Farmer Lauren had a chicken, e-i-e-i-oooo, and with this chicken she made a sammich, e-i-e-i-ooo, with an apple slice here and an avocado there, here a spice and there a slice, eveywhere it’s nice nice, Farmer Lauren had a chicken avocado paniniiiiiiiii.

This is one of those recipeless recipes.  Pretty much you can insert just about anything you think sounds tasty.  Like the rest of my life, I didn’t have a plan…I just went with what I had.

First, I got a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the store. Those things can be complete lifesavers, because sometimes you just have neither the time nor the inclination to roast a whole chicken.  They can be very salty though, so watch out for that.  Anyway, I pulled the meat off the bones and then shredded it finely with two forks.  I mixed the white and dark meat together; you can use all white, all dark or anything you like.

Then I added in some fresh avocado, about half of one chopped, some oregano, salt and pepper and fresh lemon juice and mixed everything together thoroughly.

Then I started building up the sandwich: on one piece of bread, I layed a slice of provolone cheese followed by a few slices of apple.  Yes, apple.  It provides not only additional nutrition and light flavor but crunch!  Then the chicken mixture went on top of that, followed by one more piece of cheese, followed by the last piece of bread.

Then I turned on my electric griddle (obviously you can just use a skillet over medium heat if you prefer) to about 350F and brushed it with a bit of olive oil.  When it was hot, I put the sandwich on it and then put a small glass pan on top of the sandwich to push it down.  If you had a panini press, you’d use that.  I don’t have a panini press.  So using another pan or a foil-covered brick or something stable and heavy will work; the gist is that you want something that will press the sandwich down and encourage good contact between the pan and the bread.  It’s all about communication these days, isn’t it?

After a few minutes, I flipped the sandwich over and browned the bread on the other side.  Then just slice…and eat! You get a nice dark color from the bread, a refreshing crunch from the apple and creamy goodness from the avocado and chicken.  THAT is a sandwich.