Pizza…on a BAGEL.

Possibly the finest of comfort foods that can be easily made in a dining hall, the pizza bagel is an important sandwich. It can frequently be cobbled together from ingredients available every night (in a bachelor apartment or industrial dining establishment). The classic one involves red sauce from a jar, grated cow mozzerrella (keep your classy ungratable water buffaloes away from me), a bagel (preferably a big chew one—not those glorified bread bagels from Thomas’s etc.) and a toaster oven. All bubbly and filling and warm. Fills the hole created by leaving home (or leaving college as the case may be). Healthier alternatives involve less cheese and fresh tomatoes instead of marinara. Class it up with chopped peppers, olives, or pepperoni if they are available. It’s just like Italy.

Thanks B.!

Worth the Effort

When I had been out of college for several months, but before I got really into cooking, I made this sandwich a lot. It was kind of the bridge between making hot pot ramen and roasting a chicken– the missing link between incidental cooking and deliberate, ‘I spend a lot of time reading cookbooks and planning meals in my head’ cookery.

Grilled Ham & Cheese with the Works:

Buttered Wheat Bread, Ham, thin-sliced swiss cheese, slices of red or sweet white onion if available, avocado if available, tomato.

Heat up a skillet, and butter one side of each slice of bread. Lay them in the skillet and lay a slice or two of cheese on them. You want the bread to toast up nicely and the cheese to get all melty. In another, smaller skillet, grill up the slices of tomato, the pieces of ham, the onions. The key is to get them warm so that the whole sandwich sings with heat and grilled goodness. The onions should be translucent and the ham and tomato slices should be just a little charred. So many grilled sandwiches, when they have several layers to them, are not heated all the way through by the time the cheese is melted and the bread is toasted.   This sandwich fights the power.

(You can also toast the bread separately in a toaster oven, adding the cheese halfway though so that it melts but doesn’t drip off the bread. But since you’re using one skillet, why not use two?)

Layer some avocado slices over the cheese, and assemble the sandwich– you can do this on the grill, and give it an extra flip before serving, or, really, on a plate. The impact is pretty much the same. Mmm.

-Molly

No Tuna Surprises.

I would like to briefly call your attention to the basic but loveable Tuna Melt, particularly when it’s on a toasted English Muffin, with a ripe slice of tomato under the tuna, and topped with melted swiss (or cheddar) cheese.

While it’s usually fairly serviceable when ordered at a cafe, I like to make it myself, to ensure that it’s just exactly the way I want it to be; with no surprises.

Mustard & Cheese? Hell yes.

Another favorite do-it-yourself sandwich is toasted grainy bread with melted cheddar and mustard and tomatoes, open-faced.

From Laura!

The Sandwich that Dare Not Speak Its Name.

In college (of course this post was going to start out with those words), an old friend of mine once made a sandwich by coiling up a Red Vine licorice stick into a disk and placing it between two Little Debbie Zebra Cakes.

That’s right, you heard me.  He took the following semester off, which may or may not be relevant.

-Molly

Son of So Wrong it’s Right

Put some peanut butter and chocolate chips on some bread to make a sandwich.  Put the sandwich in a hot George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine. 

Yuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

From Lydia.  (Who is, perhaps not so coincidentally, the inspiration for this blog).

Haole Hangover Cure

When I lived in Honolulu I went out drinking quite frequently. So, so very frequently. The drinks were cheap and the sailors were plentiful (or vice versa). Anyhoo, my FAVORITE hangover cure was a grilled ham and cheese sandwich from the L&L Drive-In downstairs from my apartment building. (In Hawai’i, drive-ins are tiny, greasy fast-food joints in the middle of a parking lot with maybe one picnic table out back and grumpy, long-suffering employees).

The L&L Drive-in opened at 5am, which was perfect for those late-nights that turned into early mornings. Their grilled ham & cheese sandwiches were simple– just ham & American cheese on wonder bread, but they tasted buttery and fried, and they soothed my hungover soul.

-Molly

Merr-rye Christmas, Everyone

So, every Christmas Eve, my family eats reubens. I mean, everyone knows what a reuben is, right? Well, we eat them on Christmas Eve. And frankly, I can’t imagine Christmas without one.

From Lydia.

Power to the Sandwich Eating People!

I will tell you a marxist office tale:

Everyone in my office with a professional school degree (mostly MBAs) buys their lunch–never brings. All the rest of us bring lunch. The other RA and I eat PB&J on whole wheat almost every day (Costco Organic PB, Ocean State Job lot Danish low sugar raspberry jam (from a bucket) and TJ whole wheat for me). The two of us and the bookkeeper eat at the conference table and gossip. Our superiors huddle in their office over thier 7 dollar cellophane-wrapped sandwiches (or salads when they diet). We gaze at them with the contempt of the powerless and munch our $0.50 lunches.
proletarianwich!

Thanks B.!

I Love a Good Tuesday Sandwich

Parma ham, buffalo mozzeralla, fresh tomatoes, and olive oil on ciabatta.

From Dominic’s in Waltham.

Thanks B.!