One of life's simple pleasures made with care.

There are some simple pleasures in life which never fail to hit the spot. For me, a home-made pan fried grilled cheese, onion and tomato sandwich on brown bread with mayo and tomato sauce is defiantly one of those things! Now, I’m not one to scoff at a good old snackwich or jaffle either but my granny always used to make pan friend toasted sandwiches and it just tastes right to me.

I have a few little secrets which I think make for the perfect grilled cheese. Firstly, you need to lightly toast the bread you are going to use. Then spread butter evenly over the toast and lay it butter down on a chopping board. The butter will be on the outside of the sandwich. I like to put mayo, tomato sauce, pesto or chutney on the inside of my sandwich. Then I layer my cheese, onion and tomato (and salt my tomato slightly). I close the sandwich and put it with the cheese side closest to the bottom, in a pan on medium heat. The pan doesn’t need to be oiled as you have buttered the bread on the outside.

It is important that the sandwich fries slowly as you want to heat the sandwich through, melting the cheese before the bread burns. Once the one side is nicely browned and crisp, carefully turn over the sandwich with a spatula, and ensure that the sandwich doesn’t come apart. Then fry until the second side is browned and crisp. At this stage the cheese should be melting. Cut up and enjoy….

These come with a warning – they are totally addictive!