Best Sandwich EVER.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: this is the best sandwich ever. And it's easy. And the ingredients are flexible. I'm not kidding; it's heavenly. I found a recipe somewhat similar to this years ago, and adapted it to my liking. Every so often we have these with some chips on the side and it's one of our favourite lunches. Try it, you'll love it!

Here's what you need:

1 pear. I have not tried this with a different fruit; pears have the exact amount of sweetness and softness.
Meat of your choice. I've used porcetta, proscuitto, and genoa salami. I prefer the first and last; proscuitto is too chewy for my liking.
Cheese of your choice. I've used asiago and mozzarella; I prefer asiago because of its saltiness (so any other hard Italian cheese would work fine, too) but some people prefer more mild cheeses. Experiment!
Artisan bread. I usually get some kind of ciabatta bread or something similar. Something crusty and dense.
Garlic butter. Mix a little garlic powder in with your butter. It's all you need for a condiment.

First step: slice the pear thinly, put them in a small bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds. This softens them and makes them juicy. They will look a little rough (see above) but it really adds to it. Slice your bread to desired thickness, spread some garlic butter on it, and layer your pear, meat (I used mild genoa salami today) and cheese (asiago). Easy to assemble!

This is all you have left to do:

Put 'em in a frying pan and lay a heavy cast iron pan on top. Heat them until they get crispy on the outside and the cheese gets melty and everything is warm. MMMMMM. Look at this! LOOK!




You can make it thicker if you want; I prefer a crispy, thin sandwich.


I didn't think my kid (almost four) would eat it, so I made him a raspberry jam sandwich. He had a bite of my husband's sandwich and confiscated the rest of it, jam sandwich forgotten. If you know my kid, it's got to be darn good food for him to set aside his beloved jam sandwiches.



Easy. Versatile. Kid-approved. Uses up that stale bread and leftover cheese and meat. Takes ten minutes. And tastes fantastic. How can you go wrong?

Enjoy!