I don't have a waffle iron or sandwich press and don't really intend to get either anytime soon. I used to have a Foreman grill, which presses reasonably well, but I never liked it for anything else and lack the counter space. However I decided to make an approximate Cuban sandwich (with a bottle of beer) for dinner, which requires approximating a sandwich press. Here's my attempt. This might be totally obvious to others, I don't know, but it had never occurred to me.
Sliced country bread
Ham, sliced thin
Provolone Cheese, sliced thin
Dill Pickle slices
Yellow Mustard
Butter (or a bit of vegetable oil)
A few heavy cans of soup, beans, etc. (unopened)
Heat up a cast iron pan for the bottom and a pan that's a bit smaller than the bottom pan. (Easily done by putting the top pan in the bottom one.) Melt the butter in the pan and assemble the sandwich with cheese on the outside and the ham, mustard and pickle on the inside. Put the sandwich in the cast iron pan. Lightly grease the top of the sandwich and put the sauce pan, weighted by the heavy cans on top of the sandwich and wait until the cheese on the bottom of the sandwich has started to melt. Unlike with a sandwich press, you'll have to turn it because most of the heat is coming from the bottom pan, which is best done with tongs.
I think it would have been better with a softer bread like a hoagie roll and, of course, I lacked the roast pork. This method doesn't give the nice grill marks of a sandwich press, but if you happen to have a grill pan, I guess that'd do the trick. Alton Brown does it with six bricks heated to 500 degrees in an oven for an hour but that just seems like WAY, WAY overkill to me.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/original-cuban-sandwich-r... has a regular recipe.
