This is a pressed ciabatta bread sandwich with a lot of Mediterranean goodness. Fresh pesto, eggplant, zucchini, mozzarella, roasted red bell pepper, the list goes on. It’s summertime, so we’re gonna start on the grill (though if you don’t have a grill, the stove top makes an okay substitute). Roasting a pepper is one of my favorite things to cook. Because you are SUPPOSED to burn it. How great is that? I can go off into Sarah la la land and completely forget that I’m cooking and come back to a black bell pepper and it’s TOTALLY OKAY! So you burn up your pepper, grill your zucchini and eggplant, and you’re on your way. Then there are the cheeses. Oh the cheese! Get yourself a hunk of fresh buffalo mozzarella and cut it into 1/4 inch thick slabs. Then find a nice chunk of aged Parmesan and slice off a few pieces of that. Now we’re really getting somewhere. Split a fresh (fresher = less chewy = less likely to break your jaw) loaf of ciabatta in half then spread some Pesto Genovese on the top piece. On the bottom piece layer on mozzarella, eggplant, zucchini, roasted red bell pepper pieces, and parmesan. Whoa Bessy that’s a lot! But that’s not even the fun part. Now you’re gonna wrap the sandwich up real tight with plastic wrap and set a bunch of heavy books or a cast iron skillet on it. Let the sandwich press for about 2 hours, unwrap, slice, and enjoy!
