Not Your Usual Grilled Cheese No. 3: On Pumpkin Bread and Loaded

You've probably all figured out by now that I like think of different ways to use up leftovers. And that I think Grilled Cheese is the most amazingly versatile food ever. Well today was no different. I had a few items in the fridge that were on their last day of being edible - mushrooms, a bit of roasted turkey, half a package of bacon and half a loaf of homemade Sour Cream Pumpkin Bread.

So I made grilled cheese out of all those ingredients plus some cheese, eggs and for extra good health, flax seed. Okay I see your puzzled looks but trust me - flax seed is not noticeable in foods, either in taste or texture. So it's perfectly okay to sprinkle some on to whatever you're making. And it is one of the best sources of Omega 3 there is!

Here is my list of ingredients for 3 sandwiches:

• 3 eggs
• some margarine for the sandwiches and for frying those mushrooms
• bacon (about 3 slices per sandwich unless you are a die-hard bacon lover, then you will want more
• 3 large mushrooms, sliced
• a bit of salsa (about 1 tsp per sandwich)
• leftover cooked turkey or chicken
• pumpkin bread - enough to equal 6 normal slices of bread. I didn't have enough so had to make 2 pumpkin bread grilled cheese and 2 white bread 
• cheese. Once again I forgot to buy cheddar cheese when we went grocery shopping on Monday so had to resort to processed cheese slices. 
• Tomatoes. I didn't have any but I would have sliced them and included them if I had

The first step is to start cooking your bacon. I like to do mine on parchment paper in a 350' oven for about 20 minutes. It saves all that splattering of grease, and having no room on my stove to cook the rest of the ingredients.

You can butter your bread and start prepping your mushrooms. I also like to put each of the eggs I'm going to use in a small ramekin or cup so that I can inspect them to make sure there are no yukky bits.

When there is about 10 minutes left before your bacon is ready, start frying up your mushroom slices. I also added my leftover turkey so it would come to heat  with the mushrooms. When my bacon and mushroom-turkey mix were ready I wrapped them in tin foil and put them in the microwave to keep warm.

Then I fried my eggs in one skillet and starting toasting my buttered breads in a second one. I talked about the right way to cook an egg so there are no crispy edges and so the yolk is not running out when you bite into your sandwich, at Not Your Usual Grilled Cheese No. 2

I like to put my cheese on the fried egg just before it is ready so the heat melts the cheese slightly. I also put about a tsp. of flax seed divided evenly on the eggs as they were cooking.  Remember to break the yolks too.

Once my bread was lightly toasted on one side, I started layering the ingredients - egg with melted cheese and flaxseed, then mushrooms and turkey, then bacon. I topped this with a dollop of garlic salsa (but I would use regular salsa next time) then put the second piece of bread on top. This is a thick sandwich and needs to be pressed down with something heavy.

 This is the Flax Seed I buy. It can sprinkled on oatmeal, cottage cheese, yogurt, even on sour cream. You can bake with it by adding a teaspoon to your regular recipe for any kind of breads. Just be sure it is ground and keep it in the refrigerator once you've opened it. It's high in fibre and Omega 3

 The pumpkin bread is cooking in one skillet and I've started layering

The white bread is toasting in a separate skillet and I've put the egg-cheese on as the start of my layers.

Layering with bacon, mushrooms, turkey and a dollop of salsa.

Turn the sandwich over carefully and toast the other piece of bread. This pumpkin bread sandwich is almost ready. Don't forget to press the sandwiches down with something heavy!

When they are golden, slice the sandwiches and serve. We had ours with tea and it hit the spot.

This is the white bread sandwich I made along with the pumpkin bread sandwiches