Oregon Transplant: Chicken, Spinach, and Mushroom Melts

I love sandwiches. Love, love, love them. Before this summer and my guacamole-a-thon, I had been on a sandwich kick for a long time. A long, long time, eating a sandwich every day for lunch. I can't explain this behavior, it just is. I get stuck on something, and then I eat it. And eat it, and eat it, and eat it. Pretty much until I'm sick of it. So happened with my turkey sandwich. Here's the thing about my sandwich kicks- they last a long time and they always come back. When I lived in Oregon, I spent most of 2009 on a sandwich kick. The building I worked at had a cafeteria where I found the most magical turkey sandwich. I ate it almost every day that year. Yep, I'm that weirdo.

My point? I love me some sandwich. Joey from "Friends" and I would get along likethis. So, needless to say, I make sandwiches for dinner a lot too. I save the turkey for lunch, and always try to come up with a delicious, hot combination for dinner.

Such as this! Savory chicken, tender onions and mushrooms flavored with fresh thyme, and of course, CHEESE!

Because cheese makes everything better, doesn't it? It makes my world go round :-)

A little fresh thyme from the ol' herb garden.

I always have sandwich bread on hand. My favorite to use for sandwiches are these multigrain ciabatta rolls from Sam's. I buy them in bulk, freeze them in packs of 2, and simply pull them from the freezer when I need them. They defrost super fast, in about 30-45 minutes. Plus, if they are still a little frozen when you use them, they warm up quickly in the oven.

I find ciabatta rolls a little too thick and bread-y sometimes. I like to "scoop" out some of the innards of the bread before constructing the sandwich. It makes for a much more pleasing bread to toppings ratio.

Look at all those mushrooms and onions. Yummmmmmmmmm.

I melted provolone on these sandwiches, but I think Swiss or mozzarella would be excellent picks as well. Hey, as long as you have some kind of cheese, you are good to go!

You guys, these are so simple and so fast to make. They are perfect for a busy weeknight when you don't have much time to prepare dinner. I used rotisserie chicken that I roughly chopped. I actually put the chicken in the same pan as the onions and mushrooms were they were fully cooked. The pan warmed up the chicken the perfect amount, because the oven can do the rest. Pile the chicken mixture on one half of a ciabatta roll. Place a slice of cheese over the chicken mixture. Place in the oven under "broil" for 3-4 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and starting to brown. Remove from oven, top with spinach, and you're done!

Serve with a side salad, roasted potatoes, or something like chips and a pasta salad.

It's hard being a food blogger sometimes. Especially when it's 7 am and you now want a big, cheesy sandwich for breakfast. I mean, couldn't a cheesy sandwich be the breakfast of champions?

In Jessica's World, it definitely could! :-)

So, a little bit about behind the scenes. I sometimes work on my posts in a weird fashion. I always load my pictures ahead of time, so I have posts to choose from working on. Right now, I have 23 posts with pictures loaded. It might sound like a lot, but trust me, it's not. A couple of them are end-of-the-year posts that do me no good right now. So, my pick for a post today was sandwiches.

I go in and write everything I want to write. Sometimes I skip writing the recipe until absolutely last, because it can be tedious and boring. I almost always load up my related recipes (i.e if you liked this recipe, you may enjoy these) first. I was doing that today, going through my Pinterest folder to see which recipes I wanted to include. I was surprised to notice a lack of sandwiches to choose from, considering they are a big part of my diet. Well well. Looks like I have a new objective.

Create. More. Sandwiches!!!

It won't be tonight, because tonight I'm making Chicken Fajita Casserole. Oooh, lord child. Recipe to be posted soon...

Have a great weekend friends!

Ingredients (serves 2):

2- Ciabatta rolls, halved

1 tsp olive oil

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 cup mushrooms, thinly sliced

handful of fresh thyme, removed from stems and chopped

salt and pepper

1 cup cooked, shredded chicken

2- slices of provolone cheese

1/2 cup spinach leaves

Directions:

1. Scoop out some of the ciabatta bread from the roll halves, to taste. Discard innards. Set rolls aside.

2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. When warm, add onions, mushrooms, and thyme. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sauté for 5-7 minutes or until mushrooms and onions have softened. Stir in the chicken, and remove from heat.

3. Turn oven to "Broil". On a cookie sheet, place bottom half of rolls. Divide the chicken-mushroom mixture between the two halves. Top with provolone cheese. Place top halves of rolls on cookie sheet, the inside facing up. Place cookie sheet in the oven and toast until the cheese is melted and starting to brown, and the top halves of rolls are toasted. Remove from oven.

4. Divide spinach leaves between the two sandwiches. Sandwich rolls with the top half. Place sandwiches on 2 plates, cut sandwiches in half, and serve immediately.

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