Farmer Lee’s ELT Recipe: Fresh Eggplant, Lettuce, and Tomato Sandwich

If you love farm-fresh seasonal ingredients and simple yet flavorful recipes or if you’re looking for a vegetarian bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich—or both—then look no further than Farmer Lee’s Famous ELT Sandwich.

“I’m certainly not a chef,” Farmer Lee Jones says. “In fact, I’m not even a gourmet cook. What I am is someone who appreciates delicious food and gets excited any time I can enjoy flavorful food that is part of the plant-forward future that we dream about.”

So, without further ado, here’s the recipe!

Farmer Lee’s Famous ELT Sandwich

Fresh eggplant grown at The Chef’s Garden is nothing like the eggplant you’ll  see in the grocery store. We pick it at just the right stage before you have to deal with any seeds, when it’s chock full of flavor and nutrition with the perfect texture.

Ingredients

• Eggplant (Lee prefers the long and slender Oriental eggplant)
• Tomato, sliced (Lee recommends a hearty beefsteak)
• Lettuce (Lee likes speckled lettuce)
• Basil
• Tarragon
• Duke’s mayo
• Bread (Lee chooses sourdough)
• Oil (note that eggplant picks up the flavor of what it’s in)
• Optional: fresh peppers, sweet or hot

Directions

Slice the eggplant thinly and fry it in the oil until it’s a bit crispy and then place the slices on a paper towel. Because Farmer Lee is especially enjoying this year’s crop of fresh peppers—whether sweet or hot—he also fries up a few slices for his sandwich.

Spread mayo on your sourdough bread and then layer your eggplant, sliced tomatoes, lettuce leaf, basil, and tarragon. If you’re like Lee, also add a few peppers—and then enjoy!