grilled cheese with brie

Yet another recipe from 6 o'clock scramble.  Here I decided I didn't want to add the spinach that was in the original because I'm just not a fan of cooked spinach, I had already eaten spinach in my green smoothie, and I was serving this with a salad.  So, I got lazy/just didn't want the spinach, and just made these plain grilled cheese.  However, I did use a bit of peach jam as suggested in the original.  Peach jam and Brie on a sandwich are DELICIOUS!  Worth the post - even though I have no picture, and the recipe is super simple.

Ingredients

• butter (if desired)
• peach or apricot jam
• 8 slices of bread (I used home made wheat - original called for whole grain or sourdough)
• 8 ounces Brie cheese, cut into 1/8 inch slices

Directions

1. Make sandwich by spreading jam on one slice of bread, top with brie, and another slice of bread.  Bake on a griddle or in a frying pan until toasted on both sides.  I coated my griddle with butter before putting the sandwiches on.

I must add, 8 oz wasn't really enough brie for sandwiches for all 6 of us.  I did make other sandwiches with cheddar or whatever other cheese I had.  Everyone liked these though.

veggie sandwiches

Today we had some sandwiches which were extremely reminiscent of these.  Of course I just now looked them up to make sure this was worth a post.  2 things make it worth the post.  #1 these were on a bagel.  I have to remember to do that more often, it is so yummy.  #2, they had other veggies.  They were tasty, but my poor 3 year old had a fit when I threw veggies on top of his bagel.  He ended up dipping his veggies in Catalina and eating them, then eating his bagel and cream cheese.  I was fine with that so long as he was eating his veggies.

I guess a third thing that I love about this, and a reason to re-post is that you can really throw any veggies you want on this sandwich.  I think I just need to remind myself of that.  The kids were happy not to have to eat a salad.  :)  I figured they got their raw food in their sandwich.  

Ingredients

• Bagels (My kiddos had the choice of Thomas' whole wheat or everything bagels today.  Had I been better at wanting to continue cooking after dinner last night, I would have started a dough for some home-made bagels.)
• cream cheese (my kiddos had a choice of plain, or onion and chive)
• 1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced (Don't usually peel my cucumber but this one had a really thick skin that was hard to chew.  Sad that my nice English cucumbers were gone.  I do cut my cucumber in half lengthwise and remove all of the seeds before slicing.)
• alfalfa sprouts
• 1 tomato thinly sliced.  

Directions

1. spread bagels with cream cheese, top with veggies and serve as a sandwich.  

This idea came from 6 oclock scramble.  She suggests serving them with scrambled eggs.  I just made some ice cream -- so much healthier right?  Actually it is just fruit, agave and half and half.  Not too bad if you ask me.  I just realized I haven't posted the recipe for it, so it will be next.

Italian Roast Beef Sandwiches

I've had a week off from blogging while we went to Disney World.  So nice to take a vacation.  AND we ate so well every day.  Of course I had my favorite places.  Probably topping my list was the Tusker House at Animal Kingdom.  We had breakfast there and it was soooo good.  I looked at a couple of Disney cookbooks while I was there.  If I had seen any recipes for anything I ate at that breakfast, I would have been highly persuaded to buy one.  :)  Probably second on my list was The Brown Derby at Hollywood Studios.  I also liked the German and the Chinese restaurants at Epcot.  So much fun, and so many things to try - we even had Moroccan food one night.  Anyway, I've spent the last 3 days blogging about our trip on my family blog so I'm now 3 days behind here (not to mention the couple of recipes I missed while frantically trying to get ready for the vacation.)  So much for the vacation.  :)

I'm starting with last night's dinner for no particular reason other than it was the first book I grabbed.  

The menu was Italian Roast beef Sandwich with a cheddar broccoli soup.  I wasn't a huge fan of the soup.  It had beef broth and Worcestershire sauce in it.  While the flavor was fine with those ingredients, it just tasted like some other soup - not cheddar broccoli.  Beef and broccoli maybe?  Anyway, not worth typing up - not to mention I can hardly read my notes in my magazine.  (Original from Taste of Home Simple and Delicious Magazine.)  Here is how I made them.

Servings 8-10 - 

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup Italian salad dressing (I used lite)
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 6 cups spinach
• 2 large ciabatta loaves (recipe to follow) sliced in half
• 10 oz sliced roast beef (No idea on exact amount.  I just put folded slices all the way down the bread)
• 2 medium tomatoes, sliced
• 1 cucumber, cut in half, seeded, and sliced
• 1/4 cup sliced olives, drained

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine salad dressing, Parmesan cheese, pepper, and spinach.  Toss to combine.
2. Place 1/2 of the salad mixture on bottom of one loaf, top with 1/2 of the roast beef, tomato, cucumber and olives.  Replace top of the loaf and slice into individual servings.