I love a good sandwich so I’m pretty happy that this recipe is ending the week. This is no boring sandwich, there are lots of different components that all come together to make each bite full of flavour and texture.

By the title of the recipe, you know a few of the components but let’s go through them one by one.

• Pear – it calls for bosc or anjou which are firmer varieties
• Tempeh – it gets marinated in a smokey soy sauce mixture and then cooked off to be like bacon
• Arugula – I used mixed lettuce instead because I don’t like the flavour of arugula
• Cashew cheese sauce – the recipe is in the back of the book, this is a vegan way to get a hit of “cheesiness”
• Dijon mustard – good grainy mustard is the way to go
• *There is also supposed to be red onion (raw or pickled) but I omitted them

This was delicious. The pear adds a really nice sweetness and crunch. The tempeh has a good smokey flavour and is a high source of protein – I’ve made a few other tempeh recipes from Thug Kitchen 101 book so check them out (tempeh posts). The greens give colour and help to bulk up the sandwich. The dijon mustard adds a really nice punch of spice.

The thing that brings everything together though, is the cheese sauce. I actually made this before for the Cowboy Scramble (post here). It’s a sauce made with cashews and broth, as well as nutritional yeast and seasonings. It gets blended until creamy and cooked down to thicken up. It was delicious in that breakfast and it was so good here too. I love gooey melty cheese on sandwiches, but having this creamy sauce was equally satisfying.

This would be such a good sandwich for any time of day honestly. It has all the food groups and is very filling. I served it for dinner though, with a side mixed green salad.

Last thing I wanted to say is that when I was first reading through the recipe, I assumed it was a grilled sandwich (like a panini) but it’s not. The bread is simply toasted in a pan and then all the other components get loaded on top. I think it would be delicious prepared that way though so maybe I will do that next time! This was still so tasty and loved every bite.