City Bakery’s Grilled Vegetable Sandwich

This vegetable-laden sandwich often serves as owner Maury Rubin’s primary meal of the day. It cost $7.50 before tax at the Bakery. Read Maury’s story here.

To make one sandwich:

3-4 paper-thin slices, medium organic beet
3-4 paper-thin slices, large organic purple carrot
3-4 paper-thin cucumber slices
1/4 cup bean sprouts
1/4 cup organic micro greens
2 slices 1841 Havarti Cheese, sliced thin [Note: this is a semi-soft European mountain-style cheese; there is a wide range of options].
sea salt
1/4 cup Pumpkin Seed Spread [recipe follows]
2 slices whole wheat or seeded multigrain bread
Extra-virgin olive oil

Pumpkin Seed Paste

1/2 cup organic raw pumpkin seeds
2 cloves  of garlic
1/4 cup canola oil
juice of half a lemon
pinch of kosher salt
fresh cracked black pepper

Place the pumpkin seeds, garlic, salt and pepper in a food processor. Pulse several times until seeds are powder. Then, with machine running, add oil and lemon juice in a stream until ingredients form a paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and refrigerate.

To assemble the sandwich, spread some pumpkin seed paste on one side of each slice of bread.

Place a single layer of each of the vegetables on one of the slices of bread and sprinkle with olive oil and a pinch of sea salt. Add one layer of the cheese, and then the bean sprouts. Repeat, for at second layer, and a third if you like.

Sprinkle some olive oil on the second slice of bread and put it on top of the sandwich.

If you have a panini press, grill the sandwich until it is golden brown and the cheese is melted around the edges.

 Nutritional information: The sandwich itself runs 520 calories, and the pumpkin seed paste adds about 130 calories.

[These are not cookbook recipes. Some home cooks work from written recipes, but many know their favorite dishes by heart, or improvise on the spot, or define a home-cooked meal as take-out put on a plate. We offer these as  a closer look at what our 12 New Yorkers had for dinner, whether it was a set of traditional recipes, or take-out, or even a sandwich consumed first thing in the morning.]

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