Summer Fresh Vegan Grilled Cheese

This past weekend I was lucky enough to find some fresh garden tomatoes at the farmers market, along with cucumbers, a Cajun spice mix, beets, carrots, beans, potatoes and purple garlic. Of course I was happy to bring home all of my vegetables but I was mainly happy about the tomatoes! For me there is nothing better than a fresh tomato out of the garden. It literally is one of those simple pleasures you can only experience a couple months out of the year here in Saskatchewan, so when they are in season I really try to eat as many as possible because I know it’s going to be short lived.

When I got home I was contemplating what to eat for lunch and then I remembered that I had just bought a new kind of Daiya from Safeway, the Swiss Cheese Slices. And what better way to use them but in a grilled cheese sandwich. I got out the bread, the Daiya and some coconut oil and got to making my lunch, but then I thought “what could make this better?” I searched around my fridge and couldn’t really think of anything to put on top, but then I spied the tomatoes I had just got from the farmers market and that sparked the idea of a tomato, spinach grilled cheese.

After I decided what to put on my jacked up grilled cheese, I wasn’t too sure how this was going to turn out with the spinach and tomatoes. Would the tomatoes make the bread soggy? Will the spinach be too wilted and turn into mush? I wasn’t totally positive this was going to be a hit, but I like to cook dangerously and I was willing to take the risk. And I am really happy I did! Not only did the bread not turn soggy, but the spinach and tomatoes were cooked just right and the cheese was melty!

The tomatoes and spinach really brought this typical sandwich to another level for me. The freshness of the garden tomatoes with the earthiness of the spinach really brought this typical sandwich to another level for me. It going to be really hard to go back to just eating a just plain grilled cheese again because this was one of the best grilled cheeses I ever had.

Summer Fresh Grilled Cheese

2 slices of Bread

2 slices of Daiya Swish Cheese Slices or any other Daiya cheese your prefer

1 tomato

Baby spinach

Coconut oil

I like to layer the sandwich with the cheese on the bread then the spinach then the tomatoes. You want to keep the tomatoes as far away from the bread as possible so it doesn’t get soggy. Also when making a Daiya grilled cheese you kind of have to be a little inventive. Daiya doesn’t melt as quickly as dairy cheese, so when making something like a grilled cheese you have to be a little patient and watchful or else you could end up burning your bread or not having a completely melted sandwich. So what I do is turn the stove onto about medium high and cook the one side until golden brown (about 2 minutes). Then when I flip the sandwich over, I take it off the heat, cover the frying pan with a lid and let it sit for another 2-3 minutes. That way the steam is trapped and helps melt the cheese.

Thanks for reading!

Xoxo -N

This is what I found when I cut open the tomato I was using! Gotta love life's little messages!