Sandwiches are a lunch staple around our house. Sometimes the bread, meat, and condiments can becoming old and boring. A few extra touches can make spice up that plain sandwich.

The Bread Instead of using plain bread, try using hoagies, wheat bread, or even tortillas. Changing up the bread you use will make a ham sandwich into a po-boy or a wrap with little effort.

Serve it open face Put the meat on your sandwich, melt some cheese on top, and leave that other slice of bread on the plate or in the bread bag. An open face sandwich will make your hungry bunch think of a sandwich from a restaurant. My husband saw a recipe for a plain sandwich. The only difference was it was open faced. He was salivating over at the mere thought of it. Open faced sandwiches are easy to make and can be a real crowd pleaser.

Mix up the Sandwich Meat Using two types of meat on a sandwich can be a great way to spice it up. Turkey and ham go together really well. For more taste, try salami, corned beef, or even pepperoni.

Say Cheese Think outside the box when it comes to cheese. Venture into other cheeses besides American for sandwiches like provolone, swiss, and cheddar. I like to slice a Colby/Monterrey Jack blend on my ham sandwiches.

Leave the luncheon meat in the fridge A peanut butter and jelly sandwich always hits the spot for me. Tuna salad and chicken salad sandwiches are also good especially on a hot summer day. We like to take tuna and use a tortilla to make a tuna wrap. This was a sandwich we discovered after Hurricane Katrina when all we had was our canned goods. It’s very tasty and satisfying.

Sandwiches make a great lunch. With a little change here and there, that boring sandwich will become a lunchtime hit.

Chicken Salad is one of the easiest salads to make, and this recipe makes it even easier. If you don’t have any leftover chicken, use a can of chicken. It’s good and it’s already cut up for you ready to use.

What you need:

Chicken
Dill Relish
Mayonaise
Apple or Grapes or both

Shred the chicken into a bowl. Start with a good spoonful each of dill relish and mayonaise. If you need more mayo, then add it later. Cut your apple up into bite-sized chunks and slice the grapes in half. I like to refrigerate and then eat so it’s nice and cold.

Back when I was in college, we had to make webpages using notepad. How times have changed. Now it isn’t paramount to know HTML to have a web presence, which is a good thing. HTML is easiest enough to figure out. Chances are with any website or blog you may have to dabble into the code every now and then to tweak it.

Finding a good html editor will help make tweaking code easier and faster. My favorite free HTML editor is one I have used for years. It’s called Arachnophilia. I first learned of Arachnophilia when I was in college way back in the late 90’s. A few years ago they updated to a java platform, and I didn’t really care for that version. The version I still use is 4.0. I like that each menu item has a button toolbar, so if I want to build a table, I just click on the table button. Then I have a row of commands that are related to tables. By clicking on a button, it sends the code to the editor. Arachnophilia is free but is classified as careware.

Another free html editor that has promise is Crimson Editor. Crimson editor is more than an html editor. It is a source editor to edit code for many programming languages like C and PHP. My geeky husband uses Crimson Editor. I have yet to really delve into it. I do like that when I view a source page of a website, it automatically opens in Crimson Editor. Crimson Editor is fast loading, so to view source took about as long as viewing it in notepad. Crimson Editor also has a spell checker and user-defined macros.

There are plenty of free html editors out there. These are only two that I have either used extensively or someone that I know has. Of the few that I have tried, these seem to show the most promise for my needs.

Shepherd’s Pie is an easy recipe that can usually be made with what you already have on hand. In school, we always called it modern meat pie. I never ate it then as it wasn’t appealing. It was school cafeteria food afterall. I actually enjoy it now. It’s contains one of my favorite comfort foods plus it’s super easy to fix.

What you’ll need:

Potatoes
1 lb hamburger meat
1 cup shredded cheese

Boil your potatoes until you can make mashed potatoes. I recommend red potatoes and leave on the skins. Red potatoes are fairly soft and won’t take that long to be ready. Brown the hamburger meat and drain. I like to season my hamburger meat usually with Worchestershire sauce to give it a little kick. Any cheese will do.

Take your mashed potatoes and put them in the bottom of a casserole dish. Next, layer the meat on top of the potatoes. Finally, top with the cheese. Cover and back at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Here is a simple recipe that makes a yummy meal. It’s called Taco Bake.

You’ll need:

8-10 flour tortillas (if they are the larger size, you can use less)
1 can Tomato Soup
1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 lb hamburger meat
1 pack taco seasoning

Cut the tortillas into 1 inch squares. Cook the ground beef, then add the taco seasoning sauce. Add about 1/4 cup of water to seasoning. Let it cook until water is almost completely gone. Add can of tomato soup and milk. Stir together, then mix in tortillas and half of cheese. Put mixture into oven-safe casserole dish and cover. Place in over preheated to 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove and sprinkle rest of cheese onto the top of taco back. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes.

Sausage balls are one of my favorite appetizers. They are easy to make and a crowd pleaser. Really, how can you go wrong with bread, cheese, and meat?

Ingredients:

2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese (I use mild cheddar cheese most of the time, and it’s still yummy.)
2 lbs hot sausage
4 cups Bisquick mix

Mix all ingredients together until you have dough. Take dough and roll pieces into bite-size balls. A spoonful of dough is just about right. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

This yields 60-75 sausage balls. You can make these ahead of that big party. Freeze sausage balls and reheat as needed.