Roasted Squash Burrata Sandwich w. Pickled Shallots & Calabrian Chilis

This is the kind of sandwich you never forget…

One of those meals that stays with you long after you’ve taken the last bite. As you clean crumbs from the corners of your mouth, the sweet sting of Calabrian chilis reverberates and the umami acid of pickled shallots lingers. This sandwich is a flavor orchestra you’ll want to revisit again & again.

I won’t be shy in laying it out for you — this warm sandwich is the perfect messy meal for a day spent at home on a blustery winter day, alone or in the company of someone who won’t judge you for licking creamy burrata from your fingers with reckless abandon. Turned on yet? You should be.

P.S. Can you tell I’m writing this in the saucy, sexy spirit of Valentine’s Day?

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Roasted Squash Burrata Sandwich with Pickled Shallots and Calabrian Chilis

1 SANDWICH

• 2 slices of good sourdough

• 1 small-medium Robin’s Koginut squash or Butternut squash (squash can be roasted 2-3 days ahead)

• 1 ball of fresh burrata

• 1 small-medium shallot

• 1-2 whole Calabrian chilis, or 1-2 Tbsps Calabrian chili spread

• Fresh or dried oregano

• Garlic powder

• 4 oz white vinegar

• 2 oz Rice vinegar, apple cider vinegar, white balsamic or white wine vinegar

• Coarse kosher salt

• 1 Tbsp. Sugar, any kind

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Freshly ground black pepper

• Balsamic vinegar

Note: Both squash and pickled shallots can be made 2-3 days ahead of time, cutting sandwich prep time in half.

Preheat oven to 400F. Cut your squash into 4 quarters and remove seeds. Drizzle inner flesh side of each piece with olive oil and rub to coat evenly. Sprinkle with fresh or dried oregano, freshly ground black pepper, salt and garlic powder. Don’t be afraid to eyeball your seasoning! Place skin side down on a baking sheet and into the oven for 20 mins.

Before preparing sandwiches, remove burrata from the fridge to come to room temperature while you prepare the other ingredients, and same for the squash if you have pre-roasted it.

In the meantime, pickle your shallots: in a 12 oz jar, add 4 oz of white vinegar and 2 oz of another milder, sweet vinegar like, apple cider, rice, white balsamic or white wine vinegar. Add 1 Tbsp of any kind of sugar and 1 Tbsp of salt. Put a lid on the jar and shake until salt and sugar have disappeared into the vinegar. Using a sharp knife, cut off both the top and bottom of the shallot, then cut in half lengthwise. From there slice the shallot thinly into half rounds, like this. Add half rounds to the jar with vinegar. Press shallots down into the jar, packing tightly. If shallots are not completely covered by the liquid, top with a little extra mild vinegar until covered. Pickled shallots will last stored in the fridge up to a week, or more.

After 20 mins, you will want to check that your squash is cooking evenly, then roast for another 15-20 minutes, until flesh is fork tender. When your squash is finished roasting, place to the side to cool.

If you are using whole Calabrian chiles, cut two chilies into thin rounds. Remove fresh burrata from it’s liquid and gently cut into quarters, being mindful not to let the inner stracciatella and cheese drip out. Finally, remove skin from the cooled squash, either before storing or before making sandwiches.

Prep the bread: drizzle both sides of two slices with olive oil. Then place into a warm pan, and leave 2-5 minutes per side without disturbing, until brown and golden. If you are using a stainless pan, add a splash of olive oil to the warm pan first, then add bread.

When bread is ready, it’s time to build the sandwich:

First, place down Calabrian chili spread, if you’re using that. Then place down your squash, pressing it lightly into the bread. To each side, add a few pickled shallots. Next, your quarters of burrata. Finally, if using whole Calabrian chilis, add those on top. To the inside of the creamy burrata, add a splash of your best quality olive oil, a sprinkle of salt, fresh ground black pepper, and finish with a drizzle of good balsamic vinegar. Enjoy open faced, or close your sandwich and cut in half.

Savory Shiitake & Creamy Pinto Bean Burritos

If you could take a peek inside my Seamless order history…

you would discover that I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with mushroom burritos — and so I decided it was time I make my own.

As it turns out the most difficult thing about this recipe is mastering your burrito rolling but once you do, it’s a skill that will not go to waste because you’ll want to make these again and again.

After all, if you, like me, live for dynamic, layered flavor, burritos are literally a dream come true: all of that savory, spicy, crunchy, creamy goodness married underneath a soft, warm blanket of tortilla. Hello! Every bite is like taking a tiny flavor adventure.

For this burrito, tender, umami mushrooms are tossed in a buttery spice blend and layered with savory rice, sharp cheddar and creamy pinto beans - but please do not stop there! Include your add-on’s of choice: I like mine with crunchy radishes, homemade guacamole & sour cream. And don’t forget your favorite salsa or hot sauce. As always, follow your flavor intuition and make this recipe your own.

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Savory Shiitake & Creamy Pinto Bean Burritos

Makes 1 Burrito

• 1 burrito-sized flour tortilla

• 2 medium Shiitake Mushrooms, cleaned & dried (you can also substitute with other mushroom types)

• Kosher salt

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Neutral oil (avocado, sunflower, safflower, canola)

• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter

• 1/4 tsp Adobo Seasoning

• Shy of 1/4 tsp Smoked Paprika

• Shy of 1/4 tsp Ancho Chili Powder or Cayenne Powder

• 1/4 tsp Garlic Powder

• 1/4 tsp freshly ground Black Pepper

• 2 Tbsps Creamy Pinto Beans

• 3 Tbsps cooked rice, cooked in vegetable broth with a pinch of salt

• 2-4 thin slices Sharp White Cheddar, more if you want it extra cheesy!

• 2-3 Tbsps Sour Cream

• OPTIONAL: thinly sliced radish rounds, homemade guacamole or pico de gallo

First cook up a batch of 1/2 cup uncooked rice and my Creamy Pinto Beans. These will render a few burritos but the following is instructions for making one burrito.

TIP: You’ll want to cook your rice in vegetable broth instead of water (half broth, half water works too), and add a pinch of salt. This imparts it with a lot more flavor.

If you plan to make homemade guacamole or pico de gallo, you will prep those first, too.

Then once your rice, pinto beans and any add-on’s are ready, make your mushrooms: score your clean, dry shiitakes along the top side, making cuts that are about an 1/8 inch deep.  This helps them to lay flat in the pan and cook evenly. Hit both sides with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt. Heat a sauté pan over medium high heat, and then add the mushrooms to the pan, scored side down: they should sizzle! If they don’t, remove them and let the pan get sufficiently hot first.

When the top side is golden brown, flip and sear until the bottom is golden - a few minutes per side.

Then remove the pan from the heat and place mushrooms on a cutting board until cool enough to handle. Cut into strips that are 1/2 inch wide .

Place your now empty pan back over a medium heat. To the pan add 1 Tbsp of butter and 1/4 tsp each of: Adobo Seasoning, Garlic Powder and freshly ground Black Pepper. Add just shy of 1/4 tsp of Smoked Paprika, and Ancho Chili Powder or Cayenne Powder. Stir everything together so that the spices are evenly distributed throughout the butter. When the butter is starting to get bubbly, add your strips of mushrooms back to the pan and toss in the butter and spice mixture for a minute.

Then remove the mushrooms again and set aside, leaving all of the excess butter and spices in the pan over medium heat. Now, don’t walk away! Stand over the butter just until it starts to smell toasty and turn brown. At that point immediately remove the pan from the heat and add your 3 Tbsps of cooked rice to the brown butter and spice mixture. Toss so that the rice is thoroughly coated. If you burn your butter and spices, don’t worry just skip this step and use plain cooked rice. You can also add fresh cilantro to your rice if you like.

Set the pan off to the side and make sure your burner is turned off. It’s time to build your burrito: to a large burrito sized flour tortilla, lay down your rice, beans and mushrooms a little bit off-center. Then top with your add-ons: sliced cheddar cheese, radish, guacamole, sour cream, pico de gallo etc. The key here is making sure you don’t overstuff the burrito or make it too liquid-y. If you do, it will be impossible to wrap (that’s why I’ve given you measurements for how much rice & beans to add).

To go about wrapping your burrito, first fold in the two sides. Then lift the side of the burrito that is facing you and fold it over those two sides and all of the ingredients. Use that to tuck in all of your ingredients, pulling them towards you into a little pouch. Finally turn the burrito over to seal that last side. If you’re a visual learner I love this video tutorial from Thrillist.

Now that your burrito is rolled, it’s time to get it warm and crunchy. This is where the magic happens!

That pan you had your spices & butter in? Give it a good rinse and then dry it off completely (seems annoying, I know, but using one pan for all of this really just means fewer dishes later!). Place this pan back over a medium-high heat and add enough of a neutral, high-smoke point cooking oil to just coat the entirety of the bottom of the pan. When the oil is shimmering and hot, add your burrito to the pan FLAP SIDE DOWN. You first want to seal this side off. Allow it to get golden brown and crispy, a few minutes depending on how hot your pan is. Then flip and repeat on the top side, until golden and crispy.

Eat while warm and enjoy with even more of your favorite toppings and hot sauces!

Warm Roasted Vegetable Goat Cheese & Romesco Sandwich

Don’t believe anyone who says plants can’t taste frigging amazing.

I’ll avoid using profanity here, but this is a topic I feel strongly about: when you treat vegetables the right way - impart them with lots of flavor and layer textures - they become something else entirely. This sandwich builds on the classic combination of beets and goat cheese, adding crispy fennel, sweet fig balsamic and Shab's Sauce Red Pepper Romesco.

In typical The Kitchen fashion, it's a flavor party: it’s creamy, crunchy, garlicky, savory, earthy, sweet and smokey. Make sure you roast plenty of beets and save the leftovers to use throughout the week - for these sandwiches, in bowls, salads, over labne with za’atar as a snack.

We will also be making the most of our beets and avoiding food waste by including the beet greens in our sandwich once they’ve been sauteed with plenty of garlic first, of course.

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Warm Roasted Vegetable Goat Cheese & Romesco Sandwich

1 SANDWICH

• 2 slices of good bread, like Amy’s Rye Sourdough

• 1 large bunch beets and it’s greens, and for this recipe 2 small roasted beets, cut into thin rounds and large handful beet greens

• 1-2 tbsps of goat cheese

• 3-4 flesh cloves of garlic

• Roughly 1/2 cup thinly sliced fennel bulb and a few leafy fronds

• Shab’s Sauce Roasted Red Pepper Romesco

• Fig Balsamic

• Freshly ground black pepper

• Kosher

• Extra virgin olive oil

If you can find pre-roasted, peeled beets feel free to use those. Otherwise, if you are roasting your beets, start here. Preheat your oven to 400F. In the meantime, cut the beets from their large stalks and greens, setting those aside. Rinse the beets thoroughly of any excess dirt, and then trim both the top and bottom so they are flat on both ends. Peel the beets, as this makes them faster to use up once roasted.

Place peeled beets in a small baking dish and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Sprinkle with a good pinch of kosher salt, some freshly ground black pepper and toss to coat. Add just shy of 1/4 cup water to the baking dish, cover and put in the oven for up to 60 mins, or until completely fork tender but not mushy. I love checking my vegetables using a cake tester.

While the beets are in the oven, cut beet greens from the thick, tough stalks. Thoroughly rinse them and then spin dry in a salad spinner or gently dry in a clean kitchen / paper towel. Chop 3-4 fresh garlic cloves and set aside. We will use a large handful of the greens per 1 sandwich. Wrap any remaining greens in a dry, clean towel and place in the fridge.

Take your goat cheese out so it comes to room temperature and becomes easier to spread.

Trim off the bottom end of the white fennel bulb. Then using a mandolin or a sharp knife, cut roughly 1/2 cup of very thin rounds. Remove a few of the fuzzy fronds to add to the sandwich as well. Set aside. (Use the rest of the fennel during the week for this simple salad.)

When the beets are ready, remove from the oven and carefully lift the foil, being careful of the hot steam. Leave the beets in the baking dish uncovered to cool.

In a pan, heat olive oil until shimmering and hot. Add garlic and allow to cook in the oil for 30 seconds. Then add clean beet greens, stir to coat, adding a splash more olive oil if you want. Cook a few minutes until greens are wilted but still bright green. Move all garlic and greens to a small plate. Leave the pan on the heat to crisp your bread. Raise to a medium high heat.

Brush your two pieces of bread with oil or butter on one side. Add to the same pan the greens were in and over a high heat allow to get very crispy and golden. Add butter or oil to the side facing up and then add back to the pan with that side facing down, allowing it to also get golden and crispy.

When the bread is done, remove pan from the heat. Add 1 tbsp of plain goat cheese to both pieces of bread and spread thin. To one piece of bread, add 1 tsp of Shab’s Sauce Roasted Red Pepper Romesco and spread, mixing it into the goat cheese. On top of that, place thinly sliced rounds of roasted beet - roughly 2 small beets or 1 large per sandwich.

Add thinly sliced fennel and fennel fronds. Carefully drizzle with a bit of fig balsamic. Top with the second piece of bread, cut in half using a sharp knife and serve immediately!

Smoked Salmon Toast

Equal parts crisp, crunch & smoke.

Smoked salmon sandwiches have quickly become a part of my daily rotation. Loaded with fresh ingredients that need little prep, it’s quick to come together and offers a refreshing change from the daily rotation of other more expected sandwiches. The key, as always, is using the best ingredients you can find: a great bread and high quality smoked salmon are key. And it’s totally worth the extra few minutes it requires to make your own scallion cream cheese. Of all the things you could put on toast for breakfast, lunch or brunch, I promise this one won’t disappoint.

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Smoked Salmon Toast

• Scallion cream cheese, store bought or homemade

• Good bread, like sourdough

• Tomato, thinly sliced rounds

• Cucumber, thinly sliced rounds

• Red onion, thinly sliced

• Sprouts

• Baby greens

• Lemon

• Sea Salt

• OPTIONAL: Capers

You can use store bought scallion cream cheese but homemade is easy, and really delicious: mix a pound of softened plain cream cheese with about ½ cup sour cream (or heavy cream). Mix and fold in freshly cut scallion.

Take out all ingredients. Slice cucumber, red onion and tomato into very thin rounds. Set aside. Put bread in the toaster. When done, spread both pieces of bread with cream cheese. Add desired amount of smoked salmon to one piece of bread. Top salmon with thinly sliced cucumber, tomato, red onion and sprouts. To the other piece of bread, add greens on top of cream cheese, lightly pressing down. Sprinkle sprouts with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of fresh lemon juice. Add capers without liquid, if you like. Close sandwich, cut and eat immediately.

Goat Cheese & Honey Breakfast Toast

One of my all time favorite breakfasts.

If you follow me over on my Instagram, you see me eat this constantly, in a million different ways. The ingredients you can’t do without out? The goat cheese & the honey.

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Goat Cheese & Honey Breakfast Toast

• 2 whole eggs

• 2 slices of good bread, I like a great sourdough

• 1 - 1.5 Tbsps Goat cheese

• 1 ripe avocado

• Maldon salt or kosher salt

• Freshly ground black pepper

• Aleppo pepper or red chili flakes

• Extra virgin olive oil

Take out your goat cheese to give it time to soften at room temperature. Toast the bread in a toaster or in a hot pan with a little bit of cooking fat, flipping after the first side is golden. In a non-stick pan, add olive oil and allow to get hot, waiting until it shimmers.

In the meantime, crack eggs carefully into a bowl, making sure no pieces of shell have fallen in. When your pan is hot add the eggs, being careful not to break the yolks. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and black pepper.

Spread your goat cheese on the warm toast and then place half of a sliced avocado down on each piece of bread.

When the white of your eggs has cooked through almost completely and isn’t looking wobbly, flip the eggs carefully, allowing it cook for just a moment more, and then immediately remove from the heat and place on your toast. If you like a more well done yolk, give it an extra minute over the heat.

Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with my favorite, aleppo pepper, or red chili flakes, and a bit of Maldon salt (kosher salt works here too). Eat promptly while warm and delicious.