Breakfast Meets Lunch-for Dinner the Monte Cristo Sandwich

Let me first say this is our variation of the Monte Cristo Sandwich and it may differ from the tradition a bit. I am really not sure how close it comes even.

The roots of our house eating this dates back a while. One day I was watching some cooking show or another on TV and the host was making his/her version of the Monte Cristo. It just happened that my daughter walked through the room at that time and mentioned it looked really good.

A couple of weeks later she and I happened to be at the grocery store (on our way home from the ice rink) and I asked her what we should have for dinner the next day. We talked about a couple of possibilities and this sandwich came up. Neither of us could remember exactly how it was made or the exact ingredients but we got ingredients for what we remembered. I put this sandwich together the next night and it was a huge hit. It has regularly been on the table ever since. And you know what I never did go back to see how close this comes to the one we saw on TV that time. LOL

So you may be asking why the title of today's post. Well when you get right down to it that is what this sandwich is: part breakfast part lunch and we usually have it for dinner. The breakfast part is the exterior of the sandwich which is our old friend French Toast. The inside of the sandwich has a nice meat and cheese filling. This is all combined into a wonderfully yummy sandwich that can proudly become your dinner.

The coating for the outside is based on my standard French toast recipe. You will need this much for every one and a half sandwiches. In other words this much will do 1, double this amount will coat 2 or 3 and so on.

So for every 1 and half sandwiches:

1 egg

¼ cup milk

2 Tablespoons Bisquick

a pinch of salt.

For each sandwich you will need:

2 slices white bread- we like either potato bread of a good sourdough

deli sliced ham

deli sliced turkey

deli sliced Swiss cheese

mayonnaise

berry jam

Start pre-heating your skillet while you build the sandwiches, I almost always use my big old antique cast iron skillet for this. I also pre-heat my oven to just warm and prepare a flat baking sheet with a wire rack. This way I can cook one sandwich at a time and move them to the oven to stay warm.

I like to line my slices of bread up in pairs for the sandwiches and do this assembly line fashion. First spread a tiny bit of mayonnaise on each slice of bread. This will help to seal it and prevent the outside coating from making it soggy later (don't ask how I know this)

Next layer on Swiss cheese on all slices of bread right over the mayonnaise. Now on half the slices add the turkey and on the other half add the ham. Over the ham spread a bit of the jam, probably about a ½ Tablespoon or so- it's up to you. Now plop those sandwiches together. From the bottom up you should have:

bread

mayonnaise

Swiss cheese

Turkey

Jam

ham

Swiss cheese

Mayonnaise

bread

Now combine those coating ingredients in a shallow dish (I usually use a pie plate) getting the mixture as smooth and lump free as possible.

Add just a tiny amount of butter to your pre-heated skillet.

Carefully dip the first sandwich into the coating turn and coat both sides just like you were making french toast. Now move the sandwich to the skillet and cook until the bottom side is nicely browned. Carefully flip the sandwich over and cook the other side.

Since I always only cook one sandwich at a time- it is much easier this way I now move the cooked sandwich to a wire rack on a baking sheet and stick this into a warm oven. This does two things it allows the sandwich to stay warm while I fix the rest of the sandwiches and also it helps to make sure the cheese is all the way melted without risking burning the outside of the sandwich.

That is really all there is to it. These are sooooo yummy your family will love them, I know mine does.