Growing up, we rarely ate  sandwiches for dinner or lunch. The few times we ate sandwiches were on picnic, or when we were out and about. In France, there are two popular sandwiches: le petit fromage, or jambon fromage which consists of a half baguette cut in half with butter, Emmenthal and ham, and there is Croque- Monsieur and Croque-Madame. Those sandwich are made with sandwich bread, and consists of ham and emmenthal but are baked much like a cheese toast. My mom often made croque-monsieur for picnic. Sometimes, if she did want to cook on a saturday night, she would also make them. They were and they are still a favorite of mine. They are simple, but boy, they are yummy!!!.

Last night I had a cooking class and it was already past 8:00 before I settled to make dinner for my family. Needless to say that the envy to cook a healthy dinner was not there. Instead I looked and saw  croissants that I had bought for my breakfast. We had some cold cuts left-overs and some raclette cheese which gave me the idea to prepare Croissant Croque-Monsieur.

We had a variety of meat ( Westphalian ham, prosciutto, salami, Genoa..) at my house so I had lots of meat choice to make up my croque-monsieur, but using ham is fine.

A regular croque-monsieur is made with ham and Emmenthal, but varying the meat and cheese make it even more fun! This evening I used raclette cheese.

Ingredients for 4:

• ½ lb of cold cuts 
• ½ lb of cheese ( aged one, preferably or flavored such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, provolone)
• 8 croissants ( 2 per person)
• Old-fashioned Dijon mustard.

Cut the croissant in half, open it up and spread the mustard on one face of the croissant. Then layer the meat ( I used about 4/5 strip of prosciutto). Then the cheese. Put at least 4 strips of cheese to cover the cold meat and the croissant. Close the croissant and bake in a warm oven at 350 for 7-10 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted. Eat with a salad. Et C’est tout!

Bon Appetit and Happy Cooking!!!