Jars of Clay

For the past ten weeks I have been attending a Bible study led by Joanne Ellison from Drawing Near to God ministries. The following thought process was inspired from a recent lesson. This isn’t a light & fluffy post. I hope it touches each of your hearts, because none of us are without suffering through loss and heartache in this life.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. II Corinthians 4:7-9

Why do bad things happen to good people? What about all the loss, suffering, and tragedy that seem to be the norm for so many? Why why why, we constantly ask. And how are we suppose to continue to live in the midst of all the despair that tragedy can so easily bring.

We wonder why God has forgotten us, why He has not answered our prayers in the way we want them answered. But what if, there were ten times, a hundred times, more worse stuff that could happen to us, that never does because God does intervene. I could be completely wrong here. I really have no idea why He allows the bad stuff to happen. But consider this…

As Christians, we are (or should be) like jars of clay, molded and sculpted by Him to be who He wants us to be. And in our innermost being….that is where He, God, dwells in us. We are now the tabernacle, the tent of the Old, which houses not only His presence but His light.

And to be the jar that shines His light, we need cracks to fully showcase that light. For, unless there are cracks in a closed jar, the light only shines dimly. Perhaps that is why God allows some of those bad things happen to us…

For if  you are a fully formed jar of clay, the best way to see the flame deep inside you is through cracks in your hardened exterior. But the only way to get those cracks is to be broken, going through difficult and trying times. Because when we are broken, that is when His light shines the brightest through us.

My husband’s brother committed suicide 2 years ago. At first, the loss seemed insurmountable. There are moments, it still does. But I believe that the only reason we are moving through, moving past, is from the presence of God in our lives. Not that we haven’t been mad and angry with Him. Not that we haven’t wanted to wash our hands of Him. But it’s His peace that brings us sleep on a restless night, His grace that prompts uplifting words from strangers – in the moment they are needed most, and it’s His abounding love that encourages us to ask the hard questions and finally settle on believing through faith, not through understanding.

His light that shines through us from this brokenness hopefully encourages others who go through tragedy themselves. It shines bright so that hurting people can find the hope that is desperately needed to continue to live with joy, happiness, and excitement for all life brings.

Its not easy, after going through tragedy, to look forward to what tomorrow brings. Trust me, I know that wholeheartedly. But its an encouragement to look at others who have spent plenty of time in the trenches but still find joy in the future.

~ Jessica

Take your child to vote today

Hello long lost friends….I really am out here in this world. I’ve just been taking a sabbatical from blogging to spend more time with the kids. And its been nice. But I do miss blogging and my head is often thinking “Oh, that would be a cool blog post”…

So today is the day. YAY!!!

Or actually, tomorrow is the day. You see, tonight while we are sleeping in sweet slumber a magical fairy will descend upon our twisting roads and picks up ALL those pesky VOTE FOR ME signs.

Obviously, I’m in la la land. But if you are feeling in the mood to remove a sign or two or even more, and you live in the Lowcountry, you can actually receive money to an awesome local restaurant….Triangle Char & Bar. How cool is this….for each political sign you bring in for recycling, they give you a $1 credit to be used there.

I’m not a very political person and lately have been questioning if voting even matters. Who knows?  But it is a really neat experience to share with my school age child and I do firmly believe that some votes really do matter…like your school board vote or if you live in California, voting for GMO labeling.

So get out there and exercise your right to vote today! And if it isn’t too much of a challenge, take your child with you so they can learn about the democratic process. And if you live in California….PLEASE vote for GMO labeling!

Have a great day!
Jess

Chewy and Most Delicious Granola Bars (Gluten Free)

I thought you might be tiring of the same ‘ol descriptive words…amazing or yummy or delicious! So I thought I’d go all crazy and call these granola bars…Most Delicious!

These are SOoooo good that the hardest part is to stop eating the granola mix before you bake it. You know, so you could actually end up eating the finished product!

This recipe is inspired from Smitten Kitchen Thick & Chewy Granola Bars. I really liked how flexible her recipe was but I wanted to try making these without any corn syrup. I also lowered the sugar and omitted the salt so we could be justified when we eat half the granola bars in one sitting! And I require the peanut butter as it really helps the granola bar stay uncrumbly and contributes to the chewiness factor. Plus, I threw in coconut to counteract the lowered sugar.

And oh yeah, these are gluten free!

The list of characters….

Makes 16 granola squares

Ingredients

2 cups quick cooking oats, gluten free if necessary
1/2 – 2/3 cup organic sugar
2 cups nuts (I think slivered almonds are best and very kid friendly…but feel free to shake it up!)
1/2 cup dried fruit (myself, I’m a big cranberry fan)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/3 cup ground flax seed (optional)
1/4 cup peanut butter
5 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tbsp H2O (I do not remember much from chemistry but I love using this abbreviation for water)
a little less than 1 oz of each: honey, maple syrup, and molasses (1/3 cup in total when all three are combined…just fill 1/3 measuring cup up with some of each)
Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a piece of parchment paper large enough to extend over a 9″x9″ baking pan. You want to be able to use the sides of the parchment paper to lift the baked granola out of the pan prior to cutting.

Place 1/3 cup of the oats into a food processor and chop until the oats reach flour like consistency. You are basically making oat flour. If desired, you could just use store bought oat flour but I like the do-it-yourself method.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the oat flour with remaining 1 and 2/3 cups oats and all other dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, stir together the melted butter, peanut butter, water, and the 1/3 cup mixture of honey, maple syrup, and molasses. (I hope the 1/3 cup makes sense…basically just put a tad of each into a 1/3 measuring cup).

Now comes the fun part! Pour the moist ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together until well combined. You can use a plastic spatula, wooden spoon, or your hand for this part. I use my hand…easier to eat the stuff as I go along!

Now, STOP eating the granola and leave some for the granola bars!!!

Spread into the buttered parchment paper/baking pan.  And then press down the granola with your hands or a large spatula as much as possible. This is really important to help the granola bars stick together. Bake for 20 minutes, until slightly darkened on top. Remove from oven and once again, with a spatula, press the mixture down to help with the adhesiveness.

Do not remove the parchment paper from the pan for at least 30 minutes. This also helps the bars to  seal together. And if it’s really humid out, after letting the bars reach room temperature, place them into the fridge and allow to cool further for an hour or so more.

I’m telling you this so Kashi & Nature Valley will be jealous of how well your home made granola bars stay together!

Now, once you are ready to eat these bad boys, use a serrated knife to cut these in a sawing motion. Oh wait, you’ve already stolen a little bite…don’t worry…I have too when they come right out of the oven, but it’ll just be our secret!

Store bars in the refrigerator or freezer in a resealable bag. If frozen, simply allow the granola bar to sit out at room temperature for about 5 minutes. They’ll be cool, calm, and so satisfying!

Also, you can substitute chocolate chips for the dried fruit or drizzle chocolate on top if desired. I’ve found that cranberries and slivered almonds are my favorite way to go. When I’ve tried adding chocolate, the bars were still good but almost a little too rich or intense. So you may want to reduce the peanut butter a little if you add chocolate. Also, if you aren’t into dried fruit or chocolate then feel free to use all nuts. The basic amount is 2 to 3 cups total of nuts and dried fruit.

I’m really not kidding about how addictive these are. It is so hard to eat just one, so hard to put that spoon down once all the ingredients are combined…you just CAN’T STOP! Or, at least I can’t!

I hope ya’ll like these as much as my family does!

Love,

Jessica

Wheat, oh wheat, what have you done to me?

Good morning! I am writing this at 6:07am. Wow, such a bright start to the morning. Many of you may be on the computer this early on a regular basis, but trust me….I am not. But my little Stella likes to wake at 5:45 just about every morning. Normally, I fight this for about 30 minutes. But this morning, I just went ahead and got up at the crack of dawn. If anyone has some magic tricks up their sleeves of how to get her to sleep in, I’d love to know!

But I digress, already! Kiddos’ wake up times is not what I am trying to write about.

So if you’ve known me for longer than 5 minutes there is a very good chance that you’ve heard about my “delicate stomach” and if you are unfortunately a close friend or a family member, then you’ve probably been tortured by listening to me try to diagnose my problem myself. And if you’re one of my sisters or my husband…well, let’s just say they are probably beyond THRILLED that I’ve finally found what is making my stomach not a very happy camper.

It’s wheat ya’ll. Or to actually be much more specific, it’s gluten that is found in wheat, barley, and rye. So drumroll here….I am going Gluten Free!

I’ve been GF for a week now (how awesome is it, that we gluten intolerance people have a cool abbreviation to stick to our name!) and I’ve already seen a big improvement, and I’m hoping I will continue to see more improvements…like maybe the mild acne that drives me crazy will clear up too?

Now, to why I thought YOU wanted to know all about my stomach issues… I am hoping that there are some readers out there who can help point me in the direction of tried & true, trusted & knowledgeable books, blogs, and cookbooks that’ll help me get creative when cooking & baking.

I’ve already checked a gozillan GF cookbooks out at the library, THANK GOD for libraries. And I’ve been looking at quite a few blogs. But I’m not kidding myself…I’m not the first person out there with this….so I know there are plenty of you who know which books are the most helpful and which blogs have the best tasting GF recipes.

Thanks for taking the time to help a ‘new to GF’ girl out! I really appreciate it!!!

Jess

Au revoir summer 2012

Today’s the first day of pre-school and our oldest one, Dale Esau, is starting 4K!

And, I’ve learned some VERY shocking news…Next year, we’ll have to be at elementary school by 7:25AM! Are you serious? I guess that means my half sleeping on the couch from 6:30-8:30ishhh is probably not going to be happening so much in 2013. Therefore, I need to really appreciate these lazy morning hours, while I have ‘em!

This summer we’ve had our share of lazy morning (okay, okay….all day) hours! We’ve been busy enjoying all the things summer brings… like popsicles, icecream, kettle corn at the farmer’s market, jaunts to the beach and pool, and playing tourists in our town.

So I wanted to share some photos with ya’ll of what we’ve been up to. I know I’ve posted extremely little and I’ve missed it. But there was just so much fun to be had with the computer turned off, that sometimes it was too hard to turn the computer on. This business of summer is winding down with our re-entrance into school and schedules, so here’s to hoping I’ll be blogging more often.

Sharing…is there anything more precious between siblings?

Road trip enthusiasm!

Inspecting dirt for worms, seriously…what we spent every single day doing this summer!

Catching fish together…the crazy outfit on DE is a make-shift trash bag poncho!

I’ve pickled probably 16 pints of okra so far and am hoping to put some more up this week. I LOVE pickled okra!

Berry Licious Lime Yogurt Popsicles

For the first time ever, I was able to can tomatoes from our garden!

Dale Esau planted these, unbeknownst to me, when I was working on another part of the garden. It was a pretty cool surprise to see them sprout and flourish. Since he planted them, they were his favorite veggie to eat all summer!

Chocolate Toffee Cupcakes for my birthday!!!

I cannot wait!!! to share with ya’ll this granola bar recipe. It is so delish, so addictive, and so gluten free!!!

Is there anything else that says summer better?

I hope you & yours had a fantastic summer!!! Here’s to being thankful for football season, falling leaves, pumpkins, and relishing this last year of sleepy mornings on the couch!

Love,

Jess

Pesto Pesto Pesto

Let’s see if this equation is correct…

French fries and pizza sauce can count as a serving of vegetables, rightttttttt?

So then, pesto can count as a veggie too? I hope so, because right about now (with the heat & the humidity) there isn’t a whole lot of cooking being done in the Paulsen house.

We’ve been eating our way through such massive amounts of pesto that I need to find a way to get my basil to grow faster. Even with 8 basil plants, I have to supplement the recipe with other herbs besides the most common ingredient. Luckily, the kids don’t care…so we’ve added arugula, mint, oregano, and even rosemary. My most favorite addition is the arugula. Probably because I can get a huge bag of it at the Farmer’s Market and produce a lot of pesto that way.

Here is my favorite way to make pesto. It is super flexible, so feel free to add more herbs, skip the nuts to watch calories, or play around with the olive oil portion until you get a consistency you like. The biggest difference in my pesto recipe is that I recommend sauteing the garlic for a few minutes to reduce the heartburn/acid reflux (getting old, aren’t I?) that raw garlic seems to bring about.

Ingredients

5 cups green herbs, arugula, and/or spinach
1/2 cup hard nuts (be adventuresome, try something besides pine nuts)
6 garlic cloves
1 cup olive oil
3/4 cup freshly grated top quality Parmesan cheese (but guess what…any ‘hard’ cheese will work. I tried cheddar (make sure you use real white cheddar) the other day and it was pretty good)
kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper

Preparation

Place peeled garlic cloves in a food processor and chop slightly. (Or chop by hand. I use my processor to chop so that I don’t have to dirty up a cutting board. Oh, lazy me.) On medium heat, saute the minced garlic for 2 to 3 minutes. Place garlic back into food processor.

Add nuts to the garlic, and chop/blend/puree in your processor until finely chopped. Add herbs, a teaspoon or so of kosher salt, and grind the pepper until you get tired of grinding. Next, start your food processor, and add the olive oil through the side spout. Or, you can do as I sometimes lazily do, and just dump the olive oil on top of the herbs and puree/blend. But if you want to watch how much olive oil you are adding, the side spout should do the trick nicely.

Now, add in the cheese and blend/puree again until you reach your desired consistency. Hmmm…at this point you taste and  think, God…how thankful I am that you made basil or arugula or anything green. (On another note, what do you think God’s favorite color is? I think green for sure. But blue is a top contender with all that sky above the basil plants!) Okay, so back to pesto!!!

You can totally make this in a blender, but I have to say, the blender I used to own was crap. Crap with a capital C. I couldn’t do anything with that blender. But some people say they love their blender. I happen to have a NINJA that I adore. It works extremely hard all summer longer blending together pesto for my family. Thank God for NINJAs and basil!

Oh, this recipe makes about 2 to 3 cups of pesto…so half the recipe if you aren’t into eating pesto as much as we are! You can freeze extra pesto in ice cube trays and just place in a resealable bag once the ‘pesto cubes’ are frozen.

Our favorite pesto dishes are obviously over pasta, but its even pretty tasty over a nice juicy steak.

Have a great Friday and stay cool!

Jess

Peach Jam (with no added pectin)

It’s Canning Week at Simple Bites, so I’m linking up there and sharing a recent canning experience…

Having two young kids in our house = A LOT of jam & preserves consumption…

And while we could keep Smucker’s in business for the next eighteen years, I figure they’ll do just fine without us, and so, I make our own jam.  I much rather prefer the taste of my homemade preserves, and this way, I get to control what goes into them.

So a few weeks ago, I had a 1/2 bushel of organic peaches show up at the front door from our local grocer, love KTC!, and they were so yummy and delish, juicy and fresh!

But, I had no fruit pectin in the house and to be honest, I was bound & determined to not buy any. The first ingredient is typically maltdextrin or dextrose. Now granted, those are not the worst types of sugars to put into your body. But sometimes, a girl just wants it au natural! My grandma didn’t have artificial pectin to put in her peach jam, so I was pretty sure I could find a way to make do without. And girl, did I ever! You simply need time. Not something we always have on our side these days, but its pretty neat to make something the same way your grandparents did.

(And, I simply KNOW you are wondering…pectin is a naturally occurring substance found in fruit which is what makes the jam ‘set’ or reach the desired gelling consistency. Foregoing artificial pectin (for fruits with very low natural pectin) requires more cooking time prior to canning, but it also reduce the amount of sugar called for. So really, a plus plus scenario! No artificial crapness & less sugar!)

Okay, now back to reality and a simple recipe you can make at home yourself!

Peach Jam

Ingredients
1/2 bushel ripe peaches
3 cups organic sugar
1 cup honey

Yields ~ 9 half pints

First off, you’ll need to peel the peaches first and I promise, its not as hard as you may think. Simply score an ‘x’ on the underside of each knife and place into a roiling boil of water. After 30-60 seconds you’ll see the skin start to peel away from this ‘x’. Plunge peaches into ice cold water and the peel will be super easy to remove.

I need a video here to show you how easy it is, but just trust me!

Place quartered peaches into a food processor and blend until slightly pureed.

This is where I begin to fall in love, all over again, with my NINJA processor. Oh wait, I never fell out of love with it! It is my go-to kitchen appliance. I LOVE IT!!!

Now add your sugar & honey. And then pour yourself a glass of chilled white wine.

You’ll need the wine, since this next process takes an hour plus, but once again, worth it to not have to use store bought pectin. When you begin the process the consistency looks pretty soupy and runny.

Foam will begin to appear but after 15-20 minutes the foam will begin to disappear. You can also skim off if desired. That is too much work for me, so I just leave it!

In about an hour and fifteen minutes, you will have a thick and gelled consistency. Notice, it’s so thick that it has a hard time getting through the slots in the spoon. This is the consistency you are looking for.

Ladle into hot jars, leaving 1/4″ headspace. Cover with lids & rings. And then process for 10 minutes in a hot water bath.

For complete canning process tips, I recommend Ball’s online guide.

Thanks for humoring my no pectin kick! I definitely use pectin at times but sometimes it’s neat to do something the oooolllllld school way.

So what’s been your favorite canning recipe this summer?

Happy Canning!

Jess

~~~

Peach Jam
Yields ~ 9 half pints

Ingredients

1/2 bushel peaches
3 cups organic sugar
1 cup honey

Preparation

Fill a heavy stockpot with water and bring to a roiling boil. Nearby, place a large bowl filled half full with very cold ice water. Score an ‘x’ on the bottom of each peach.

Blanche peaches for 30-60 seconds in boiling water and then plunge into the ice water. Once slightly cooled, remove skin from peach, pull apart from the stone pit, and place into a food processor or blender. Once all peaches have been peeled, chop the peaches, in processor, until chunky or slightly pureed.

Place chopped peaches into a heavy stockpot, adding sugar and honey. Bring to a slow boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for approximately one hour and fifteen minutes; until jam has reach desired gelling ‘set’ consistency. Stir every few minutes while it cooks. Also, approximately ten to fifteen minutes into the simmering process, you can (optional) remove foam from the top of mixture with a metal slotted spoon.

Once desired consistency is reached, ladle hot jam into hot, sterilized half-pint canning jars, leaving a 1/4 inch headspace.  Wipe jar rims and cover with lids & rings. Process filled jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

*Note* I was extremely exhausted when I began this recipe and ended up only getting 1/2 of the peaches peeled and chopped before calling it a night. To retain the bright peach color overnight, I put a few teaspoons of asorbic acid (vitamin C powder) in with the pureed mix and refrigerated until I could begin again the next morning. I am happy to report, the color stayed beautiful and the taste was unaltered. 

Tomato, Caramelized Onions, and Gorgonzola Pie

Happy (late!) 4th of July!! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and indulged in lots of food, laughter, and relaxation. Fisherman was on vacation and we had a wonderful Staycation. I feel like it was Christmas in July considering the copious amounts of food I ate over the last week.

So what have I been eating??? I’m so glad you asked! Fresh mahi mahi, roasted corn salad, pasta salad, BBQ, hmmmm….there isn’t a lot I haven’t consumed this past week. But my favorite dish was a Tomato Gorgonzola Pie that I adapted from a Gourmet Magazine Cookbook.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, since I am so proud to be Southern, but up until I made this tomato pie, I had never eaten one in my life. Crazy, isn’t it! And there’s no holding me back now.

The best part was that it took me no more than 45 minutes, start to finish. That includes the lets find where I hid the gorogonzola in the fridge and let me go pick some tomatoes and get side tracked into watering the garden. Sorry, this may be a long blog post….its just been a while since I’ve posted and I have all these thoughts I want to share with ya’ll, but I get distracted with kids and life and blah blah, okay back to the pie…

~~~

So to start, you’ll need a pie crust, Gorgonzola cheese, onions, and tomatoes….pretty simple, right!

After placing crust into your pie pan, place pie weights…or dry beans…onto the pie with aluminum foil to keep the middle of the pie from rising while you pre-bake the crust. You need to bake the crust beforehand since you only put it under a broiler once the ingredients are added.

Add some olive oil and your onions into a heavy pan and start the caramelizing process. I just LOOOVE caramelized onions! Even Fisherman loves & appreciates them and he isn’t the biggest foodie on the block.

Also, don’t be afraid to try caramelizing red onions. I did half white & half red the second time I made this and they tasted great. (And yes, I did make & eat this pie TWICE in the past week! Shows you how good it is!)

Good advice for caramelizing onions is to turn your back to them. Find something else to do, you don’t need to stir constantly, just every few minutes.

Now see all those brown bits of good onion residue? Scrape those bad boys up and stir in with the onions. They have all sorts of good flavor! And yep, this picture was from Pie #1 when I only used white onions.

Your piecrust should now be finished baking, so place caramelized onions in first…

…then your cheese, tomato, cheese layers…

…broil for a few minutes until cheese slightly browns, garnish with fresh basil and…

…Voila…Eat that pie up!!!

I hope you like as much as I did!!!

Jessica

Tomato, Caramelized Onions, and Gorgonzola Pie

Ingredients
1 9″ prepared pie crust
2 large onions (yellow or red), very thinly sliced
1 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
5 medium sized ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
Handful of fresh basil for garnishing

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Place pie crust into a glass pie pan. Line pie pan with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights/dried beans/or raw rice. Bake approximately 20 minutes until pasty is pale golden brown around rim. Remove weights and bake another 8 minutes until golden brown all over. If edge of crust looks to dark, place tin foil around the edges for remaining bake time.

While crust is baking, heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat and cook onions for approximately 20-25 minutes until they are caramelized in color. Sprinkle the onions with kosher salt a few times while cooking and stir every few minutes. As the onions begin to soften and brown, there will be residue at the bottom of the pan; stir these brown goodie bits into the onions.

Preheat oven broiler.

Spread caramelized onions over bottom of pie shell and top with 3/4 cup of the cheese. Arrange tomatoes, slightly overlapping, in circles over the cheese. Sprinkle tomatoes with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup of cheese over the tomatoes and drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over the top.

Broil the pie until the cheese slightly browns, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. Garnish with fresh basil if desired.

Sharing the inspiration…

I am humbled, and so excited, to have been nominated for the Food Stories Award for Excellence in Storytelling by Janet at trkingmomoe. Thank you so much Janet, you have some neat looking recipes on your blog that I’ll have to try out.

To complete the nomination I need to provide you a random tidbit about myself and share with you some of my favorite blogs….

For my random tidbit, I’ll share a secret confession… I easily get intimidated when I read other blogs. I wonder how these people have it all together, their sites look amazing, they make daily posts and their pictures could win numerous photo awards, etc. etc.

But more often than not, they probably are just like me…have preschoolers running around pretending to be transformers and yelling at the top of their lungs, their dishes are piling up in the sink, and it remains to be seen when their mound of clothes on the recliner will be put up.

So you see, its simply all about perspective and where one chooses to focus its attention.  I remind myself often, I shouldn’t be looking at their site, or a person, for comparison, I should be looking for inspiration!

So here are some of the sites that inspire me, although it was very hard to limit it to just the following….and I give a huge shout-out for food bloggers everywhere because until I started this blogging journey, I had no idea how long it took to write & compile recipe posts.

In Sock Monkey Slippers

Our Best Bites

In Her Chucks

Eat the Roses

Smitten Kitchen

Joy the Baker

The Pioneer Woman

Momastery

A Work in Progress

A Holy Experience

So scroll over to these other sites to check them out, I’m sure you’ll be just as inspired as I am!

Happy Thursday,

Jess

The Tomato Sandwich

Today, I pay homage to my most favorite food. One day, hopefully long away in the future, when I breathe my last breath, I pray I have just finished A TOMATO SANDWICH, made by Southern hands.

I simply think there is no better creation than some fine mayo slathered on some thick bread loaded down with too many to count slices of tomatoes; and of course, lets not forget….way too much salt & pepper on those things. Hmmm….

Fisherman looks on in disbelief as I eat my piece of heaven and cannot believe there are two tomatoes worth of slices on that bad boy, or that there is no bacon or lettuce anywhere to be found. OF COURSE THERE ISN’T. BLT’s are good – but they aren’t a tomato sandwich. There is a vast difference. And in my mind, to be truly Southern – 1. You need to be born in the south and 2. You need to relish a pure & simple tomato sandwich.  (I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on my Southern comments!!!)

So how do I create such a delectable sandwich?

First, you must start with the proper ingredients….good, real Mayo….not Miracle Whip…the real deal.

Second, thick crusty bread…think day old bread to sop up all that juice.

Third, so many tomato slices that they are falling out of the sandwich.

And lastly, a VERY generous helping of kosher salt & fresh ground pepper. (Yes, I will probably pass from too high blood pressure, but life without some salt would be very sad indeed.)

You’ve got to sprinkle the salt & pepper two times on each side to reach the desired amount. And getting the spice all over the bread adds some special umpf!

Now eat that summer goodness and wash it all down with some Southern style sweet tea.

Love ya’ll,

Jessica

P.S….don’t even think about trying this in the winter or any other time when fresh off the vine tomatoes aren’t available!