The other day, my good friend and partner in crime (well, we’ve not gotten to that phase of our relationship yet, but I sense tremendous potential), bellacotter, and I were talking about grilled cheese.

The End.

No, wait, come back!

Really, I promise there’s more!

Its a kind of top ten list of ways to make Grilled Cheese!!! Dedicated to my lovely bellacotter!

10. Wrap cheese with lightly buttered bread, wrap in aluminum foil and use iron to toast the bugger. Do not use the steam setting, no matter how much you think its a good idea. Its not, and you will want to use your ironing board again, which is hard to do with liquid cheese all over the place because you dropped the foil delight that was slippery from the steam. Or, so I imagine would happen, because I’d never do something so silly.
9. Add sauteed onions to the cheesy goodness. Now, normally, I’m all about the sauteed anything, particularly onions and mushrooms. I can see this working if you use 2 slices of cheese, with the onions in between, but really, it just sounds mushy. I don’t like mushy. Fail.

8. Grilled Cheese & Grape Jelly. Well, I tried to give this idea some sort of chance, but really, grape jelly? I don’t think there are words for just how gross that sounds.

7. Grilled Cheese & Hummus. Upon the recommendation from a member of HippyMom, I tried grilled hummus one night and I was delightfully surprised at just how good it was, and its vegan, which scores more points if you are the sort of person keeping track of vegan points. Good stuff, I can see cheese working well in this gooey situation.

Musical Interlude

6. Grilled Cheese Croutons. Those sound delicious, and an extremely unhealthy addition to any salad. I give the idea 4 stars.

5. Garlic Salt. I’ve tried this one, and while I have a natural intolerance of garlic salt as a wanna-be spice (because, really, its not hard to mince garlic and add salt) these can be pretty yummy. They are preferred by The Husband.

4. Quesadillas. These are not grilled cheese sandwiches, no matter how you try to spin it. They are quesadillas, which are great as quesadillas. They don’t have the inherent comfort of squishy white (or wheat) bread, they just seem slightly healthy, and they hold dip much better than a standard grilled cheese sandwich. This also goes for flatbread grilled cheese or naan. Call it what they are, don’t try to steal the spotlight from Ms. Great American Grilled Cheese. She has feelings.

3. Spray the bread with cooking spray. This idea falls under my “are you serious?” category. There’s something about spraying any “food” in the kitchen that makes me question the bio-engineered ingredients to begin with. Soylent Green, people, IS people.

2. Multi-cheese endeavors. Well, I’m a fan of cheese (see #49 here), I can’t deny that, but there is a limit to the cheese I can take. Eventually, it becomes a huge glob of cow fat in my mind, no matter how it may taste. Stick with one or two types of cheese, even if Rachel Ray is threatening you with cutlery.

1. Fresh Tomato. This is my ultimate grilled cheese delight. A very thinly sliced tomato is layered between two slices of cheese, surrounded by bread (preferably wheat, but whatever works). I first had these after a Phish show in Memphis. I remember the sandwich vividly, the show is pretty much a blur, still.

bellacotter, I love you. Go make me a sandwich.