Two Best Meals

If you're an epicurean snob, you may find this post boring. And while I love food and fancy preparations and truffle oil and saffron, I also enjoy very simple ingredients. So I had two great meals in the past few days that included everyday ingredients and took me about 12.4 seconds to make. Well, a little longer but you get the point.

Saturday morning I went grocery shopping at Wegman's. I rarely buy bagels, although I love them, because, well, they are a carbohydrate-laden nightmare and upstate New York isn't exactly overrun with amazing little bagel places like in NYC. Which usually means a frozen sixer of Lender's bagels and I haven't bought those in yeaaaaars. But something made me go pick a couple up at Wegman's bakery, just to throw in the freezer for later. Ohhh, but they were fresh and warm and displayed next to freshly made containers of cream cheese, not the waxy, oily stuff that can survive the refrigerator for months on end. I rushed home, lovingly toasted my everything bagel, slathered it with billowing cream cheese, layerd slices of tomato just picked from the garden and topped it with a little sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper. Oh. My. God. I'm too embarrassed to describe the sounds I made whilst eating this but trust me, it was good.

Speaking of tomatoes, I'm on a big BLT kick this summer. But I usually don't have white bread in the house and a BLT is not really a BLT on ezekial bread with sprouted grains and flax seed or whatever the heck kind of cardboard bread is in my freezer. I picked up a nice, country bakery loaf the other day though so yesterday was Ultimate BLT day at my house. Be prepared though, it's a bit unorthodox. First of all, I don't mind lettuce on a BLT but I don't think I've ever bought a head of iceberg and probably won't start. Nothing wrong with it of course, it just personally reminds me a browned, shriveled, slimy cafeteria salads and I'm so over that. Instead, I like thin slices of creamy avocado. Also, I don't think it needs mayonnaise and I've tried to prove myself wrong here many times. I'll say to myself "OK Laila, you can nix the lettuce but you HAVE to have cool, tangy mayo to contrast with the salty bacon, you HAVE to." But you don't. I like the bread to soak up the lovely tomato juices much, much more. Think panzanella. So my method goes a little something like this:

Go to the garden and pick some tomatoes and basil. Slice tomatoes up and toss with chopped basil, add salt and pepper.
Fry up three slices of bacon.
While frying, toast the bread.
When the bread is toasted, lay down the bacon on one slice of bread.
Crack some pepper on top.
Lay down avocado slices on top of the bacon.
More black pepper.
Dump the tomato mixture over all that (it will have some juice from sitting with the salt for a few minutes).
Mash the top piece of bread down and have at it.
Have extras on hand, I could probably eat ten of these myself!