Reposting because I just went to the local Farmer’s Market and made these. SO GOOD!

In 2012, my mother was accepted into the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). Something she’s very proud of because it’s only open to women that are able to prove they are directly related to someone that fought for America’s Independence. They have lots of social gathers and food is always involved. My mom made the most amazing sandwiches to take to her meeting and I’ve modified it a bit to make it even more delicious (I added tomatoes, she just made them as cucumber sandwiches).

I was pleased to discover that it’s not only filling, it’s really easy to make, and not bad nutritionally speaking, for lunch.

Ingredients:

• two slices of bread

**This tastes amazing using sourdough bread, but I used what I had (Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat SF Bread) – this is where majority of the calories come from, so if you have a lower calorie bread (each slice of mine was 50 cal each), use it. 

• 1 medium tomato
• 1 medium cucumber
• fresh basil (I picked 4 or 5 leaves from what I bought at the local Farmer’s Market since I didn’t grow a garden this year)
• 1-2 tbsp of what I’m calling the “DAR Spread”

DAR Spread

• 1 medium container soft cream cheese
• 1 packet Italian dressing dry mix

Mix the Italian dressing mix into the soft cream cheese (sounds gross, but you’ve gotta trust me on this).  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Directions:

1. Wash vegetables and slice 1/2 of each. Cut off skin of cucumber, if you prefer it that way. Set aside other half to vegetables. 
2. Cover bread slices with DAR Spread
3. Layer tomato slices on one slice of bread and basil on the other
4. Cover the basil with cucumber slices
5. Close sandwich, cut up the rest of the tomato and cucumber you didn’t use to eat on the side, and enjoy!

Nutritional Breakdown:

 This will vary based on which bread you use and whether or not you use 1 or 2 tbsp of the spread. The breakdown includes 2 tbsp of spread. While I have never considered using either of those ingredients on a sandwich, I’m not sure why because they taste amazing on bagels.

Some alternatives to the spread could be: veggie cream cheese spread, garlic and herb mayo (Kraft makes some, but I’m sure other brands are out there), or Laughing Cow Garlic & Herb cheese wedges. Next time I make this sandwich, I am going to try the latter as each wedge is only 35 calories, lowering the calorie intake for this sandwich to be under 200 calories!