How does your club stack up?

We may have jumped the gun with a picnic but after this winter my husband and I were very happy to trek to the park and enjoy some of the very mild weather that mother nature blessed up with. So that we don’t get into a rut and because it is just the two of us we try to change up our meal time routes with a change of location or typical food that we may have. Sometimes we stop at a favorite deli to pick up an order or for this time we decided to make our go to sandwich. THE CLUB!

The traditional club is defined as a double-decker sandwich consisting of three slices of toast or bread between which are layers of chicken or turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato and whatever else pleases the sandwich maker. Now looking at the various takes and spins that can be given to the club they can be heavy laden with fat and calories, and not much fiber. Another reason why we chose not to pick up our clubs at the deli and selected some healthier alternatives from our own refrigerator.

Here is what chose for our sandwiches and the changes that we made per ingredient:

• Bread, 3 slices (3 slices of high fiber light bread that had 130 calories for all three compared to 130 calories for just one slice)
• Bacon, 2 thick sliced pieces, cooked (Turkey bacon instead of regular bacon and saved half the calories and fat, as well as, decreased the sodium by one third. And to give it a little more flavor when I cook the turkey bacon I make sure that I grind pepper on the pieces as I am cooking them.)
• Roasted turkey, 6 thinly sliced pieces (No changes)
• Sliced Tomato (No changes)
• Lettuce Leaves (Roman lettuce leaves used and I added spinach to mine for more antioxidants)
• Mayonnaise (Homemade pesto mixed with a little bit of low fat mayonnaise. You could also use a low fat product or vegan mayonnaise to lighten up the calories)

Toast your slices of bread, this will help keep the other ingredients from weeping into the bread and making it soggy. Place you bread on a cutting board. Spread some of the pesto/mayo mix on the toast. Place a layer of lettuce leaves on the spread. Place three slices of turkey on the lettuce. Place bacon on the turkey, you may want to cut it in thirds to fit the bread. Place a couple of slices of sliced tomato on the bacon. Spread a thin layer of pesto/mayo mix on the both sides of the second piece of toast and place on the tomato layer. Repeat the order from the bottom layer. Finish with the third piece of toast that you have spread a thin layer of pesto/mayo mix. Cut the sandwich in quarters, cutting from corner to corner or in four halves. Place a toothpick in the center of each piece to hold all of the layer together.

As you can see it makes a nice stacked layer of items to give you a tasty sandwich to share on a special picnic or just for lunch. And don’t forget your sides, most people will pick potato chips but because the sodium can be a bit high in sandwiches we cut up some carrots and washed some strawberries to enjoy with our club sandwich. A lot lower in sodium, and much prettier on the plate as well as giving us some nice vitamins and minerals.

 

Check out the following postings from our fellow Recipe Redux Bloggers and see what they have stacked up for you to try this month.