Le Sandwich: Croque Madame with Dijon Béchamel Sauce

Sometimes a sandwich can make your life.  True story.  And it doesn't have to be a particularly fancy one, piled high with vegetables and herbaceous spreads.  Honestly, just give me good meat and good cheese, tucked between good bread with a little bit of butter and mustard.  Forget the tepid tomatoes.  Forget the lettuce unless we are pulling out the stops and feathering in some arugula.  I like it simple.  Mainly because of all the time working in professional kitchens these past 16 years lunch often consisted of that:  good meat, good cheese, good bread, wolfed down while leaning against a counter.  This is the kind of stuff they don't show you on reality TV cooking shows.  (Oh, if there had been cameras following me around all these years, the tales I could tell).  Even at home with all of the time and ingredients available to me, I honestly just want some sort of combination protein and cheese sandwich, be it bacon and brie, tuna and cheddar, turkey and Swiss and more often that not I want it hot and toasted, oozing cheese all over the plate.  Only this time, eaten while seated. 

Win! Warm Lentil, Bacon & Asparagus Salad with Fried Eggs

This is a sponsored post, but there is no shortage of love for lentils on these pages.  And you guys know me - I wouldn't tell you about something unless I really was in love with it.  So here we go!  

First things first.  May is Love your Lentils month (but I'm crazy about them the whole entire year - just scroll through my recipe index and you'll find the love) and to help celebrate Canadian Lentils has created a really fantastic contest.  Here's the part where I tell you about the good stuff:  the grand prize is a trip for 2 to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (my hometown!) and the heart and soul of the world's lentil production.  We love our lentils here.  Not only will you get to hang out in my beautiful city, but also take a tour with famous chef Michael Smith, stay in a posh hotel by the South Saskatchewan River for 3 nights, and you get $500 to spend on fun stuff while here.  All you have to do is enter your lentil recipe - you can be a blogger or a home cook - and just by voting you have a chance to WIN.  I won't bother you with all of the particulars - you can read them here.  But I urge you to enter, and while you're there, throw a vote my way too, because I really, really want to stay in that hotel (and meeting Michael Smith wouldn't be too shabby either.  Oh, and the cash, yeah, the cash, that would be nice.  And I've got a hankering to tour a farmer's field like nobody's business.)  So go vote!  Pretty pretty please and thank you.