Tree of Life Sandwich

April 7, 2010 at 4:56 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments
Tags: avocado, Ezekiel bread, live nutrients, sprouted grains, sprouts, vegetable sandwich

I am in love with Tree of Life sandwiches. After I first discovered the recipe, I ate a Tree of Life sandwich every lunchtime for a month. It’s satisfying, flavorful, and full of whole nutrition and living energy from the sprouts and avocado.

NOTE: This meal uses Ezekiel bread. Ezekiel bread is — gasp — NOT 100% raw, but it’s still on my “good” list because it is made out of sprouted grains. (Sprouting the grains instead of processing them into white flour releases enzymes that, among other things, makes the grain more digestible and increases absorbable vitamin content; the result is more real, usable energy for our bodies.) Luckily, Ezekiel bread also tastes good.

It’s surprising how many grocery stores carry Ezekiel bread. I’ve seen it in Publix, Bloom, Trader Joes, EarthFare, Whole Foods, Hannaford, Food Lion, and nearly every small natural food store I’ve visited. You can find it in the frozen section (the bread should always be stored in a freezer). There may be other brands of sprouted-grain bread, but if there are, I haven’t seen them yet.

INGREDIENTS
Thanks to Kimah cafe, a natural foods cafe that operated for a short time in Greenville
2 slices of Ezekiel bread (original or sesame)
1/2 Avocado
Handful of sprouts
2-3 tablespoons of your favorite homemade salad dressing

First, thaw two pieces of Ezekiel bread. To do this, you can set the pieces on the counter for ten minutes, or toast them on a “light” setting, or put them in a pan on a low-heat stovetop for about a minute. I don’t recommend using a microwave. Get the pieces of bread just hot enough so that they’re not frozen anymore — avoid browning them.

Next, pour a tablespoon or so of dressing on one of the slices of bread.

Now it’s time to deal with the avocado. Start by slicing the avocado into halves.

If you’ve never opened an avocado, here’s how you do it: press your knife into the fruit so that the blade touches the big pit in the center. Bring the knife all the way around the horizontal “equator” of the avocado, slicing the skin as you go. Twist both halves until they come apart.

Remove the pit by whacking it with your knife blade. The pit will stick to the blade and come out without messing up the avocado meat.

Slice the meat as shown, then spoon it out carefully so that the slices stay more or less intact.

Place the avocado slices on the bread and arrange them so that the bread is completely covered.

Next, add as many sprouts as you can fit on the bread. Pile ‘em up high because they’ll squish down when you add the second piece of bread. Pour another tablespoon of dressing on top of the sprouts.

Finally, cut the sandwich diagonally. This is a very important step. To me, it’s just not a Tree of Life sandwich unless it’s cut diagonally.

And THAT is an oh-so-tasty Tree of Life Sandwich!