Our Trip to Portland, Part II

Here is the most amazing open faced sandwich EVER! When we first got in from the airport, we went straight to my Juju's house. She uses a lot of dairy and meat in everything she cooks, so I offered to cook for her instead....but I really wanted to make something she would find satisfying and filling. I thought open faced sandwiches with sauteed and grilled veggies would probably do the trick, and these were one of the best meals I have ever made, although they were hard to eat. 

Below are photos of what was in the sandwich. We took white button mushrooms, two entire garlics, scallions, and white onions and caramelized all of them in a cast iron pan with olive oil. In a separate pan, we fried up eggplants. After they were fried, the eggplants went in baking dish with  roasted red peppers and sundried tomatoes. We also pan fried a basil polenta. 

In a blender, we put 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 cup basil, 1 cup cilantro, 1/4 cup lemon juice, garlic and salt and pepper and blended until it turned into this green puree (below). This topped the sandwiches with the olive tapenade you see above it. All of these things were stacked on top of a fresh baked olive boulle we got from this little organic co-op my grandmother frequents. 

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After dinner we watched Avatar, which my Juju reported "blew her brain out." I know the first time I saw it I was pretty impressed too. :) Ha ha. At one point, a fly was bothering us so she manned all of us with our very own fly swatters. Of course Jay ended up killing it with his bare hands. 

 

Later that night, Jay was blown away when he spotted a pull up bar in Juju's kitchen. It is really really difficult for anyone to do a pull up but especially women because of our lack of upper body strength, so for him to see one in my grandmothers house was kind of a shock. 

Jay: "Juju, is that a pull up bar?" 

Juju:  "Oh! Well why of course! I love using that! Is that strange for me to have that?"

Jay: "Uh...I guess not. You usually just see those in guys dorm rooms next to a six pack...can you actually do a pull up?"

Juju: "Oh no, I just like to hang off of it like this and really stretch my back out"

She is definitely my kin.