Not just any Sandwich!

I love to cook. It's one of my favorite things. But, it's summer. And I don't know about you, but some nights in the summer I just don't want to cook. It's hot outside, so I don't want to turn on the oven, and there's so much fun to be had I don't want to be cooped up in the kitchen preparing a meal. On those night when I just don't feel like cooking, we tend to eat a lot of salads and sandwiches. But when I heard my boys cry, "Not sandwiches again!" I knew I had to mix things up. So I decided to hit my favorite recipe resource, pinterest. I looked up and found several great looking summer recipes, but nothing that suited my fancy. So I decided to stick with sandwiches, but to change things up a bit.

I can understand why the boys would be bored of sandwiches. After all, I was making them ham and cheese on white bread. Not exactly gourmet. So instead of that, I made a giant party size submarine sandwich, and immediately their sandwich complaints went right out the window. There is something so much fun about assembling and serving a giant sized sandwich. It's like having party food for dinner! My youngest son laughed about the possibility of a man large enough to eat the whole big sandwich for dinner, while he happily scarfed down two servings!

This isn't rocket science, but I thought I would share with you the idea, in case your family is in a summer meal rut as well. Here's how I made my sandwich!

I started out with one of those bakery loaves of seeded italian bread. We scored ours on sale at the walmart bakery for $0.39! (My hubby recognized the good deal and bought 4 to stockpile in the freezer! All my budget nagging must be paying off!) You can get these in your bakery generally for a dollar or less. I just used a serrated knife and cut it open sandwich style. Then I added my sandwich ingredients, closed it up and we cut it into single serving size and served it with potato chips.

 The toppings I put on ours were Caesar Dressing (my husband isn't a fan of mayonnaise, and I am not a fan of mustard so this is how we compromise) Ham, colby jack cheese, bacon (another grocery store steal I found this week, bacon for a dollar a pack - I bought 5!!), romaine lettuce and tomatoes. You can put any combination of yummy sandwich toppings on here though. It's totally customizable.

This meal (which my kids call the giant sandwich) is great for a family meal but would also be great for parties, or picnics! It's quicker and easier that making a large number of single serving sandwiches, and it got my boys excited about eating sandwiches again!