California Grilled Veggie Sandwich

Yesterday I decided to trek on over to the grocery store and pick up some ingredients for dinner. I found a delicious recipes on allrecipes.com called a California Grilled Veggie Sandwich. I also picked up some ingredients for a few other dinners I will be making this week. Needless to say, with all the vegetables all these recipes required, I think the cashier was getting pretty annoyed with me. I had about 12 separate bags filled with different veggies, and she had to...wait for it...manually enter in all the codes...I KNOW! I think a couple times she looked up at me like, "Are you serious!?"

I was really excited for this sandwich. It got 5 stars, AND it was the number one most popular summer recipe on the website. So I just had to see what all the hubbub was about. You start out by making the dressing, which is made up of mayo, minced garlic, and lemon juice. Very tasty indeed!

Then you cut up all the veggies! I didn't see a yellow squash at the store, so I substituted it for eggplant. Otherwise, I found all the other ingredients just fine: Red bell peppers, zucchini, and red onion.

Mmm...look at all those colors! Normally I'm not too fond of onion, but when it's grilled, I think it's actually quite tasty! Some of the reviewers on the website also added mushrooms in there...but I'm not a big fan of those either.

Then you just rub-a-dub-dub the veggies in olive oil and place them on the grill! I was actually afraid that the zucchini and peppers would fall through, so I laid out a rectangular sheet of tin foil, spread some olive oil over it, then added the vegetables on top. Also this way you won't have to continuously watch the vegetables. Just check the sides after 5 or so minutes, and flip!

When the veggies were almost done on the grill, I cut the focaccia bread in half (it's a circular bread...or at least mine was. So you cut it like you would cut a giant hamburger bun). Then you spread the already made dressing over the bottom half of the bread, and sprinkle 1/2 cup of feta cheese over that.

I went back to the grill, put all the vegetables on the place (except the eggplant...I put it on the grill to get some nice grill marks on it), then put both the top and bottom part of the bread on the grill to toast it up and melt the cheese. Be careful! Feta cheese takes a little bit longer to melt, and mine didn't even melt fully before the bottom of the bread started to burn. I toasted the top of the bread for a shorter amount of time, turned down the heat, and left the bottom half to melt the cheese.

YOU GUYS. This sandwich is sooo good! And no, you don't eat it like that...we cut it up into quarters and it was so filling! The dressing is the perfect tanginess, but also subtle. The cheese, although not super melty, went perfectly with all the vegetables. And, OH, the vegetables! Grilled to perfection. All of this sandwiched between toasted, italian-seasoned focaccia bread. This recipe is one that you must try! And we didn't even miss the meat. : )