Stuffed Mushroom Sandwich

Today I am a bit bored. It is an overcast Sunday, my husband is working and my daughter is busy doing her own thing. I could be writing an article, working on my new author website, working on a friend's website or even editing a book. I am however doing none of those things.

When lunch rolled around my daughter made herself a tuna salad sandwich so that just left me.

I decided to do something different. I often have mushrooms on toast for lunch. I saute them in some butter with fresh rosemary. Very yummy.

Today I had a large Swiss Brown mushroom so I decided to keep it whole and made this Stuffed Mushroom Sandwich.

Stuffed Mushroom Sandwich for One
1 large mushroom (Portabello, Swiss Brown or regular)
50g smoked cheese
1 slice ham
salad greens
mayonnaise
2 slices wholemeal bread toasted.

1. Heat the panini press or sandwich grill. (I don't have one but a George Foreman grill would work too)
2. Remove stem from mushroom and insert cheese and top with ham. (You could leave out ham if you are vegetarian)
3. Close press and cook about 5 minutes until cheese is gooey.
4. Assemble sandwich by spreading mayo on bread, tom with mushroom and greens.

Enjoy!

What makes a great sandwich?

When I first started working an office way back in the early 1990's we used to walk to a rather wonderful sandwich shop a couple of blocks from the office.

The sandwich shop made wonderful sandwiches that stood like towers and were filled with a myriad of ingredients both mundane and exotic...mind you what we considered exotic back then would be pretty commonplace now (and some things have come and gone again) but still - satay sauce, sprouts, peppered cheese, brie, Swiss cheese, pastrami, smoked salmon, alfalfa sprouts, cranberry sauce all spring to mind.

I often ordered the same sandwich eventually because we are after all creatures of habit - that must be why when I stand at the supermarket deli counter I seem to walk away time and again with ham and turkey when I could have porchetta, mortadella or brawn (OK brawn is disgusting that's why I leave the brawn).

This sandwich shop still exists by the way and they still make great sandwiches but that's not the point of this blog.

What I learnt from one of the women who worked at the shop was how to make a good sandwich and the lesson is all about technique and not at all about content.

Here is the rule - wet-dry-wet- dry-wet.

Here is an example - bread- mayo- ham-mustard-cheddar- butter-bread or bread-wet-dry-wet-dry-wet-bread.

Another - cream cheese-turkey-cranberry-lettuce-cream cheese.

Another - egg salad - lettuce- pickle

Another - avocado -bacon -tomato- lettuce - mayo (or today's lunch which would have been better with sliced tomato than cherry but you get the idea!)