Earlier this year I reviewed the Hamilton Beach Breakfast Sandwich Maker. The machine is easy to use, and that is half the battle. You just plug it in, let it heat, layer the ingredients in a fool-proof manner and wait for the sandwich to be done.
I really love the little machine but even after having it for a while I've struggled with a lack of combination imagination. Then along came Jessica Harlan's Crazy for Breakfast Sandwiches: 101 Delicious Handheld Meals Hot Out of Your Sandwich Maker ($14.95, Ulysses) cookbook and now I have seen the light.
The book has a nice variety of recipes. Chapter topics are Classic Sandwiches, Meatless Mornings, Not For Breakfast Sammies, Open-Faced Meals and Desserts. There are also recipes for make-ahead components like biscuits, pancakes, cookie crusts, bacon lattice patties, grits or polenta cakes. But you don't have to be a baker to enjoy this machine.
There are recipes that use ingredients like frozen waffles, tortillas, pita bread and even hash browns.
From experience, I'd say it pays to have all the ingredients ready to go before you start layering.
I really enjoyed the Breakfast Burrito, which is made with flour tortillas, cheese, salsa, an egg and refried beans. It was more flavorful than I'd imagined and very easy to make. The most work involved is cutting two 4-inch rounds from a large tortilla. The only drawback I found was that, when eating the sandwich, the beans were slick and the egg wanted to slide around a bit between the tortillas.
The Mediterranean Morning recipe is a delicious and simple sandwich that would work for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's made with an egg, pita bread, hummus and roughly chopped Kalamata olives. It could be changed up by using different flavors of hummus and experimenting with olive types.
The book gives a history of the breakfast sandwich and plenty of tips and pointers, and offers a list of tools that might make the sandwich building process easier. There's also an easy-to-use Create-A-Sandwich chart for cooking without a recipe.
Food on 08/20/2014