Sometimes you have time to bake bread, sometimes you don’t. But you always have time to take a Black Russian Rye you made at home, and top it with some peppered smoked salmon, a little red onion, and a flavorful parsley-dill sauce.  I adapted the sauce from this recipe by Sunny Anderson – it’s fantastic.  Light, flavorful, and the lemon provides a bright counterpoint that cuts through the richness of the salmon and the intense flavor of the bread.  I’m sending this post over to Susan for her weekly YeastSpotting event.

Where have I been?  In keeping with the ongoing breakdown of all our major appliances, our washing machine broke. I’ve been doing the laundry down by the creek, beating our loin cloths on a rock.  But my new one has arrived!  Hooray for modern conveniences!

Parsley-Dill Sauce

• 1 small bunch fresh dill leaves
• 1 bunch parsley leaves
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1/2 cup low fat sour cream
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise

Directions

In a food processor, whir together the herbs, lemon juice, lemon zest, sour cream, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper, to taste. Keeps for about 5 days in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator.

Bread and cheese have to be two of the greatest inventions ever.  And the Earl of Sandwich must get karmic brownie points for turning a vice into a blessing:  legend has it that he invented the sandwich so that he could eat and continue to play cards uninterrupted.

Things have been crazily busy at the Imperial Palace, also known as Chez Chow, as we get ready to leave town on a business trip, yet again.  I had to take the pups to cage-free boarding, and that’s hard on all of us, even though they have a good time there.  Gus is partial to blondes, and virtually every young lady who works at the place is a blonde babe.  Both he and Daisy just love to be cuddled, and they get a lot of that there.

So, what does this all have to do with food?  In a nutshell, I’ve been so busy that I had to take a deep breath and force myself to eat something decent, something besides ramen noodles.  Lately I’ve been making paninis, but this time I was too darned worn out to go dig out my grill, so I just made it the old fashioned way, as you can see from the picture below.

So, what do you get when you take crusty focaccia, and stuff it with dill havarti, lettuce, tomatoes, Dijon mustard, and some chicken?  And then you brush the whole thing with extra virgin olive oil and grill it in your trusty and faithful cast iron skillet?  Heaven.  Thank you, Earl of Sandwich, thank you.

And if you’d like to see some fantastic bread creations by food bloggers, be sure to check out Susan’s Yeastspotting roundup every Friday!

Using the Royal Crown’s Tortano bread which, he informs me, was just made to sop up mayonnaise and makes an excellent tuna fish or turkey sandwich.

Master Chow is a purist. Mayo, plus sliced roast turkey (from a drumstick), on toasted bread. The result? Sandwich heaven.