Grilled Ham and Cheese with Tomato Soup

The first time I ever had a homemade grilled cheese sandwich was when I was a sophomore in college. My friend Lisa introduced me to the surprisingly delicious grilled cheese sandwich dipped in tomato soup. After that, I was hooked. Every time I eat a grilled cheese sandwich I can only have it paired with a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup and every time I eat it, I am reminded of Lisa and my first grilled cheese sandwich. It's comfort food. Simple and delicious. I find that a lot of my recipes are a little too involved and complicated so today I wanted to share something without all the frills.

I wanted to add a little more protein so I added ham to the sandwich. The pictures nearly speak for themselves.

All the ingredients (yes, that's pepper jack cheese)

Ham nicely folded over the cheese and a slice of bread.

Tomato soup!

Butter the bread on the outside to get a nice brown toasted look.

Ham and cheese sandwich, nicely grilled/toasted.

The best and only way to eat grilled cheese sandwiches.

Grilled Ham and Cheese Sandwich with Tomato Soup

Ingredients

• slices of deli ham
• your preferred variety of sliced cheese (Usually I stick with cheddar or American, but I had some pepper jack that I wanted to use up.)
• bread
• butter
• can of Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup
• water or milk

1. To make the soup, follow the directions on the can.
2. Butter a slice of bread and place it butter side down in a small non-stick pan.
3. Place a slice of cheese on top of bread and then place folded slices of deli ham on top of the cheese.
4. Butter another slice of bread and place the slice of bread on top of the ham with the butter side facing up.
5. Cook the sandwich on low to medium heat for about 3 minutes and then flip the sandwich with a spatula and cook the other side for another 3 minutes.
6. Dip sandwich in soup and enjoy!

Tomato Ham Pie

This is another Publix Apron simple meals recipe. I had tried it at the Publix sample counter. I made a couple of changes to the recipe. It still needs a little tweaking, but it was definitely delicious! Next time I need to cut the tomatoes and onion thinner and possibly add more basil.

Tomato Ham Pie
Ingredients:
4 medium tomatoes (sliced in 1/4 in thick pieces)
1 oz basil coarsely chopped
thin sliced ham
1 frozen prepared pie crust
1/4 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup light mayo
1/3 cup cream cheese
1 head of garlic
half a small yellow onion, thinly sliced
dried basil and oregano
extra virgin olive oil

Procedure:
1. Peel off most of the skin of the garlic leaving one or two layers. Pour the olive oil on the head of garlic making sure it is mostly covered in oil.
2. Place the head of garlic in the oven on a baking pan and bake at 350F for approximately 10 minutes or until the garlic becomes very soft and mashable.
3. Peel the rest of the skin off the garlic and mash and the garlic. Then mix the mashed garlic with the cream cheese. Add the dried basil and oregano to the garlic-cream cheese mixture until you are satisfied with the flavor.
4. Place the pie crust on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes at 400F or until lightly browned.
5. Combine bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese; sprinkle 2 tbsp over bottom of crust. Layer with some of the tomatoes and onion, sprinkle with salt and pepper.
6. Combine the garlic-cream cheese mixture with the mayo and spread half of the mixture over the tomatoes and onion.
7. Place the slices of ham evenly over the tomatoes and onion.
8. Add another layer of tomato and onion. Evenly spread the coarsely chopped basil over the tomatoes and onions, spread the rest of the garlic-cream cheese-mayo mixture, and place some more ham slices evenly over everything.
9. Top everything with the rest of the bread crumb/Parmesan cheese mixture.
10. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Fancy open-faced ham sandwich

Hurray! This is something that I made that my boyfriend actually, genuinely enjoyed eating. It's really simple. I had half an Italian multi-grain loaf of bread, ham, half a tomato, and two slices of provolone cheese. The tricky part was making the garlic butter. I roasted half a head of garlic in the toaster oven, mashed the garlic (after I peeled the skin off, of course) and buttered up the slices of bread and put the garlic mash on top. Finally, put the cheese, tomato and ham on top. This was a really great snack.

Edited 6/7/2012

I realized that I was too lazy to put up a recipe when I originally posted this blog entry, so here it is!

Garlic Butter

Ingredients

1 head of garlic

~2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil (can substitute with vegetable oil if olive oil is not available)

~1/2 cup unsalted butter (I say approximately because I never measure it out. Typically I just eyeball it. The more butter, the less garlicky it will be.)

salt to taste

Procedure

1. Cover a cookie sheet with foil (for easy clean up) and preheat oven to 400F.

2. Take off most of the skin from the head of garlic, leaving only one or two layers.

3. Place the head of garlic on the foil covered cookie sheet and cover the garlic with the olive oil.

4. Bake garlic for approximately 20 minutes or until garlic is easily pierced by a fork. Color of garlic should no longer be opaque white and should be a little but golden and clear.

5. Separate the roasted garlic from the skins, carefully. Mash the garlic in a bowl with a fork. Mix in butter and salt.