This sounds absolutely FANTASTIC, Brook! And I love the idea for your fancy, miniaturized version...

I LOVE mornay- one of my all-time FAV sauces! I prefer it even to similar sauces like alfredo... I love the richness or the parm and gruyere... and the pinch of nutmeg adds so much depth.

Your dish brings quick to mind TWO others...

1.) the hot turkey sandwich in my grade school cafeteria- a slice of white wonder bread, then a thick slice of cheap pressed turkey "breast", crowned by a big scoop of instant mashed potatos and drizzled with turkey gravy- YUM! This was a FAV from the school's hair-netted "lunch ladies"!

Then 2.) our regional fav here, the "Prairie Pony" which is a pair of Texas Toast slices- one of them diagonally-split and placed on either end of the first slice of toast, as you mentioned- then piled w/ shaved ham & turkey, then french fries, and the whole thing is then drowned in cheese sauce. Dang!

If you skip the fries on that last one, Chubbs, you have what a lot of places call hot browns.

The mixed turkey/ham with cheddar sauce makes a tasty meal, IMO. But it is not hot browns by any stretch of the imagination.

I can buy the tomato instead of the mushroom, and the turkey instead of chicken. But that's as far as I go. If it ain't Morney it ain't the true gelt. I just wish they'd call it ham & turkey in cheese sauce, and be done.

At my school your #1 was inedible (as was most of the food prepared in the cafeteria). Library paste coated with brown glue on top of shoe leather. Ugh! That's one of the reasons I brought lunch from home.

My grade school also had a dish I loved- but that MOST hated... called "Texas Hash". It was pretty much Spanish Rice with leftover taco meat in it. Actually if you've ever tased Popeye's "Chicken & Sausage Jambalaya" it's very similar. I keep cheapo-boxes of "Zatarain's Jambalaya Rice" in my pantry to replicate it when I need a fix- i put any number of leftover meats in it, like shredded chicken, pork or shrimp... but I always add Hilshire Farms Smoked Sausage too, which is another one of my most enjoyable, weirdo must-have indulgences.

Years ago I was somehow shang-hai'd into watching the dumb teeny-bopper comedy "National Lampoon's Class Reunion". This group of folks returns to their old high school gym where their 25th reunion is held. There's this scene where a few former students decide to sneak into the old cafeteria and poke around. Low and behold they find evidence that the very same old, cranky, jeweled-hair-net wearing, filthy-dirty lunch lady is still the cook there. They tip-toe into her pantry and check out the ingredients on the dry-store shelves and sure enough they find exactly what they suspected: row after row of boxes, cartons, and #10 cans with lables that read "Dried Sh#t", Powdered Sh@t", "Stewed Sh*t", well... you get the idea! For those who don't have very high funnybone standards it was a hoot! (I laughed my behind off! Ha!)

Lunch Room food was the WORST where I attended H.S. Just thinking about it makes me nauseous, I do know they have improved on school lunches alot since I was a youngster! We got to lunch w/our 8 yr. old on occassion and have lunch w/ her and we are very pleased, Thank God!

Up here they don't cook lunches anymore. They are all microwaved in black plastic things and served to the kids.

All bread is that cheap wheat crap. All "cardboard" pizza is cheap wheat crust. All pasta is wheat pasta. All mac n cheese is wheat macaroni. All ham is turkey ham. All hotdogs are turkey served on cheap wheat rolls.

All sloppy joes are ground turkey and soy served on cheap wheat. For breakfast pancakes and waffles are cheap wheat.

No more white bread. No more decent anything.

It burns me up to see a lunch consist of a packet of baby carrots, a small container of ranch dressing, a container of yogurt and an apple and milk or a juice box. What is supposed to sustain these kids for the rest of the day? Especially the ones that really need more nourishment?

When I was in school - they cooked! You ate a hot lunch - well rounded with white bread and whole milk. We were healthy. No candy or junk. Occasionally we would get a cookie with it or a small piece of cake.

In high school they introduced the "cardboard" pizza - wow was that ever different.

By sophmore year - you could get a hot lunch or a "cold" lunch. Loved the cold lunch. An assorted lunchmeat hoagie, cheese, lettuce and tomato with a packet of mayo, a handful of chips and a spoon of canned fruit with milk. If not chips - macaroni or potato salad.

No wonder the kids today throw their lunches in the garbage! I wouldn't eat that crap either.