Beet Confit Pan Bagnat scrounged from a Winter Pantry

When fresh seasonal produce is scarce, preserved foods can save the day. Here, intensely lemony (and garlicky) black olive tapenade offsets earthy beets turned succulent through slow cooking in olive oil. Fresh and dried herbs, sweet roasted peppers from a jar, and tender baby spinach make for flavorful finishing touches. With this many layers, sandwiches for dinner are no joke.

Note: We recommend making the beet confit the day before you plan to make the sandwich, which really makes this dish a snap to assemble. 

Beet Confit Winter-Pantry Pan Bagnat

Print the recipe 

serves 4

1/2 lb fresh beets (root only), trimmed, peeled, and halved

1/4 cup olive oil

1 6-oz can pitted black olives, drained (about 1 1/4 cups)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

2 umeboshi, pitted (these are very salty preserved plums--we get ours in the Asian section of the co-op)

2 cloves garlic

2 TBSP capers, drained

1 tsp red wine vinegar

1 TBSP olive oil

1 baguette, cut in half lengthwise (as always, we prefer Flour Head)

1/8 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp fresh thyme

1 tsp dried oregano

2 roasted peppers (we used jarred red that we already had on hand for ease, but yellow peppers are gorgeous paired with beets), cut into large strips

large handful baby spinach (or any tender green you like)

Place the beets, cut-side down, in a small slow cooker. Pour the 1/4 cup olive oil over and cook on low for 6 hours. When they're done, remove them from the slow cooker and let cool to room temperature (alternately, make the beets a day in advance and simply refrigerate until ready to use). Slice into 1/4-inch-thick slices.

In a chopper or food processor, combine the olives, lemon juice and zest, 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves, red pepper flakes, pitted umeboshi, garlic, capers, and vinegar. Process until you get a textured paste, then stir in the 1 TBSP olive oil.

To assemble: On the bottom half of the baguette, spread the tapenade (it will be a very thick layer). Add the beet confit slices.

Whisk together the garlic powder, 1/2 tsp fresh thyme, and dried oregano, and sprinkle over the beet slices. Lay the pepper slices on top, pile on as much spinach as possible, and wrap tightly in plastic wrap or foil. Let sit for 1-2 hours at room temperature before serving.

Party Animals No. 3: Eggplant Confit Banh Mi for a casual grill-out

This sandwich was inspired by/adapted from Tartine Bread. (One day, we hope someone will be genius enough to publish an anniversary edition of The Joy of Vegan Baking on matte stock. It would be one of the greatest pieces of advocacy ever.) Beautiful book, yes. Vegan, not even close. So after a little work and playing with scale to make this recipe make more sense for a home kitchen, we found total success: Rich eggplant confit and zesty marinated veggies drizzled with a chile-lime sea sauce, all topped with a creamy herb sauce.

Though it looks like a long recipe, don't worry: both sauces are a snap to throw together while the veggies marinate, and the eggplant confit can be made days in advance. Even the sandwich itself can be assembled more than an hour before baking or grilling. Letting the sauces soak into the bread a little doesn't hurt one bit. Which means it travels like a champ.

Note that we did end up making this for the event with the traditional baguette, which is pretty hard to beat. But sometimes a crusty ciabatta (that version pictured above) is in order. Our solution? Make this sandwich early and often, with any bread you're currently craving.

Eggplant Confit Banh Mi

Print the recipe 

1 baguette or ciabatta loaf (we have a very strong preference for Flour Head Bakery), cut in half lengthwise

1 batch herb legumaise, recipe follows

1 batch marinated shredded vegetables, recipe follows

1 batch chile-lime sea sauce, recipe folows

half recipe eggplant confit, sliced into long, 1/4-inch thick slices

To assemble: Spread the herb legumaise on the cut side of the top half of your loaf and set aside. Spread the marinated vegetables over the bottom half of your loaf. Drizzle the chile-lime sea sauce over the vegetables, then add the eggplant confit. Put the sandwich together. If grilling, wrap the sandwich in foil and grill for about 10 minutes, until warmed through. To bake, place the sandwich (no need to wrap it in foil) directly onto the middle rack of an oven preheated to 375 and bake for 7-10 minutes, until the sandwich is warm and the bread has crisped a bit. 

Herb Legumaise:

5 basil leaves

1/4 cup cilantro

1/4 cup cooked navy beans

2 TBSP olive oil

1 small clove of garlic

juice of half a lime

1/4 tsp salt

1/4-1/2 of 1 jalapeno (about 1/4 oz)

Add all ingredients to a jar and puree with an immersion blender.

Marinated Shredded Vegetables:

1 medium cucumber (5-6 oz total weight), peeled, trimmed, and shredded

1 small bell pepper (3-4 oz total weight), trimmed and cut into matchsticks

1 large or 2 small carrots (2-3 oz total weight), peeled, trimmed, and shredded

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 cup water

2 TBSP sugar

1/2 TBSP kosher/sea salt

Place the shredded vegetables in a large bowl. Whisk together the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt, and pour the mixture over the vegetables. Let marinate for at least 30 minutes.

Chile-Lime Sea Sauce:

2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 1/2 limes

1/2 tsp oil

1/8-1/4 tsp cayenne powder

1 TBSP low-sodium tamari

1/2 tsp kelp granules

Place all ingredients into a jar and puree with an immersion blender.

Eggplant Confit

Rich, silky, and achingly tender, this decadent, slow-cooked eggplant confit goes to work anytime a dish calls for a rich, savory element. This idea came to us when we were adapting a sandwich recipe (recipe will appear soon), but we've already put it in two other dishes. And when we had one final chunk left with a nearly bare fridge, we found it made it a killer spread when pureed with spinach, white beans, and sun-dried tomatoes. Plus, it's dead simple. Talk about an ace up your sleeve.

Eggplant Confit

Print the recipe

1 large eggplant, or several small (1 lb total weight), trimmed, the skin pierced several times all over the surface, and halved lengthwise

1 cup olive oil

1 large (or 2 small) umeboshi, pitted and minced (this should yield about 1 tsp of minced flesh)

1 tsp liquid smoke

Pour the olive oil into a slower cooker and whisk in the umeboshi and liquid smoke. Add the eggplant, cut sides down, in a single layer (a little bit of overlap is okay, but you want to maximize the eggplant flesh's exposure to the oil).

Cover. Cook on low for 4 hours. Reserve unabsorbed oil for other savory applications.