Fancy Pants Ham and Cheese Sandwiches

I hate sandwiches.  I know it's a very weird thing to hate, but I do.  It might be the sliced sandwich bread, because I do like nice breads that are served in restaurants.  It might be the lunch meat, although I do occasionally eat a slice of lunch meat with a slice of cheese.  I also thought maybe it was my gag reflex to anything with mayo or mustard, but I won't even put a PB&J sandwich anywhere near my mouth.  So it's a mystery.

I do, however, love grilled sandwiches!  Go figure.  I was looking through the soup section of my new Bon Appetit cookbook suggesting things for Brett and he asked, "Why do we have to have soup?"  My response was, "Because I'm looking in the soup section!"  So I turned to the sandwich section instead and found a recipe for, "Grilled ham and gouda sandwiches with frisee and caramelized onions."  We both love smoked gouda cheese and caramelized onions so this sounded like a winner.  We of course promptly agreed to leave off the frisee.

I started by thinly slicing a large onion.  I love my Mandoline!

The caramelizing process takes a long time and I actually stopped short of the suggested time because the onion slices looked (and smelled) like they were beginning to burn.  It's amazing how much they cook down.  From one large onion I had just the right amount for two sandwiches.

I assembled the smoked ham, smoked gouda, and caramelized onions on sliced sourdough bread and grilled them up.

They tasted great and were so hearty that I couldn't even finish mine.  This bodes well for the Bon Appetit Cookbook as well!