Smoked Mozzarella~Prosciutto~Tomato~Basil Panini

Hole in the bread means my prosciutto got toasted

Our cooking seems to be rather non-existent this summer. It's been rainy on Sundays, so we have not been grilling. We've been busy on Sundays (our usual cooking day), so dinners have had to be quick and easy. Plus I was sick for a while, so I wasn't eating much. Last week was a quick & easy week. After leftover Easter ham, bread, and sauteed zucchini for 2 nights, we decided to make panini, mostly because it was quick and easy but also because we wanted to use up the bread we bought.

We got out our grill pan and the cast iron skillet - that skillet is heavy! We put a light spray (using our Misto) of olive oil on the grill pan and on the bottom of the cast iron skillet and we sprayed the sides of the bread that were getting grilled.

In between the bread slices, we layered prosciutto, smoked mozzarella, fresh basil, and tomatoes from our garden. Plopped the sandwiches on the grill pan, smashed them with the skillet, when the bottoms got crisp/golden, flipped the sandwiches and repeated the smashing until the other side was golden crisp, then enjoyed.

I enjoyed this much more than our quick quesadilla nights, maybe because the last time we did quick quesadilla night it was right before I got sick and I felt funny (queasy) after eating the shrimp & cheese quesadillas.

I have some other tasty filling combination ideas in mind, so hopefully we'll get to have a few more quick panini nights before tomato and fresh herb season ends. It's nice to walk outside and pick dinner!