We eat sandwiches for dinner sometimes. Ed is so accommodating, he will eat anything I cook and never complain. For example — recently I baked a batch of butter cookies for too long and they were nearly burned and he told me he actually prefers them that way.

Anyway, he’s okay with sandwiches for dinner and that’s all very familiar to me because I grew up in a sandwich household. My Mom used leftovers creatively most of the time, although she NEVER called them leftovers because she didn’t like that word. But sometimes dinner was just a sandwich. 

I don’t make Grilled Cheese sandwiches too often though. Our dinner sandwiches are usually more substantial. Grilled Cheese is usually just when the grandkids come.

But occasionally we’ll have it, depending on what kind of cheese I have in the fridge and bread in the freezer. I like to use cheese/bread combinations other than American cheese on white bread (although I am NOT sneering at that. I just need something more for dinner sometimes).

Recently I made this sandwich and we both loved it: Grilled Cheese with Fruit and Jam.

It’s what’s for dinner.

Grilled Cheese with Fruit and Jam

2 slices multigrain bread

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon apricot jam

1-1/2 to 2 ounces sliced cheddar, Gouda, Manchego or fontina cheese

slices of fresh peach, nectarine, mango, papaya or apricot

Spread one slice of the bread with a half tablespoon of the butter. Spread the other slice of bread with the jam. Place the cheese and fruit on top of one of the bread slices, then cover the sandwich with the other slice. Melt half the remaining butter in a saute pan (preferably nonstick) over medium heat. When the butter has melted and looks foamy, place the sandwich in the pan, cover and cook for about 2 minutes. Lift the sandwich with a rigid spatula and add the remaining butter, let it melt and flip the sandwich into the pan. Cook for another 2 minutes or until the outside is crispy and golden brown and the cheese has melted. Makes one sandwich

I came from a mayonnaise family. My husband Ed’s family was all about ketchup. Honestly, his parents used to buy bottles of Heinz in bulk long before anyone ever heard of Costco and BJ’s. And so did he, based on what I spotted in the cupboards of his single-guy apartment the first time I looked.

Opinions run high on stuff like this, just like with politics.

Imagine Michelle Bachmann discussing Hellman’s versus Heinz with Al Gore.

It’s not really such a big deal though because when it comes to something like a roast beef sandwich we can each put whatever we want on the bread, right?

But no, right after we were married and might be making sandwiches on a Sunday afternoon, we would each slather the bread and then taunt each other about how the sandwich we were eating was so much better than the other one’s.

Over the intervening years for one reason or another we have each cut down on our favorite condiment. Although I still love a summer tomato sandwich with mayo. And he still pours a blob of ketchup on his plate when I serve grilled steak.

He has tried to convince me that olive oil tastes better on that summer tomato sandwich, but I am not convinced.

I think there ought to be a law against eating ketchup with a good grilled steak.

We both agree that you have to use mayo, not ketchup, for egg salad, but that ketchup, not mayo, is best for meatloaf.

And of course, we can always choose that loving combo of — ketchup PLUS mayo. 

A nice compromise. It often works to the good.

Like on a hamburger.

Or in this turkey sandwich recipe, which you might want to consider for your leftovers after Thanksgiving.

Turkey Sandwich

6 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon finely chopped jalapeno pepper

1/2 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon peel

6 sesame seed buns

6 pieces of lettuce or a bunch of watercress

sliced, leftover turkey

2 avocados, sliced, optional

12 tomato slices

6 slices Monterey Jack cheese, optional

Combine the mayonnaise, ketchup, jalapeno pepper and lemon peel in a bowl, mix well and spread equal amounts of this mixture on one side of each of the sesame seed buns. Cover with lettuce or watercress. Top with slices of cooked turkey, optional avocado, tomato and cheese. Cover with the remaining bun half. Makes 6 sandwiches

It finally dawned on me why my mother might have made toasted cheese sandwiches, not grilled cheese. I’m guessing it was because of rationing during World War II. There wasn’t a whole lot of butter to lavish on a sandwich, so she leaned to prepare the sandwich the way I described yesterday — slices of American cheese on top of white bread, toasted in the broiler.

To confirm my suspicions, I got out my handy 1942 antique version of The Good Housekeeping Cooking (complete with its “Wartime Supplement”) and sure enough, there are, on pages 524 and 525, recipes for “Toasted Sandwiches” and even “Toasted Cheese Sandwiches - New Style,” by which they mean a kind of Welsh Rabbit.

There are several variations on the standard Toasted Cheese, including a panfried version and also one for the broiler. Here are two. They’re from long ago but still sound good:

Toasted Cheese with Cream Cheese and Orange Marmalade

6 slices bread

cream cheese

1 tablespoon orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Spread the bread with the cream cheese, then the marmalade. Place on a rack and bake for 5 minutes “or until they have crusty toasty look on the underside.” Makes 6

Or this one (you can substitute soy bacon or tomato slices):

Toasted Cheese

bread slices (meaning white bread)

butter

American cheese

bacon (or use tomato slices)

Spread some butter on the bread slices. Cover with slices of American cheese. Lay 2 half slices of bacon top. Broil until cheese is melted and bacon is crisp, turning the bacon once. 

I didn’t taste a real, authentic grilled cheese sandwich until I was grown up. It’s hard to believe when I think about it, but I was fully in college when a friend asked me over and said he’d make a grilled cheese sandwich for me.

I was shocked when he slathered a piece of bread with what seemed like a whole stick of soft butter, put another huge lump of butter in a frying pan and then layered some yellow American cheese between the buttered bread and a plain slice. He fried the sandwich in the pan, covered, plain side down first, until both sides were toasty and the cheese was melted and oozing out of the sides.

Well, at least he got the cheese right.

My mother had always made grilled cheese in a toaster oven. And, in the days before toaster ovens, in the broiler. She put several slices of American cheese on one slice of white bread — NO BUTTER —and toasted it (or broiled it) open-face until the cheese was hot and melty. Sometimes giant air bubbles grew on the top of the cheese and if she waited a moment or so too long, they would burn and blacken and then break so that there were crumbles of tiny ashen cheese where the bubble used to be. When she went fancy on us she’d put a slice of tomato on top of the cheese before she cooked the sandwich.

Despite the deliciousness of my friend’s recipe, I reverted to the familiar when I made grilled cheese for my kids. White bread, open-face and toasted. It took less time, less work and of course, no butter, which made it healthier and less caloric, although you really can’t brag about healthy when you are cooking with white bread and American cheese. Fact is, this is the way we liked it.

So, this is the way I make it for my grandkids. Except now I use multi-grain bread. Until recently, when my grand daughter Nina, age 3-1/2, started eating lunch at school, I would bring her a cut up grilled cheese sandwich for lunch on our weekly visit.

Last week my daughter Meredith made Nina a real grilled cheese sandwich. She buttered the bread and melted butter in the pan, put one slice of bread in, dry side down, added cheese to the center, and so on, until it came out classic grilled cheese.

Here’s the report from headquarters: “Nina was. Appalled. She kept saying in that sassy tone that I was supposed to use the toaster. Grandma uses the toaster!”

She also told her mother that Grandma was a “better cooker” and that “if you keep making grilled cheese in a pan I will have to tell grandma next time she is here.”

To everyone out there, whatever age you are — I wish you grandchildren so you can treasure comments like that one.

For everyone out there, whatever your age, try “grilled cheese” the way my mother made it. Or continue with the classic, diner-style stuff. Whatever. Grilled Cheese is one of our most beloved culinary staples.

But you might also want to go out on a limb with the simple concept of grilled cheese. There are other cheeses, other kinds of bread. The bread-cheese combo is endless. Anyone who reads this blog and who knows me also knows that I like to experiment with recipes. Even grilled cheese. Even toasted cheese. Here’s a version from my book, Hip Kosher. 

Crisped Manchego Cheese Panini with Fig Jam

1 ciabatta or other crusty roll

1 tablespoon cream cheese

1-1/2 tablespoons fig jam

1 ounce Manchego (Gilboa) cheese, sliced

Slice the roll in half. Spread the bottom with the cream cheese first, then the jam. Top with the Manchego cheese slices. Cover with the other half of the roll. Preheat a non-stick saute pan or a cast iron skillet (or use a panini press if you have one) over medium heat. Place the sandwich in the pan, then place another pan on top and add a can of food or other weight to press the pan down firmly. Cook for 2-3 minutes per side or until the outside is crispy and the cheese has melted. Makes one sandwich