By any other name

Despite all of our differences, we have basic commonalities. For example, we all eat. And while ethnic cuisines can vary greatly in variety,there are only so many ways you can do things, and more often than not, it comes down to the available resources and ingredients. When i was a kid, i would occasionally bring Zongzi for lunch. of course, everyone would ask what the heck it was i was eating, and i'd go into the details of glutinous rice with dried shrimp, chestnuts, chinese sausage, etc. and most of my classmates would still be kinda mystified if not weirded out. nowadays,  i just tell people it's a chinese version of a tamale.

Similarly, a quesadilla is just a latin version of a grilled cheese sandwich.  And everybody's got their own version. For me, I prefer sharp cheddar cheese; and basic white bread. YMMV. But there are so many different things you can do to that simple combination.

It's summer, and tomatoes have been on sale for $.39/lb. So i bought about 10 lbs and roasted them in the oven, along with some garlic cloves. This is worth a blog post of its own . This time around, I've went overnight at 250, resulting in more of a sun dried tomato result, so i packed them in olive oil and put them into the fridge. It was with this kind of tomato I decided to experiiment and i was very pleased with the results.

as I can fit 3 sandwiches in my frying pan at a time, i tend to make three at a time:

1) take one large yellow onion and cut three thin slices from the middle, (diameter about the size of your bread);

2) place onion slices in frying pan, drizzle with olive oil used to pack the dried tomatoes;

3) Here's a place where you can experiment - under low/medium heat, either sweat (heat until the onion changes color) or caramelize (brown the onion). While onion is cooking, assemble your sandwich(es)

a) bread - brush top with olive oil used to pack tomatoes, and set aside, brushed side up

b) brush one side of other piece of bread, place on other slice of bread, brushed side down

c) layer of cheese on bread

d) layer of tomato

e) remove onion from pan, and place on top of tomato

f) another layer of cheese

g) place assembled sandwich (minus bread slice oiled side up) into pan

h) top sandwich with last slice of bread, oiled side *up*

Reduce heat back down to low if it wasn't, flip sandwich and brown other side. devour.

Brushing a slice of bread with mustard (with horseradish) during assembly would probably be pretty good too, but i was happy with the results.