Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Peaches and Arugula

I know this isn't really a full recipe, but I had to share this grilled cheese variation because it was a great summer sandwich!  I absolutely looooove summer peaches, and usually I just slice them up and eat them, but I bought a ton since they were on sale this week for super cheap.  Since I had some peaches to spare, I decided to slice up a couple to put inside grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.  I used to be weird about mixing sweet and savory together, but I've really gotten into this lately.

The title of this post says it all, I just loaded up a sandwich with swiss cheese slices (which I loved with the peaches, but I bet other cheeses would taste yummy too), thinly sliced peaches (you can peel them if you want to) and a little bit of peppery arugula.  Make sure the outside of the sandwich is buttered, and cook like you would a normal grilled cheese sandwich.  I love making different grilled cheese sandwich combinations for a quick and easy dinner, and these peaches were great with grilled cheese :)

Turkey Burgers

Let me start this off by saying that before I made this recipe, I had never ever eaten a turkey burger before.  I love beef burgers, and I just thought that turkey burgers would taste somewhat burger-like, but definitely sub-par. 

I finally decided to give turkey burgers a try because I'm trying to make myself cook and eat a little healthier (but not healthy enough that I didn't load these babies with some gooey, melty cheese!), and I'm glad I got past my preconcieved notions because these were great!  I'm not saying that I won't be enjoying the occasional beef burger going forward, but I will definitely be making more turkey burgers in the future.

Ingredients:

Turkey Burgers-
1 (1.25 lb) package of ground turkey
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup italian seasoned bread crumbs
1 1/2 tablespoons worstershire sauce
2 teaspoons minced garlic
Salt, pepper & hamburger seasoning, to taste (I used about 1/2 teaspoon of each)

For Cooking Burgers-
Non-stick cooking spray

For Serving-
4 hamburger buns, lightly toasted
Sharp white cheddar cheese, or any good sharp cheese
1 small red onion, sliced and sauted with some EVOO until softened
Ketchup & mustard, to taste

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix together all of the turkey burger ingredients (it works best to use your hands to do this).  Refrigerate for about 10 mintutes (I did this so that the meat mixture wasn't too sticky), then form until 4 hamburger patties (if you want, you can refrigerate again at this point if your patties are too sticky after handling them).

Heat a gas grill to medium-high heat, and spray the grates with some non-stick cooking spray.  Cook burgers for 5-6 minutes on each side, until cooked all the way through.  On the last couple minutes of cooking, place cheese on top to melt.  Serve on hamburger buns with sauteed red onions and the hamburger condiments of your choice.

Grilled Jerk Chicken Sandwiches

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of boneless, skinless chicken breast.  Actually, I take that back - I love using boneless, skinless chicken breasts if I get to bread and fry them, like if I'm making something like parmesan chicken or sweet and sour chicken, but grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts can end up being dry, flavorless, and boring.

With that being said, Kevin and I wanted to grill up something semi-healthy on our first night at the lake this past week, so we decided to make some sort of grilled chicken sandwich.  I needed something to kick up the flavor on these grilled chicken sandwiches.....and I found it - mango chutney!  We love anything with mango in it so I decided to give this mango chutney that I found in the Indian section of my grocery store a try.  This sandwich was definitely a winning combination :)  We will be making this again for a healthy meal (although I just can't bring myself to give up the cheese which would make it a bit healthier). 

Ingredients: (to make 2 sandwiches - adjust as needed)

2 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, butterflied and pounded out a bit (just to thin and even out a bit so the breasts aren't super thick - I always do this so that the chicken cooks evenly and doesn't get dried out)
2 hamburger type buns
2 slices of pepperjack cheese
1/2 of a medium-sized red onion
EVOO
1/4 cup mango chutney (I found this in the Indian section of my grocery store)
Caribbean jerk seasoning, to taste
Salt & fresh cracked pepper, to taste

Directions:

Slice up the red onion and saute with a little EVOO, salt, and pepper in a skillet until softened. 

Meanwhile, season the chicken breasts with jerk seasoning and salt & pepper, to taste.  Grill until cooked through (we grilled them for maybe 10-12 minutes, but it depends on your grill and how thick the chicken breasts are). 

Add cheese slices to the chicken about a minute or two before they are ready to come off of the grill.  Assemble sandwiches and divide mango chutney and sauteed onions between the sandwiches.

Caribbean Jerk Chicken Sandwiches

Kevin and I recently got back from a Caribbean cruise that we went on with my parents and my sister.  It was a great vacation, and it was hard to come back to freezing cold weather afterwards. Last week, we decided to use some of the Caribbean jerk seasoning that we bought on our vacation to make chicken sandwiches.  There was a snow storm that night so I decided to grill up the chicken on our indoor grill, and they turned out very good.  This was a good weeknight meal and the jerk seasoning added lots of spice and flavor to the chicken breasts.  Of course we had to top the sandwiches with some melted cheese! 

Ingredients:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts halves, butterflied and pounded out a little bit

4 sandwich buns

salt, pepper, and Caribbean jerk seasoning, to taste

4 provolone cheese slices

1 medium yellow or white onion, sliced

1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips

2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

Season chicken breasts liberally with salt, pepper, and Caribbean jerk seasoning.  Grill either outside or on an indoor grill until chicken is cooked completely through (on my indoor grill it took about 7-8 minutes).

Meanwhile, saute the onions and red bell peppers in butter over medium heat until softened (about 8 minutes). 

During the last couple minutes of grilling the chicken, put some of the onion and bell pepper mixture on top of each sandwich followed by a slice of cheese.  Cook until the cheese is melted, stick them on buns, and enjoy!

Meatball Subs

This isn't really a recipe, but I just love meatball subs!  Whenever I make spaghetti and meatballs, I always make sure I'll have some extra meatballs to freeze and use later.  It's so easy to pull together for a quick, weeknight meal, and it's perfect in the winter when you're craving a hot sandwich. 

For these sandwiches, I just bought some sub rolls and stuck them under the broiler with some provolone cheese until the cheese was all melted and the bread was toasted.  Then I added some heated up meatballs with a little tomato sauce and you have a 10 minute meal :)

French Dip Sandwiches

Last night's dinner literally took me less than 15 minutes from the time I started slicing my onions to the time we sat down to eat.  This is a perfect weeknight meal to throw together with only 5 ingredients to buy from the grocery store.  Although I will say that I haven't bought deli meat in awhile and I didn't realize that a pound of roast beef was $11 at my grocery store (Dominicks)!  That seemed like a lot so I tried to cut a few bucks off by only getting 3/4 of a pound which worked out fine for us.  I adapted this recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.  The things that I changed from the original recipe are:  I added some sauteed sliced onions to the sandwiches, I seasoned the beef consomme with a little fresh cracked pepper and some garlic powder, and I only used 1 slice of provolone on each sandwich because my slices were pretty big and had a strong flavor.

Ingredients:

1 (10.5 ounce) can beef consomme

1 cup water
1 pound thinly sliced deli roast beef
8 slices provolone cheese
4 hoagie rolls, split lengthwise
1 white or yellow onion
EVOO to saute onion

Directions:

1.  Slice up an onion and saute in a little olive oil until softened (about 10-12 minutes)

 

2.  Meanwhile, heat your beef consumme and water in a saucepan over medium head until slightly boiling (at this time I seasoned with a little pepper and garlic powder).  Reduce heat to low, place the roast beef in the broth, and warm for about 3 minutes or so.

 

3.  Put the cheese slices on your hoagie rolls and broil on low for a few minutes until cheese is melted and bread is toasted.

 

4.  Add some roast beef to each sandwich and either drizzle with some of the broth or serve the broth on the side for dipping.

This was REALLY good.  The beef consumme gave the roast beef a great flavor.

Sloppy Joes

So tonight was the first time that I have ever made homemade sloppy joes. Usually in the past I have just used the Manwich sloppy joe sauce but I found this recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/, and I had all of the ingredients so I decided to give it a try. It turned out very easy and really tasty so I think I'll go with this recipe from now on!

Ingredients:

1 pound lean ground beef
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
3/4 cup ketchup
3 teaspoons brown sugar
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

In a medium skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef, onion, and green pepper; drain off liquids.

Stir in the garlic powder, mustard, ketchup, and brown sugar; mix thoroughly. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

The original recipe can be found here. I doubled the recipe so that I could have leftovers to freeze for another meal. I also added a splash of worcestershire sauce, a splash of red wine vinegar, and a couple tablespoons of good BBQ sauce. I served them on onion rolls that I toasted under the broiler with a little aged cheddar cheese.

Very tasty!