Day 2 - Mushroom Bruschetta and Sandwich

I wanted to make bruschetta with a french baguette. It was extremely cold yesterday and could not get myself to walk down to the store to pick up a loaf. So, I used regular sandwich bread that I had in my pantry. Since I used regular bread, I was in a dilemma weather to name these bruschetta or toast. Well, what is in a name, isn't it? I sauteed the mushrooms, topped it on the bread and then toasted the bread in the oven. I was very liberal with the cheese (at least to my taste) so I made bruschetta with half the filling and sandwiches with the rest of the filling, using less cheese. These were my lunch and dinner yesterday. Bruschetta are great starters!

Total Time: 20 minutes
Preparation: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 minutes
Baking Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

½ tablespoon Oil
10 oz Mushrooms
3 Green Chilies chopped or ½ tablespoon chopped Green Chilies
½ - ¾ teaspoon fresh Rosemary chopped (Can skip it. I did not really like it.. I had some in the fridge so added it)
1 small Onion chopped or ½ cup chopped Onion
1 tablespoon crushed Garlic (I forgot to add it)
¾ - 1 teaspoon Black Pepper Powder
¼ teaspoon Salt (adjust to taste)
2 teaspoon Tamari Sauce (Can be substituted with Soya Sauce)
Cilantro
6 slices Bread
½ - ⅔ cup Cheese (Add less/more to your preference. I used Italian cheese but you can use your favorite cheese)

Preparation:

Heat ½ tablespoon oil, add onion, rosemary, green chilies, chopped mushrooms and saute for 3-4 minutes.
Add salt, pepper, garlic and mix well. Then add tamari sauce to give the mushrooms some color. Saute until the mixture is dry for, 1 - 2 minutes. Total sauteing time is about 5 minutes.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl and let it cool.

For the bruschetta -

Meantime, preheat the oven to 400F.
I used 2 slices of bread, half the mushroom mixture and ⅓ cup cheese.
Butter the bread slices, trim the edges and cut them into two rectangular pieces.
Add half the cheese to half the mushrooms (the other half for the sandwiches), cilantro and mix it.
Top each bread piece with mushrooms, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of it.
Bake it for 5 minutes in a preheated over or until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted.
Serve hot.

For the sandwich -

For each sandwich, place the mushroom mixture and cheese (I used ⅛ cup or 1 ½ tablespoon cheese per sandwich). Heat a frying pan with little bit of oil and grill/toast the sandwich. When it turns bronw, carefully turn it around and toast it. By now the cheese will begin to melt. Remove from the pan, cut each sandwich diagonally into 2 pieces and then cut each piece into 2 pieces. We will have total 4 pieces. Serve hot.

These Bruschetta and sandwiches are my entry to Only:Cooking with breads and Celebrating Sandwiches.

For the next two rounds, I am going to serve some non vegetarian starters. Now lets head over to my marathon buddies to checkout what they have for us.

In 2009, this day I posted Chikkudukaya kura or Indian broad beans fry