We both had this for our lunch today. I had bought a pack of value ham for recipe testing, so now I need to use it up.

I use a George Foreman grill which I’ve had for, ooh, 15 years? We’ve been in this house 8.5 years now, and I’d had it years and years before we moved. But I’ve also made very nice toasties using a frying pan.

Serves 2
4 slices bread, value loaf, 40p/22 slices, 2p a slice, 8p
4 slices value ham, £1.50/30 slices, 5p a slice, 10p
40g cheese, £4.50/kg, 18p
Veg oil, 2tsp, 1p

Sainsbury prices today as that’s where I got these ingredients
Total price 37p, 18p per toastie

Put a slice of ham on each slice. Grate or crumble the cheese and share between 2 of the slices. Top with the remaining slices.

Now drizzle about half a tsp of oil on the top slices of bread and spread it out over the slices with your fingers. Use more oil if you want to.

Flip the sandwiches over and repeat the oiling.

Place the sandwiches in a frying pan and cook gently until the bottom is golden and crispy, pressing down on the top every now and then so it all sticks together. Flip it over and cook the other side. Serve immediately.

You can use butter or lard instead of oil if you like. Or if you have any bacon fat, or beef dripping, that would be fabulous.

We had these yesterday as well, so today, I smeared one slice with the last little bit from a jar of red tomato pesto. Any pesto would be lovely. Or you could use any type of mustard, or a bit of chutney

Use just cheese, or just ham. Or a bit of leftover chicken, you could use raw chicken, but you would need to cook it first as I’m not sure the toasting part would cook it through. Crisp up some bacon and and have that crumbled up with a little chicken. You could smear the bread very thinly with anchovy paste and fill the toasty with sliced mozzarella.

For a vegetarian version, how about cheese and mushroom, or a bit of bottled sliced pepper, or fry some onions and add those to the filling. Or spread tomato purée thinly on the bread and fill with sliced mozzarella. Or what about a marmite one, with some cream cheese

For a vegan version, apart from any cheese substitutes, you could have onion and red pepper, or fine sliced mushroom with garlic paste smeared thinly on the bread, or garlicky hoummous, or gently cook some grated carrot to take the raw edge off, and use to fill a toasty with a few salted cashews scattered in, maybe with a tsp of raisins too.

You could even have a sweet one. How about a Nutella Toastie? Ooh, naughty and nice. Or sultana and cream cheese. Or honey and apricots, very thinly sliced, with maybe a scattering of toasted, sliced almonds. Or peanut butter and jam, or what about slicing up some lovely fresh strawberries and using those to fill a toastie with a bit of sugar scattered over both the filling and the outside – ooh, yummy.