Toas-Tite Madness

My friend Stacey first introduced me to the Toas-Tite a few months ago, and the impulse to buy one of my own has been lingering in my brain ever since. This week, I succumbed.

The Toas-Tite is a little clam-shaped sandwich maker with a long handle. You put in a piece of buttered bread, add your filling, put a second piece of bread on top, and close them in the Toas-Tite iron. Peel off the excess bread, put it over the stove (or the campfire!), and minutes later you have a UFO-shaped sandwich that simply does not leak, just as they claim. Introduced in 1949, it’s a space-age gadget for space-age sandwiches.

While Stacey recommends a fluffernutter Toas-Tite (and surely we will try that at some point), this morning we decided to make breakfast sandwiches.  To that end, we purchased some Orowheat potato bread, as recommended by a Toas-tite recipe blog. We also took their suggestion to roll out the bread before using it in the Toas-Tite iron, so as to let it better overlap the sides of the iron and ensure a tight seal on the sandwich.

Then we buttered the outside of the bread, and placed the buttered side facing the iron. We filled it with a mix of scrambled eggs, sautéed bell peppers, caramelized onions, tomatoes, and sharp cheddar cheese.

After placing the other slice of bread on top, butter-side facing the iron, we just closed the iron, tore off the excess bread, and heated it on the stove.

And this is what we ended up with! The verdict: even more fun to eat than you would expect.

The sealed edges are quite crispy and it really is nice to eat something that doesn’t want to spill down your shirt straightaway. Obviously, the tastiness is completely dependent on the fillings you choose. Next we’re thinking of trying a Welsh rarebit Toas-Tite with grated cheddar, Worcestershire sauce, and Dijon mustard. We’re also considering a vegetarian Reuben with rye bread, roasted portabella mushrooms, sauerkraut, and a bit of Thousand Island dressing. What about an Indian Toas-Tite with mutter paneer and naan? The retro recipe booklet suggests experimenting donuts or raisin bread in the Toas-Tite, and I might just do that.

Not all of the recipes translate well to modern day tastes. For example, they offer instructions for a “mock cherry pie” with cranberry sauce and almond extract. Hmm. And I guarantee I won’t be filling one with “creamed fish” (what?!?). Still, the possibilities are nevertheless infinite, even if you exclude the idea of “prune pudgy pie.”

Oh, and, by the way, I bought this Toas-Tite and posted this lengthy paean to it all of my own accord. The Toas-Tite people have never heard of me except to ship me a package.