Lazy Cheezy Sunday

A wonderful lazy Sunday watching movies can’t be interrupted for much more than some air-popped popcorn and hot tea.  But alas, we must eat too, and so I went about preparing my lazy grilled “cheeze” in between movies.

I only just found this neat little appliance buried in the back of one of my kitchen cabinets.  It is a Proctor Silex Mealmaker that my mother gave me ten years ago when I had my first apartment and (*blush*) still ate cheese.

I made many little sandwiches in it back when I had no idea how to cut an onion and could barely boil water.  Somehow, it survived three moves and ended up forgotten in the cabinet.  When I found it this summer, I eagerly cleaned it up and plugged it in, delighted to see it still worked.

Prior to finding my little sandwich maker, I made grilled cheeze using an All-Clad panini press pan, which is still a fantastic way to cook, especially when using artisan breads.  But today was a lazy Sunday and I had no artisan bread anyway.  All I had was some store-bought whole-wheat bread, Earth Balance, Follow Your Heart Vegan Gourmet Cheddar “cheese,” and one organic tomato.

I like to make my own bread, but my husband still likes typical store bread, so I buy him Arnold’s because most of their breads are vegan and do not contain high fructose corn syrup or too much junk.  I love Earth Balance as my standard butter substitute because it has a rich flavor that is much better than margarine.  Follow Your Heart is a great brand for vegan products — especially their Vegenaise and Sour Cream — and this cheese is wonderful.  However, it is not as wonderful as Daiya Cheddar cheese, which is harder for me to find.  Nevertheless, it is not too difficult to shred the block of cheddar “cheese.”

After shredding the cheddar and slicing the tomatoes, I spread the Earth Balance on both slices of bread and made them into sandwiches.

After preheating it and spraying the surface of the sandwich maker with some oil, I placed the sandwiches in it and closed the lid.

There is a light on the sandwich maker that turns green when it is finished.  Surprisingly, it still worked accurately (I cannot say the same for the waffle iron I have), although I still recommend opening the lid just barely to peek and see if it’s done before opening it all the way.

Done!  This particular model sandwich maker presses a crease  into the sandwiches, which then could be a perfect place to cut them and have two triangular pockets of yumminess.  I cut mine in half again in this picture to demonstrate the wonderful cheeziness, but I recommend you do it as well.  Why?  Well, when I ate that second piece, I burned myself.  I didn’t think of this earlier, but apparently the tomato gets very hot while it’s sealed into the warm little bread pocket.  It then remains hot until you bite into it and get steam and hot tomato juice all over your tongue.  Trust me, it still hurts several hours later!

But even with my injured tongue, I still enjoyed this sandwich, and did not need more than ten minutes to prepare it and clean up after myself.  Perfect for a lazy Sunday!