Bacon, Tomato & Fried Egg Sandwich

This sandwich was inspired by one in my new cookbook, Food & Wine Annual Cookbook 2008. I did not have a clue what to make for dinner, and every recipe in that book that sounded good to me took well over an hour to make, not feasible when the clock is ticking past 5:00pm and you'd like to serve dinner by 6:00pm at the latest! Help!

Chef Thomas Keller's recipe calls for lettuce and jack cheese. We didn't have any lettuce, and we like cheddar better in lots of cases. We have lots of fresh tomatoes from our garden right now, and they are excellent.

I honestly don't think it's a very spectacular or original recipe, but it was darn good. I bet my dad would like this sandwich with a bit of mustard too.

Bacon, Tomato & Fried Egg Sandwich

Bread, toasted and hot
thick bacon, fried
cheddar cheese, sliced
fresh tomato slices
mayonnaise
butter
eggs

Fry enough bacon for however many sandwiches you are making, in our case we fried a pound of bacon for four people. That could be just us. Plan on using at least 3 slices per sandwich.

While the bacon is frying, toast your bread, place cheese slices on one slice of toast and spread mayonnaise generously on the other slice of toast, then top with the bacon and tomato slices. (I like my cheese meltier, so next time I might put the cheese on top of a partially toasted slice of bread and melt it in the toaster oven. Mmmmm.)

Fry your eggs, one per sandwich, in butter (we leave our yolks runny) and place one egg in each sandwich. Carefully close your sandwiches and enjoy.