Say "Cheese!"

You can't have a grilled cheese, without bacon!

Crispy bacon, yum!

Sandwich 1: With bacon and fig jam, melting ooey gooey

Ingenious press!  Heavy bowl wrapped in foil.

Sandwich 1, done.  You can see the gooey cheese and fig jam melted!

Sandwich 2.  Personal favorite.

Potatoes and Eggplant chips, prefried

Frying to perfection

Done and sprinkled with kosher salt

Table set and ready to be eaten

We all went from one sandwich to the next.  So good!

Done and done!

Who doesn't love cheese?!?!?  JAK loves it, and we've actually have used it in most all of the dishes thus far.  So why not make it our secret ingredient once and for all!  With the plethora of options, we decided to do gourmet grilled cheeses.  This worked for many reasons, two of which were: 1. Oklahoma was anticipating a huge snow storm and 2. K was sick.  So we figured this would be a wonderful comfort food that would get us ready for the snow that was upon us and make her feel better.

The first sandwich was done on regular white bread with Gruyere cheese, fried bacon and fig jam.  Where to begin on describing how fabulous this sandwich was?  The Gruyere melted to perfection, and the fig jam melted in between the cheese, crunchy bread and crisp bacon.  It was a sweet, yet savory sandwich.  One of which we will be craving for weeks to come. 

The second sandwich was done on a sun dried tomato baguette with Mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced red and yellow cherry tomatoes, arugula and finished with salt, pepper, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Wow.  This sandwich tasted like something straight from a sidewalk cafe in Italy.  The tomatoes, cooked, had a sweet taste and the balsamic added a kick. 

Both sandwiches weren't just grilled, they were pressed.  So, they had a feel of a panini (the Mozzarella sandwich for sure had a panini texture).  We didn't have a sandwich press, so we improvised.  A heavy bowl wrapped in foil did the trick!  Next time you do even a basic grilled cheese, I recommend this technique.   

Along with the sandwiches we had homemade potato chips and eggplant chips.  They were sliced thinly, and flash fried in the fry-daddy.  Once out, kosher salt sprinkled over.  They added a great, salty crunch to the sandwiches.   

This meal can be summed up with this: K left feeling just a little better from a day of feeling bad and we were all ready to be snowed in to following day.  It was of course mostly the company, but the ooey gooey cheesy sandwiches played a huge part, no doubt. 

Until next time....A la cuisine!