Seriously? We need to dedicate a month to celebrating the grilled cheese sandwich? Wikipedia says that Woman’s Day came up with the idea, but the magazine says “someone (somewhere) has proclaimed this popular comfort food worthy of a monthlong celebration.”
In its most ordinary (re: lazy) form, you take two slices of white bread, stick a Kraft single in between and brown both sides in butter. Simple? Yes. Tasty? Sort of.
Admittedly, I had an about-face back in 2006 while watching an episode of “Ham on the Street” on the Food Network. The host had people randomly select bread (e.g. wheat, rye), cheese (e.g. Havarti, brie) and jelly (e.g. apricot, hot pepper) and turn them into a grilled cheese sandwich. Every single person was pleasantly surprised how good their concoction tasted.
I’m in the camp that believes you shouldn’t add things like ham, onions or eggs to a grilled cheese, otherwise it isn’t a grilled cheese. However, I’m willing to let jelly be an ingredient.
Like any dish, grilled cheese sandwiches are better with better ingredients. Since upgrading the individual parts, I’ve come to enjoy the occasional grilled cheese. And of course, I enjoy spicy cheese bread, which is somewhat related.
Hungry? Here are the recipes from “Ham on the Street” as well as the Los Angeles Times’ Test Kitchen.
