The Cottage Smallholder

Ham cheese and tomato toasty snack

This ham, cheese and tomato brunch snack was ridiculously easy to make. Five star comfort food. The secret of course is putting grated cheese and tomatoes under the ham as well as on top. This gives a glutinous squish that perfectly counterbalances the crisp underside of the toast.

I really enjoy making savoury snacks and came up with the cheese under the ham idea this morning whilst I was lying in bed thinking about brunch. Perhaps I need to explain a little more about why we eat brunch everyday. It’s an important meal – we eat just that and supper in the evening.

We used to eat breakfast. Back in the days when we took baths instead of showers. When we had to leave the house for work early in the morning. Then it was cereal and coffee, eaten quietly with bleary eyes and the prospect of snarling traffic and bosses that flashed their giant incisors when they smiled.

Now we both work from home. Danny is often at his desk at five and I work in bed all morning – we are fuelled by tea and coffee. If Danny is hungry he might eat a yoghurt or a snack on a cracker.

We eat brunch at midday. This is more like a continental breakfast – ham, cheese, pate, hard boiled eggs, cold sausages, sliced tongue, kippers, bread. This is beginning to sound like a grand Victorian breakfast, with surprises laid out under silver covers on a sideboard.

It’s not really like that.

Although, our brunch is a proper sit down meal. We can chat if we want to. The food is just what I find in lurking in the fridge – perhaps two or three from the list. Being chicken keepers we always have eggs. Sometimes I try and rustle something more imaginative with the ingredients on offer, especially if Danny has had a hard week like today.

This combination of half toast, ham, cheddar cheese and tomatoes was wonderful and happily indulgent. Go on treat yourself, you won’t regret it!