About twice a month I’m met with the “I don’t want to cook” flu. It’s usually accompanied by a strain of the “need to go to the grocery store” virus. There are two popular remedies to this illness: 1) date night out and 2) go to the store on the way home from work.  With this recipe, I’ve discovered a new antibiotic! Take what you have and make a sandwich.

In asking Stuart what he wanted for dinner he actually had an answer other than my favorite “I don’t know”. He wanted a panini. So I hit the web and found one that looked good. I shared the recipe and was given the vote of approval… along with the question, “Do we have what we need?” My answer, “ Um, we have bread.  And maybe cheese?” Instead of getting discouraged I read her blog post and thought, I could do that! (She utilized ingredients from her pantry/fridge to create her masterpiece.)

I used my engineering degree in the kitchen once again and improvised a panini maker. I slathered some butter on the outside of the sandwich and treated it like a grilled cheese. Except instead of using a skillet, I used my indoor grill pan. Taking the flat top of a saucepan, I pressed the sandwich. After achieving those traditional grill marks I flipped it over and repeated the process. The result – a beautiful panini fake out.

Italian Sausage and Red Pepper Pesto Panini

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of bread
• butter, for spreading
• 2 tbsp red pepper pesto
• 2 links hot Italian sausage, sliced into medallions
• 2 slices white American cheese
• kale

Steps:

1. In a small skillet, cook sausage.
2. Assemble sandwiches: Spread butter on all pieces of bread. On the opposite side of butter spread pesto on 2 of the slices. Top with sausage, kale, and cheese. Top with other slice of bread, butter side out.
3. Press in panini maker or follow my method described above.