Tag Archive for grilled cheese

Buffalo Sausage Grilled Cheese

April 25, 2013 Food No comments

Tonight I made an epic grilled cheese sandwich to really celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month 2013 before May 1st sneaked up on me.  Last year I felt as if Leonardo Da Vinci himself inspired me to crush nacho Doritos onto the outside of my sandwich.  It was so rewarding, I had to try it again.  So without further adieu, I give you the Buffalo Sausage Grilled Cheese…

BSGC1

Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. Cook and season the ground sausage to taste
  2. Ground up some Doritos Jacked into a bowl
  3. Butter your bread and apply the crushed Doritos Jacked

    Buttered bread with Doritos Jacked applied

    Buttered bread with Doritos Jacked applied

  4. Place your bread into a skillet and apply a layer of gorgonzola

    Bread in skillet with Gorgonzola

    Bread in skillet with Gorgonzola

  5. Cover with ground sausage

    Sausage applied

    Sausage applied

  6. Cover with the top slices of bread, cooking on medium to medium-low heat

    Nominal to profile. We're in the pipe. Five by five.

    Nominal to profile. We’re in the pipe. Five by five.

Tips, thoughts and what have you:

Anytime you cook a grilled cheese with a crust of some sort, you have to make sure the crust sets without burning the sandwich.  You also don’t want to scrape the crust off when moving or flipping.  This means you’re only going to cook each side once.  Another problem that can arise is flipping a grilled cheese sandwich whose insides are not completely gelled together.  In this scenario, you have to flip quickly, but not too quickly, and make sure the pieces of bread don’t slide apart before you’ve turned it over.BSGC6

Both things happened with this sandwich, but I was able to make do.  You just have to be careful.  As far as taste goes, you really need to like bleu cheese if you’re going to make a grilled cheese sandwich with it.  The strong taste requires some strong co-ingredients to help balance things out.  Think about the other things with which you eat bleu cheese to get ideas.  I went with some flavorful sausage here.

Last year I used Nacho Doritos for a crust and this year I tried out the new Doritos Jacked because it seemed like they would go with the bleu cheese.  The chips were ok, but there also double thick and this affected how the crust formed and how the sandwich heated up.  I think the chips actually tasted better cooked than pre-cooked.BSGC7

Just for kicks I used the same skillet for the sausage cooking and sandwich making.  I left some of the grease in there and kind of wish I hadn’t.  It wasn’t horrible, but there was just a hint of sausage grease flavor on the bread I wasn’t really digging.  Next time I’ll go with a clean pan for the sandwich.

I originally tried both ranch and spaghetti sauce for dipping.  The ranch really clashed with the bleu cheese, but the spaghetti sauce was AMAZING.  This sandwich was very rich and definitely hearty.  It probably wasn’t a great idea for me to try and tackle two of them at once.Buffalo Sausage Grilled Cheese

Cheddar-Bacon-Pepper jack Grilled Cheese

April 12, 2013 Food 2 comments

So many people are looking for my old grilled cheese posts from version 1 of this blog, I’ve decided to re-post a few.  This one is a cheddar bacon pepper jack grilled cheese made by my special lady friend back in April of 2011.

Ingredients:

  • Two slices of bread
  • Unsalted butter
  • Two slices medium cheddar cheese
  • Two or three slices pepper jack cheese
  • Bacon

Directions:

  1. Take one buttered slice of bread and lay in pre-heated pan
  2. Place cheddar, then bacon, then pepper jack on top of bread
  3. Top off with other slice of buttered bread
  4. Cook on medium heat until each side is golden brown

Slow cooking is important on a sandwich such as this one.  It’s important to melt the cheese all the way through without burning the bread.  It will take longer before your sandwich is done, but it’s definitely worth the wait.  Have I mentioned I like ketchup with my grilled cheese yet?

Spicy Breakfast Sandwich

April 8, 2013 Food One comment
Spicy Breakfast Sandwich 4

Spicy Breakfast Sandwich

Scrambled eggs with cayenne and chopped onions added as filling to a grilled cheese sandwich

 

 

 

Ingredients:

  • Two slices of whole wheat bread
  • Four slices of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar
  • Two eggs
  • Chopped onions (optional)
  • Cayenne pepper (optional
  • Unsalted butter

Directions:

  1. Scramble your eggs to taste
    1. I sauteed some onions and added the cayenne to spice things up

      Spicy Breakfast Sandwich 1

      Rough scramble – I dropped the eggs into the hot pan with the sauteed onions and while they’re frying I mixed them up with a wooden spoon

  2. Butter your bread and slice your cheese
  3. You can use the same pan for the eggs and cheese, you’ll just need to temporarily move the finished eggs to a plate/bowl while you build your sandwich
  4. Place one piece of buttered toast in the pan with the cheeseSpicy Breakfast Sandwich 2
  5. Add the scrambled eggs on top of the cheese
    1. TIP: Sometimes you need cheese on both sides of the “sandwich” to help keep the insides together.  I didn’t do that with this sandwich  but I took extra care when flipping the sandwich to keep everything together.
    2. I also added some extra cayenne on top (optional)

      Spicy Breakfast Sandwich 3

      Ok, I realize this may look like an insane amount of cayenne. Feel free to substitute any “spice” you prefer. Even black pepper would work well here.

  6. Cover with the other slice of bread and cook on medium heat until the bottom bread is firm and golden brown, and then flip to cook the other sideSpicy Breakfast Sandwich 6

Cheddar Cheetah

April 6, 2013 Food 2 comments
Chester Cheddar 4

Cheddar Cheetah

Cheddar grilled cheese sandwich with crunchy Cheetos added as filling

 

 

 

Ingredients:

  • Two slices of whole wheat bread
  • Unsalted butter
  • Four slices of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar
  • Cheetos
  • Spicy brown mustard

Directions:

  1. Pre-heat a skillet at medium heat (non-stick spray suggested)
  2. Butter the two slices of bread and slice the cheese
  3. Place one slice of bread into the skillet, lay out the cheese and cover with an appropriate amount of CheetosChester Cheddar 1
  4. Apply mustard and cover with other slice of breadChester Cheddar 2
  5. Cook until bottom slice of bread is firm and golden brown, and then flip to cook the other sideChester Cheddar 3

National Grilled Cheese Month 2013

March 31, 2013 Food No comments

If you weren’t aware, April is National Grilled Cheese Month here in the US of A.  I’m a huge fan of the cheesy sandwich in its many forms.  To kick off the month I’d like to share some past creations.

IMG_0159

IMG_0154

chedder-bacon-pepper_jack2

Grilled Cheese

Here’s hoping you all have a wonderful grilled cheese month this year.  If you’re looking for recipes to kick things off, a great place to start is the Grilled Cheese Academy which can be found at their site or on Facebook.