Sing it with me........Meatball Sandwich......

Well it all starts with a little stroll down to lunch lady land.  Hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders, navy beans, navy beans, Meat Loaf Sandwich...........While the song may be silly tom foolery, this sandwich is serious business.

We stopped into Labriola Bakery for lunch the day after Caroline's 7th birthday party and her dinner of choice, spaghetti and meatballs.  In typical Erin fashion, she made a large bucket of range balls worth of meatballs (hey its cold and grey in February and I've got the golf itch, cut me some slack).  The upside to her excesses is an abundance of left overs to work with.  As we waited in line to order I noticed all the wonderful looking loaves of bread behind the bakery counter at Labriola.  A quick nudge and a little point later Erin knew I wanted her to pick up some bread for the meatball sammiches that were on the menu that evening.

I am a firm believer that a good sandwich starts with great bread.  Some consider it just a vessel but I say good bread is a work of art.  We grabbed both the demi baguettes and some asiago cheese loaves.  Pictured below is the start of my sandwich with the cheese loaf.

You'll notice I've carved a little tunnel through the middle of my bread.  I love bread, more than most and likely more than I should but a proper sandwich is all about the proper blend of meat, cheese and bread.  As such, I've pulled out a fair amount of the doughy innards of my cheese loaf.  This makes for not only a little less bloat in the sandwich but also I nice trough to anchor the meatballs in.

The next step is laying down the gooey blanket to hold a meatball with.

Soft mozzarella cheese, hot giardiniera and some freshly grated sharp provolone cheese.  Pop it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes and we are ready to start building.

Time to add the goods.  I like to slice the meatballs in half and layer them into the sandwich.  No rolling around and also allows me to get about 40% more meat into my sandwich.  Cover them in some home made meat sauce and top with grated parmesan reggiano and pecorino romano cheeses.

The only thing missing now is a nice glass of red wine and we are all ready to eat.  Anything Italian and red would work fine but we did a nice hearty Zinfandel as the fruit really stood up nice to the meat and spice in our sandwiches.

The final product.

Toasty bread, oozing cheeses, hearty meatballs in red sauce and you can see the oil from the giardiniera soaking into the bottom of the bread.

Mange, Mange Mange.

Now I'm motivated to cook tomorrow!!