A Fancy Pants Friday!

I may not have been wearing my fancy pants today (in fact I have been in a sweatshirt and track pants pretty much the whole day!), but we sure had a Fancy Pants Feast today! I had today off, and Martin had a few really long days this week, so we totally lazed around this morning and decided to do lunch right!

We are big, huge fans of Amy's Chunky Tomato Bisque, and are particularly partial to the light in sodium varietal! We can't find it anywhere around the UP so far, but we were lucky enough to get SIX CANS in the mail in a care package from my parents! Thanks Mom & Dad! :) We knew that we were going to want some of that soup soon, and what goes better with tomato soup than grilled cheese? Nothing. That's what!

The genesis of the Fancy Pants Feast

Now, if you didn't know, I'm absolutely addicted to Pinterest. I actually get mad at myself sometimes because I didn't get on it sooner. When I think of how many ideas I missed out on, how many times I was stuck lesson planning with no inspiration at all... gah! It just makes my head spin! I may not be lesson planning right now, but I sure do make use of it! I have a board dedicated to ideas for my students in the residential program where I work, inspiration boards for decorating, craft ideas all around, and best of all, I have recipes to last for months. Pinterest is my virtual playground! If YOU are a Pinterest freak like me, please feel free to follow me! I'm always on the hunt for new ideas! 

Why did I just babble on about Pinterest? I'll tell you why. Because Pinterest has supplied me with enough grilled cheese varieties that I could open my own version of Melt right here in the western UP! (If you don't know what Melt is, it is the best darn grilled cheese restaurant ever, and you'll find it in the Cleveland area of Ohio. Do visit it. It's tops!) My mouth was just watering at all the glorious ideas for add ins for our toasted cheese sammies that deciding on which ones to try was literally painful! After some debate, we decided that we would be going with the theme of "fruity and fun" this go round. Good. Choice. 

Now, did we have the insight to take pictures of our glorious creations? No, of course not. But I'll gank some random tasty looking grilled cheese pictures from the intrawebs, and you all will play pretend with me that they are authentic, right? Right! Here we go! 

Apple Rosemary (Pear) Grilled Cheese

Adapted from Heat to 350 blog post

Slices of Fancy Pants Bread

Apple Butter

Dried Rosmary

Thinly sliced pear or apple

Thinly sliced smoked cheddar cheese

Butter

I really think I'd be insulting your intelligence if I were to put tablespoons and other measurements for this! Look, you make or buy some good crusty bread. Spread some butter on the outside of the bread - you don't need much. Flip the bread over and spread some apple butter and sprinkle some rosemary on top of that. Layer the cheese and pear (which was an accident, but a happy one!). Heat a skillet and cook til golden brown and the cheese is melty. If the sandwich is too thick (ours was!), finish it under the broiler for two to three minutes to melt everything down. Serve and devour immediately!

Oh yes. This is a tasty sammie! I would NEVER have thought to add rosemary, and it is wonderful. Next time I won't mistakenly add pear, but I WILL purposely add apple slices. I think that will be absolutely magnificent. 

I also mentioned on our menu planner that we would be making a version of the sandwich that wooed my sister! Her boyfriend impressed the heck out of her by whipping up this fancy pants grilled cheese for her vegetarian pleasure. It has always sounded yummy, and I'm here to tell you, it is perfect. Just perfect. Excellent work Dan. It would have wooed me too! 

Dan's Woo-ing Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Some more slices of good bread

Crumbled or Spreadable Blue Cheese (We used Laughing Cow's Blue Cheese)

Shredded of Thinly Sliced Havarti

Thinly Sliced Pear

Handful of Arugula 

Butter 

Take those beautiful slices of bread and butter one side of each. We don't use blue cheese very often, so we decided to use Laughing Cow's Blue Cheese spread. I spread some of the cheese on the non-buttered side, then layered pear, arugula, and havarti. The sandwich will stay together better if you spread a little of the blue cheese on the pear or put the arugula directly on the bread. Top with another blue cheese layered piece of bread, and grill in a hot skillet. Again, if the sandwich is too thick to get the cheese melted and the pear caramelized, put it under the broiler for two to three minutes before serving. 

The bite of the arugula with the sweetness of the pears plus the richness of the cheeses? Divine. Magical even! For us, the spreadable blue cheese was a good choice. It has less fat (as if the rest of the cheese was going to be low fat.. haha!) and only 35 calories per wedge. If you have real blue cheese around, I bet that it would be even better, though I can hardly imagine! So very tasty! 

We're already excited for the next round of Fancy Pants grilled cheeses - next time will be savory! Jalapeno Popper and French Onion Grilled Cheese Sandwiches to be exact! And hey... why DON'T I just open a grilled cheese shop up here - our six months of winter makes it an ideal location! Anyone want to back this superb idea? Hmmm.... time to ponder a restaurant future! (Nah... but it would be a seriously great location for a restaurant like that!)

Until next time - Yooper Love!