Year of the Green Goddess

That sandwich was a month on toast. A good month. Not a perfect one but a little braver and with a very satisfying crunch at the end there.

If you're wondering (and I'm always wondering), that is multi-grain toast spread on top with a thin sheen of Rare Bird's Plum Cardamom Orange Preserves which are then holding a substantial blanket of baby spinach in place. Beneath that we've got some fresh roast chicken (a favorite in these parts) and lower still, mixed greens. From there, we pick the sweetness back up again with thin slices of Granny Smith apple. All good things, yes? Good, great in some cases, but not magic. The magic is that last element before we're back to toast (ashes to ashes). You can barely see it on the bottom there.

A closer look. Thick and rich and fully earning its name- Green Goddess.

These are the ingredients for magic and it was a group effort so my thanks to Pop Pop, Elana and Jenn for their respective bits of inspiration. Pop really was the original goddess charmer and I have clear memories of sneaking dips of romaine spears into the blender in the fridge when he was acting as chef-in-residence on his visits. Anchovies are never negotiable when it comes to Pop and I quite agree with him. One thing I did on my own though? No mayo. No oil. Just all manner of green things and some fat free Greek yogurt. Three veggie trays, two salads and one sandwich later, you would never have known that this was holistically healthy by the responses (mine included).

I brought this one to Gina's annual Eve of the Eve dinner. It did a tremendous job balancing out all that wine.

I brought this one to North Woods New Year's at Bob and Christina's. All the while, whenever I started to run low on the special sauce, I treated it like a starter and just kept adding yogurt, herbs and the like.

Green Goddess Dip/ Dressing/ Spread/ Fantastma

16.7 oz container of fat free or low fat Greek yogurt
4 whole cloves of garlic
1 tin of flat rolled anchovies
1-2 cups of fresh spinach leaves, depending on your preferred level of green
2 green onions, roughly chopped
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves (leaves of 4-5 stems)
2 TB fresh tarragon leaves
1 TB fresh oregano leaves
1 ripe avocado (halved, pitted and removed from shell)
Juice of half a lemon
1/2 tsp of kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste

Optional: 1-2 ounces of Roquefort. Great tip from Pop but clearly a little evil. Not a lot for the whole recipe but does add a little something.

Put it all in the bowl of a food processor and whir till you have a uniform mixture. Scrape down the sides, whir some more. I added a little more spinach and some extra lemon at this point for color and zing. And then I made sure it was safe for at least three coated spatulas. I'm a health hazard, what can I tell you? If you want it a little looser for salad dressing, a little water goes a long way.

Unrelated but I noticed this in all my veggie plate prep...how gorgeous is the inside of a red pepper? Happy New Year. That really was a great sandwich.