Eggplant, Tomato, and Cheese Sandwich

This is an easy and healthy sandwich even both veggie and semi-veggie lovers (meat lovers, maybe add a slice of ham if you like!) inspired by a sandwich my friend had made me one time, which is great for any time of the day.

Ingredients (serves 1)

3-5 thin eggplant slices

3-5 thin tomato slices

1 small onion, sliced

olive oil

black pepper

oregano (fresh or dried will be fine.. you just need a little)

2 slices bread

any or all of the ff cheese: white cheese, american style cheese slice, guyere, mozarella

ready made tomato garlic dip/spread (I like the Bravo! brand)

Directions

1) saute onions, tomato, and eggplant slices with dash of black pepper and oregano in olive oil until onions caramelize, and tomato and eggplant are cooked --a bit of burnt edges even. set aside.

2) spread tomato garlic on both slices of bread

3) put the cooked onions, tomato, and eggplant on the bottom bread slice.

4) put the cheese/s on top of the onion, tomato, and eggplant

5) top with other bread slice

6) toast or grill for 3-5 minutes or until the cheese melts and bread begins to brown

Enjoy!

Philly Cheese Steak

Super tasty and easy to make! :)

Ingredients (serves 4)
24ounces beef sirloin cut into very thin strips
1 large onion or 2-3 regular sized onions, chopped
1 small can button mushrooms, mushrooms sliced
4 cloves garlic minced
1 small bottle Cheezwhiz or Cheezwhiz with Pimiento
2 American cheese slices (the one for sandwiches) and/or porvolone
Some cream cheese
Some butter
Worcestire sauce (sp?)
Salt & Pepper
4 italian bread buns (with a crisp crust like cibatta)
Bacon strips cooked crisp (optional)
Red bell pepper cut in slices (optional)

**You don't have to use so much cheese actually. The important cheese ingredient is the CheezWhiz. :)

Directions

1. Toss beef sirloin with salt and pepper and a few dashes of worcestire sauce. Set aside.
2. Saute onions, garlic, mushrooms, bell pepper in olive oil.
3. Saute the sirloin when the onions and garlic start to soften
4. When sirloin, mushrooms, bell pepper are cooked, and the onions and garlic nicely caramelized, take it out from the pan.
5. Slice buns in half and spread some butter on them.
6. Put some of the sauteed ingredients on one half of the bread + some bacon, and liberally some cheezwhiz on it. On the other half of the bread, spread some cream cheese, then put some more cheezwhiz, porvolone, and half of the American cheese slice on it. Put "cheesy" bread on top of the sirloin, mushrooms, etc.
7. Heat in oven for 5-10 minutes. *If you are bringing it to work or wherever, wrap it in wax paper first before you heat it, so the cheese/s won't be too messy.
8. ENJOY! :)
   

The Meatlover's Pizza Sandwich

Ok, so I haven't been posting much recently. I've just been so busy! Anyway today I was craving for a slice of pizza, but we didn't have any at home and I didn't have enough money to buy, so I decided to just make something kind of like a pizza. I call it, the Pizza Meatlovers Sandwich! Now the picture doesn't look so appetizing; I just used a 2 megapixel camera phone since my DSLR's with my brother, but trust me, it is reeaaal good.


Ingredients:
2 slices of bread (regular sandwich bread is fine, cibatta is better)
Ketchup (regular flavor. NO Tamis-Anghang or Banana ketchup for this)
Ground black pepper
Basil (can either be fresh or dried)
Quickmelt cheese and or mozarella
Feta/white cheese in herbed olive oil (optional)
1 Green olive (optional)
2-3 slices spiced Ham
1 and a half big strip of Bacon
1/4 of onion

Directions:

1. Spread ketchup on one side of both bread slices (don't be frugal, but don't put too much that the bread will get soggy)
2. On one bread slice, put lots of slices of your cheese, crumble about two-three small feta cubes, and put about half a teaspoon of the herbed olive oil over it.
3. Slice the onion and green olive and put these on the same side of the bread as the cheese/s and ketchup
4. Add a pinch of pepper
5. And add, if using fresh basil, slices of 1 leaf. If using dried basil, just a dash
6. Fry the spiced ham until it begins to brown
7. Fry the bacon until the meat is reddish brown and the edges crispy
8. Add on the meat on the bread
9. Cover with the remaining slice
10. Grill sandwich in a sandwich griller until bread has browned with grill marks, and cheese has melted. *
11. ENJOY! :)
    

To make it meatier, feel free to add sauteed ground pork or beef, pepperoni, or whatever your favorite meat is! Just remember not to use too many salty types of meat or else the pizza sandwich will become too salty.

*If you do not have a sandwich griller, I guess you can use the oven toaster and toast the sanwich for about 5 minutes.

"Brich": The ultimate breakfast sandwich

Inspired by a similar concept my friends and I tasted in Baguio, I decided to make my own, smaller version of it. I call it the "Brich" which is short for breakfast sandwich. It's basically a sandwich made up of my favorite breakfast foods.

For bread, I used pancakes (which I made just by following the instructions on the box) which I spread some butter on. In between the 2 pancakes, I just put some ham, salami, bacon, scrambled egg, lettuce, and cheese (just the plain square cheese slices available in supermarkets --I like Anchor brand the best). I spread butter on the top pancake and poured some maple/pancake syrup on the whole thing. I would've put cornflakes and maybe even some peanut butter or jam, but when I made it I was just going to eat it as a snunch, so I didn't want it to be waaay too rich. I mean, it's rich and heavy enough already.

The brich goes well with a glass of milk, water, or orange juice. Although I recommend water because I think the brich already seems fattening, and extra sugar won't be needed haha

Singapore and Philly cheese corned beef

So I just got back from my Singapore trip last January 2. It was awesome over there! The shopping, the sights, the nightlife, and of course, the food. On the left I've made a collage of some of the dishes I tried over there. My favorite is the Cereal Prawns which is the biggest one in the collage. It's fried prawns and cereal that is very crispy and slightly sweet. It's so good that even the shells can be eaten! I tried the dish over at Hawkers near Esplanade and of all the food I have tried in my stay there, that is the most unforgettable one! In a good way! We ate it with pineapple rice, another tasty treat, grilled stingray, and Tom Yum soup. The last two had quite the spices, so I wouldn't recommend it for those who mind sweating a bit and getting their tongue a little burned. I would gladly come back though. :D I have yet to try cooking it myself, but watch out for that. I will try some day soon.

Some other goodies really worth mentioning are the buffet breakfast over at the Singapore Zoo which made me forget that we went there for the animals and not the food haha, the spicy Mcwings over at Mcdonalds which was so juicy and slightly spicy, the swedish meatballs at IKEA which surprisingly went great with the sweetness of the linden(sp?) berries, the Sing ice cream sandwich sold in the streets which was great, especially because it didn't melt as fast as I expected, and the "BBQ Shabu Shabu" in Pasar Oleh Oleh, Bintan, Indonesia. Well I included it with the Sing food already because Bintan is very Singaporean; the currency used to pay for stuff there is even SGD. Tiger Beer, the Singaporean counterpart of my country, Philippine's "San Miguel/RedHorse" is lighter than I thought it would be. It's good though.. 'swabe'. It reminds me a little of Cerveza Negra, but lighter. Bintang Beer of Indonesia is quite like Cerveza too, but it feels very watery and thin. San Miguel Strong Ice and Red Horse are still on top for me. :)

For more info on these dishes, check out my flickr account over at http://flickr.com/photos/kamums

Meanwhile, let me go on with the recipe I will share with you today. Wanting to make a philly cheese steak sandwich since before I left for Singapore, I decided to finally make one when I got back. Unfortunately, we still did not have any good tenderloin/sirloin or any beef cuts for that matter so I settled with what I found in the pantry --corned beef.

PHILLY CHEESE CORNED BEEF
Ingredients
1 small can purefoods corned beef
1 red onion
1-2 cloves garlic
cheeze whiz
2 slices bread
olive oil

1. Heat a little olive oil in pan
2. Sautee chopped onion and garlic
3. Put on high heat, and then add corned beef
4. Keep on pan until corned beef is dry and begins to crisp
5. On one slice of bread, put the corned beef. Make sure to include the little burnt pieces stuck to the pan --those are the crunchiest, yummiest corned beef parts
6. On the other slice, spread on a rich amount of cheeze whiz
7. Put slices together, grill in sandwich griller or toast. :)

Crunchy Tuna Melt

When I wake up more than 1 hour after lunch, I usually end up cooking up my own lunch or... "snunch" (snack that serves as my lunch). Today was one of those days, and my snunch was a Crispy Tuna Melt sandwich. I just thought of this today, but the inspiration for the crunch I got from a bar/resto near my school where my friends and I hang out a lot. Here's the recipe:

Crispy Tuna Melt
*Makes for 2-3 sandwiches

Ingredients:
1 small can hot and spicy century tuna
1 red onion chopped up
1 tomato chopped up
1 egg
1 pack skyflakes, or whole wheat crackers (depends on how crunchy you want your tuna melt to be)
mayonaise
quickmelt cheese
Bread slices

First, heat the pan with 1/4 of the oil from the can of tuna. Sautee the onions until they begin to caramelize, then add the tomatoes and the contents of the can of tuna. Keep sautee-ing until the oil begins to evaporate and then add the egg. When they all begin to cook together, break the crackers into small pieces and mix in the pan. Turn off heat after about a minute or two.

While waiting for the contents of the pan to cool a bit, spread some mayo on the bread slices. Then add some cheese onto it, and then finally, the contents of the pan. Put on some more cheese slices, and then finally complete the sandwich with the other bread slice. Grill or toast the sandwich until brown and serve!