Creative Way to Use Less Cheese

During George's bachelor days he lived on a diet of deli foods: salty meats, tons of cheese and every kind of mayo laden salad you can imagine.

I'm pretty sure George didn't marry me just for my cooking, but he did express that he was looking forward to eating real food that was a lot healthier than deli fare once we married.

It was really easy to cut out the deli meats and salads -- that improves the nutrition (and our wallet) immediately. The cheese was a bit more challenging. Cheese is a good for you food, in limited quantities, but not half a block a day.

George just loves cheese; so it was  little more challenging for me to reduce the amount of cheese I serve without him feeling deprived. At first I just started slicing off really thin pieces off a block of cheese and then putting a couple on each sandwich. After a time or two of this George asked me why I stopped putting cheese on his sandwiches. Apparently it doesn't count if he can't see the cheese sticking out around the edges.

One of the creative ways I've found to use less cheese and have George still feel like he's getting a lot of cheese is to make sure the cheese is sticking out of the sandwich.  See the picture above?  If we are having some kind of bbq meat sandwich, or sloppy joes I usually make the sandwiches and cut an American cheese slice in half and lay it diagonally on the sandwich. This way he only eats 1/2 as much cheese but feels like he is eating a lot of it. If we are using cheese cut from a block, I cut very thin slices and make sure they hang over the edge of the bun.