Cheese Tomato & Mushroom Toasted Sandwich

When I was growing up in Malawi we used to have cheese and tomato toasted sandwiches with white bread for breakfast on Sunday mornings. We really enjoyed them. I remember my father would cut 2 cm square pieces for us as we didn’t know how to use a fork & knife back then. The flat iron sandwich toaster would flatten the sandwich and crisp the bread (because we used to butter both sides of the bread slightly – not too healthy !) It was a perfect breakfast 🙂

Back to real life, after marriage I started eating brown and wholemeal bread and one day my husband told me to make the toasted sandwiches using this recipe combination, so this is my husbands invention. I really liked the mixture of flavours with brown bread and we make this as a light meal or filling brunch / lunch. In the past I have also added vegetarian sausages to the mix, which tastes good also. Now I know this is a simple recipe but I wanted to share my memories and give people ideas of some quick and simple healthy recipes that we may not think of normally. Especially if you are a student away from home and want to try and eat healthy food, or if you are just uninspired, or need a reminder of the simple foods that give us pleasure in our lives.

I normally use tomato puree as a spread, this gives it a wonderful added flavour, similar to pizzas. However you can use just butter or even oliviada spread.

Ingredients

Preparation Time: 15 mins             Cooking time: 20 mins              Makes: 4 sandwiches or serves 2

8 slices of brown or wholemeal bread

1/2 cup of grated cheese

2 tomatoes chopped into small cubes

3 mushrooms chopped into small cubes

1 onion diced

1tsp each freshly ground black pepper & mixed herbs

Tomato puree to spread

Method

1) Chop the vegetables and mix with the grated cheese, herbs and pepper.

2) Spread the bread slices with tomato puree and place the filling between the slices. Put them into the sandwich toaster, serve warm.