Grilled Mushroom Sub, Smoky Pancetta, Melted Cheese and Pears

Meal 31 - March 31st - Grilled Mushroom Sub, Smoky Pancetta, Melted Cheese and Pears

I'm a quarter of the way through my challenge and in that time there have been a few hiccups - failing to find the right ingredients, timing issues, nearly setting fire to the kitchen. And now, err, poisoning people. Maybe.

I'm writing this post some 48 hours after cooking the aforementioned meal and in that time one of us has come down with, and is in recovery from, a fairly serious bout of sickness. And despite my inability to stomach mushrooms, it's actually Lolz who is the victim. Rumours that the sickness was invented or induced to get out of driving home from Cornwall are totally unfounded...

Anyway, we were after a light lunch/ brunch to see us through until the Easter Sunday roast lamb we were due to cook that evening and thought a nice sandwich-salad combo would do the job. The picture in the book cunningly hides the mushrooms and so I agreed to give it a go. I've learned that you can normally tell how hard a meal is going to be to cook by looking at the prep section above the recipe, so given that this one only tells you to turn on the grill and put a griddle pan on high, it should have been really easy.

We made a few tweaks to the recipe - we used sage from the garden instead of thyme and I'm still yet to find a supermarket that stocks any kind of chicory. The mushrooms, being a key component of the dish, did make it in though and though I'm told they were good, I thought the sandwich worked perfectly without (I managed about half before removing it) - the pancetta, lemony cottage cheese, tomato and especially the pears were really nice together in a hot ciabatta. The salad, even without the chicory, was a bit on the large size - a whole lettuce and a whole bag of watercress! The radishes would have been better sliced or more finely chopped than halved. The dressing - oil, vinegar and mustard - was refreshingly simple though.

As Lolz was incapacitated, guest rater Anneka gave the dish 9/10. Difficulty rating 1/10. Incidentally, and so as not to worry potential dinner guests, we believe Lolz's illness is a result of norovirus rather than food poisoning...