Grilled Cheese Adventure

Have you ever grilled cheese so hard that you broke a sweat? No? Just me? Oh. This is weird. Well kick back, because do I have a tale for you.

Picture this. I invited about 15 friends for a party and I promised them dinner in the form of everyone's favorite childhood throwback: grilled cheese and soup. Naturally I went to the grocery the day before the gathering and I thought to myself, "Eh, I'll just get one loaf of bread. Oh and a pack of Kraft singles, duh. And last but not least Campbell's soups." Flash forward 24 hours and guests start arriving. I fire up the burner and whip out my favorite 15" KitchenAid skillet. "Oh yeah," I tell myself, "I'm a master cheese griller and I'm about to wow all these guests with my mad skills." I start buttering bread at a nice pace. I open cheese as I need it. The first sandwiches are up and look like golden brown perfection. And just as I think, "Yeah I can probably slow down," ten more people walk in the door and I realize I've forgotten to but the soup on. As you can imagine, things get a bit hectic from there. I throw a block of cheese at a friend and say, "UNWRAP THESE!" in my best Chef Gordon Ramsay voice. I'm flipping sammies with my left hand and stirring soup with my right. I run to the fridge for a stick of butter and take a second to dab the sweat from my forehead with the hem of my apron. My guests love the grilled cheese and all request second sandwiches which makes me smile until I discover, to my utter horror, I have only two slices of bread left. The heels. In an act of desperation, I check the deep freeze where I find, under a bag of frozen peas and a chuck roast, a sorta-smooshed-but-totally-okay loaf of split top wheat.

Here's what you can learn from my story:
1.) Ages 8-87, everyone loves grilled cheese.
2.) Always buy plenty of ingredients, even if it means you might have a little extra.
3.) Always enlist a little kitchen help when entertaining.

Yes, I am going to get on with the recipes now. And yes, recipe was plural. If you're looking for a grilled cheese sandwich that's a bit nicer than American cheese and wheat bread, look no further. Here are two of my favorite grilled cheese remixes:

Grilled Caprese

Italian Bread, sliced
Fresh Mozzarella, sliced
Tomatoes, sliced
Basil Leaves
Basil Pesto

What could be better than caprese salad? The grilled cheese version of caprese salad! First things first, gather the ingredients and slice them up. Instead of buttering the bread as with a typical grilled cheese, use a basting brush to spread pesto on one side of each slice of Italian bread.

Okay, yum. Do your best to keep yourself from x-ing out the recipe and eating it at this stage.



Heat a skillet to medium and build your masterpiece, layering mozz, tomatoes, and basil like so.

Could this look any more delicious?

Fry until bread is crispy on both sides and the cheese is ooey, gooey, and melty. Something like this:

 Can we get a closer look at that grilled cheese?



Yes, yes we can.

Optional Change-Up: Not a huge fan of bread that's a little moist? The juice from the tomatoes and the fresh mozzarella can make this sandwich a little sloppy. If sloppy scares you, try using sliced mozzarella from the deli which is a little drier than the fresh. Or you could substitute the fresh tomatoes for sundried tomatoes which are, you know, DRIED by the sun.

Baked Monte Cristo

2 Bake At Home French Baguettes

1/2 lb. Virginia Brand Ham, thin sliced

1/2 lb. Oven Roasted Turkey, thin sliced

1/2. lb. Swiss Cheese, thin sliced

Powdered Sugar

Raspberry Preserves

Toothpicks

If you've never had a Monte Cristo sandwich, you've never lived. The traditional Monte Cristo is an American version of the French croque-monsieur. A Monte Cristo is a ham, turkey, and swiss sandwich coated in an egg batter and fried. My version of the Monte Cristo is like the older, more sophisticated, French cousin of the Hot Pocket. It's important to get the bake at home loaves, because pre-baked baguettes will get too crispy or burnt in the oven. Speaking of the oven, preheat to 350.

To start these sandwiches, you need to cut each baguette into 5 sections, then hollow out one end of each section. To do this, I used a small serrated knife to cut the first chunk out, then a grapefruit spoon was absolutely perfect for digging out the rest of the inside.

You'll be filling the baguettes then closing them up so don't forget to save this piece for the end of each baguette:

Next, you can begin to layer turkey, ham, and swiss cheese inside each section of the baguettes, filling them as full as you can!

Close up each open end with the designated chunks of bread and keep the bread plugs in place with a few toothpicks. Place the 10 sandwiches on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes to crisp the bread, heat the meat, and melt the cheese. Just as with a traditional Monte Cristo, dust the sandwiches with powdered sugar after removing them from the oven and serve with raspberry preserves.

Trust Me On This: I know what you're thinking. "Wow, this was sounding delish until she told me to put powdered sugar on it and serve it with flipping raspberry preserves." But trust me. It's amazing. Like better-than-Aaron-Tveit-in-Les-Mis-amazing. Just try it. You won't regret it. I promise.

That's all for now, lovely humans. Happy eating!

Mags

Coming soon to REtR: 2016 Picture Book Review. Hear from me what's awesome and what's atrocious in the world of newly released picture books.