FAST AND EZ CAPRESE SANDWICH

I've always been a fan of bread.  Being Greek we have bread with everything, and I mean everything. It's served with every meal you can think of usually as a side.  Even when we were eating bread as a meal our mom would have a side of bread with it.  It's crazy.  So when it was suggested to cut down on my intake of breads I had a hard time believing that it was necessary.  I decided to take the "all in moderation" approach so when Jodie found a recipe for two of my favorite food vices, breads and salads, I jumped all over it. (sorry about the bread and cheese Patrick!)

This Caprese Sandwich packs about 350 calories, about 4g of saturated fats and about 375 mg of sodium per 1/4 baguette (one serving).  This will obviously vary depending on your ingredients but if you follow the outline below you'll get an enjoyable, healthy and filling lunch meal that won't take a big bite out of your RDI.

• whole grain baguette (typically around 250g and 16" in length)
• two large tomatoes (sliced)
• 4 oz of fresh mozzarella (sliced)
• a clove of garlic (precooked and sliced or diced)
• bunch of basil leaves
• a tablespoon of olive oil
• a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

Set your oven on to broil and while it's heating up you'll have plenty of time to prepare this sandwich. 

Slice the baguette down the middle then sprinkle and set the sliced or diced garlic into the bread. Place it on a cooking sheet lined with aluminum foil.  Depending on the setting of your oven you can expect this to be toasted in 2 to 3 minutes.  I like to precooked our garlic in cloves that we keep stored in our fridge.  Slow cooking garlic sweetens them and are one of my favorite ingredients! 

After it starts to crisp up pull the baguette out of the oven and start laying your tomatoes, mozzarella and basil leaves.  Any amount and any way you want.  We then drizzled the olive and balsamic vinegar on top and added dashes of pepper.  

Cut into 1/4's this provided our family of four with a quick and tasty lunch!

Cheers

(sorry about the bad quality pics :)