vegetable paninis

Last year at the ranch, I made paninis for one of our meals. We had turkey and ham for the meat eaters but my family has quite a few vegetarians so I also made some summer vegetable paninis. The ranch garden always has an abundance of zucchini so I used that with some mushrooms, yellow squash and spinach. They were so good that everyone raved about them and they were gone LONG before the meat ones. I made them again the other night for a quick dinner with some soup and it was delicious. This isn't a very technical recipe (more like an assembly with some basic sauteing) but here's how to make six delicious paninis.

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large zucchini, sliced into 1/4" rounds

1 yellow squash, sliced into 1/4" rounds

1/2 large onion, sliced

1 cup sliced crimini mushrooms

2 large handfuls of fresh baby spinach

6 slices havarti cheese

12 slices good artisan bread (I used a La Brea rosemary olive oil loaf)

softened butter

Preheat a large saute pan over medium high heat and add butter and olive oil. Let melt until the butter is sizzling. Add onions and saute for 3 minutes. Add zucchini, squash and mushrooms and saute until tender (but just slightly crunchy), about 5 minutes. Season with some kosher salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside.

Preheat your panini maker. Take two slices of bread and place one slice of havarti on one piece of bread. Add some of the vegetable mixture on top and a small handful of fresh spinach. Top with the remaining piece of bread. Butter both sides and repeat with remaining bread, cheese, vegetable mixture and spinach. Press in the panini maker until the bread is crispy and brown and the cheese is bubbling. Slice in half and serve with soup or a green salad.