with friends. We usually have an array of snack foods...cheese, sausage, olives, etc. And some wine, of course. Yesterday, since I had a vacation day, I decided to make a big sandwich to share with everybody. I got the idea for this sandwich from the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living. Here's the original recipe.

My pesto consists of basil, garlic and olive oil. I added a few drops of sesame oil for nuttiness, since I was out of pine nuts. And salt and pepper of course. I also added some fresh parsley, because I had it.

For the rest of the sandwich I grilled eggplant, zucchini and red pepper, much like the original recipe:



The bread I used was LaBrea Pane Italian. It's one of my favorite breads, and it was the perfect size and shape for this sandwich. For the meat I used cappicola ham, and for the cheese I used an aged provolone.


I assembled the sandwich about 5 hours before picnic time, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and put it in a large pyrex baking dish, with another baking dish on top which I filled with bottles of water. The end result was fantastic. The picnic didn't happen, though, due to weather. I went over to my brother's house instead and he and my sister-in-law helped me eat the giant smooshed sandwich.