Gourmet Toastie

When I first thought about writing this, I thought ‘who the heck needs instructions to make a toastie?’. But then, after making the same Toasted Sandwich for dinner for the 3rd night in a row I thought ‘EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT THIS COMBO’. So here we are, part of me feels like a goose because I’m writing a recipe for a toasted sandwich, but the other part of me is so darn excited to share this with you because it tastes so good!

I think what makes or breaks this recipe is the choice of bread. You don’t need anything too fancy, but make sure you’ve got nice big slices. I just used Dark Rye which I bought from the supermarket. The order you put the fillings also makes a difference. In the method section, I’ve put my tried and tested order.

Ingredients:

Yield: One Toasted Sandwich

2 x slices of bread (I used dark rye)
Slathering of Pesto (you can find my recipe here)
3 slices of tomato
Thinly sliced fresh Eggplant. You need enough to cover your sandwich (I used a homegrown eggplant from a friend).
Slice Capsicum. Again, enough to cover your sandwich
3 Mushrooms, sliced.
Red onion
Baby Spinach
Cheese
Butter
Beetroot Hummus

Method:

Turn on your sandwich press and allow time to preheat.
In a frying pan, over medium heat, fry your mushrooms on one side and grill your eggplant and capsicum on the other. You don’t need any oil or anything. The mushrooms will release enough water to not burn and you want your eggplant and capsicum to have those ‘grilled’ bits on them.
Meanwhile, butter the outside of each slice of bread. On the other side of one slice, add the pesto and on the other slice, add the beetroot hummus.
Once mushrooms, eggplant and capsicum are grilled, remove from pan.
Pile your ingredients onto the bread. I’d recommend the following order, starting on the pesto piece of bread, but it is not essential: mushrooms, tomato, red onion, cheese, eggplant, capsicum, spinach.
Once you have constructed your sandwich, place in sandwich press and cook until golden brown. This toastie will be jam packed, so you may need to rotate the sandwich halfway to allow for even cooking.