During summer, I love anything that doesn’t involve standing over the stove. A good sandwich needs little cooking, but can be just as satisfying as a Sunday roast. Here, adding avocado to the classic BLT helps keep the sandwich together and enhances the other ingredients.

A few notes: you must, you must use a good tomato. Use whatever variety you want – heirloom, roma, beefsteak, etc., but mealy, soft, quasi red tomatoes won’t work here. Beautiful tomatoes are in abundance now and easily be found at the farmers market. Also – a lot of hidden ingredients lurk in bread. Look for fresh loaves without tons of additives – this goes for the bacon, too. Turkey bacon (I’m fond of Applegate) would also work nicely in this sandwich.

The recipe below is for one sandwich – multiply the quantities to make more. If assembling beforehand, don’t add the tomato until right before serving.

Ingredients:
2 slices of whole wheat sour dough, lightly toasted
1/2 avocado, sliced
1/2 small tomato, sliced
4 slices of oven roasted bacon
2 tablespoons good mayonnaise, or as needed
1 lead of romaine, chopped in half
Salt and pepper

To assemble:
1. Spread each slice of bread liberally with mayonnaise.

2. Gently mash the avocado onto the bottom slice of bread.

3. Lay the lettuce on top of the avocado, then layer on the bacon.

4. Place the tomato slices on top of the bacon and season with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. Top with remaining slice of bread and gently press the whole sandwich down and cut in half.

Serve with something crunchy – think chips or cucumber slices.