Bacon cheddar tea sandwiches

Cut off the crusts and slice the triangles in half and you get tea sandwiches.

Tea sandwiches at the cabin? Why not?

While Cabin Breakfasts get the most advance prep attention before our annual trip north, I always try to come up with some sandwich enhancers to take along to elevate lunch choices. This year I opted to try this tea sandwich filling, which I ran across when trying to make inroads into some 20-year-old magazines. 

The factor that led me to try it as a cabin option was the fact that it looked like something that would work really well on presliced brioche bread, which has the advantage of being viable longer than some other types of bread, and we haven't generally had good luck buying good sandwich bread at the stores in Grand Marais so I try to take something along. I've resorted to the potato rolls at Gene's as being the most viable option ever since The Loafer was no more. (The building that housed that much-missed establishment has passed through two incarnations as a restaurant and now appears to be associated with real estate sales.)

But a new option opened in town after our visit last year, so I may no longer need to rely on ferrying bread north. They offer some basic loaves, focaccia and several sweet rolls from cruffins to all manner of croissant. On the way out of town we stopped at Crosby Bakery and picked up a sourdough loaf and a couple of ham and cheese croissant that we had for a lunch during a stop at Hoops in Duluth on the way back. Definitely a good call.

Bacon and cheddar tea sandwiches

Adapted from Cooking Light, December 2005, which specified reduced fat cheese and fat-free cream cheese and mayo. I used Cry Baby Craig’s jalapeño and garlic hot sauce. I also left on the crusts and didn't do the second diagonal cut to make them into tea sandwiches.

Ingredients
1½ cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
 5 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
 5 tablespoons thinly sliced green onions
 1 ½ tablespoons mayonnaise
 1¼ teaspoon hot sauce
 3 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
 12 slices bread, crusts removed if making them into tea sandwiches
 Microgreen sprouts

Method
Combine cheese, cream cheese, green onion, mayonnaise, hot sauce and bacon. Spread on half of bread slices. Top with sprouts and remaining bread. Cut in half diagonally, and to make into tea sandwiches, cut each diagonal in half to make four small triangles out of one sandwich.

Rating: These would make really nice actual tea sandwiches, although I'm not sure I'd choose to make them for a large party since the bacon makes them off limits for a couple of dietary subsets. But as a filling on brioche bread, they were very tasty, and work well with the filling made ahead; the filling becomes spreadable in pretty quick order, so you're only a few minutes away from lunch. And the leftovers when we got back made an admirable base for a pizza, with some Parmesan sprinkled on top before baking. 

And of course, the annual waterfall shot: