Cooking With Us - E21 - Fancy Grilled Cheese

Hi Gang - ready for another short but sweet (er, savory) episode of Cooking With Us?

What if I told you it involves one of America's most beloved foods - Grilled Cheese Sandwiches?

With a bit of a twist of course - we got a little fancy... and a little spicy!

It's always important to have inspiration - which is what the picture on the top right is.
Our inspiration comes from a 'speak-easy' style restaurant tucked away in Culver City, California.
Props to my sister Vanessa for introducing me to it, and their hot (meaning killer spicy)
grilled cheese sandwich!

Below, follow along with our super easy recipe and layering.
Theron's sandwich won our little contest - so it gets to be featured ;)

Uprez, Full Screen - Enjoy!

Photo-essay, recipe, and transcript after the jump! =)

 

 After you've found your inpsiration, collect your ingredients.

For us, habaneros and smoked gouda were #1 priorities...

Though we did embellish quite a lot!

 And we also bought a load of cheese to experiment with.

See the one hanging in the bag there at the bottom?

 That is an amazing Swiss I have to find again!

Theron has been sauteing mushrooms and onions a lot lately, 

so it only made sense he'd want to include them on his sandwiches.

I was a skeptic... at first.

Since our inspiration was a sandwich that lists quite a few peppers in its ingredients, I decided to boil some habaneros with serranos, jalapenos, and ample garlic, and puree them into a paste!

To make the paste, of course, we used the Ninja.

Blend, blend away!!

Then add ample salt while your wife (er me) is still dying from the heat of the bite you just gave her.

Yes, we did add peppercorns, as Theron liked it when Nee did it recently!

 This is what it looks like when it's done - and it is amazingly delicious!

If deadly!

Then Theron fried up prosciutto for us.

And while I didn't put this in the video, 

we did pre-toast our bread a little bit to make sure it would be crunchy!

Now it's time to put it together!

Start with a thin layer of your spicy hot sauce!

Next up, put on a slice of your smoked gouda.

 Cut and place your prosciutto so it fits perfectly!

Remember, we are looking at Theron's sandwich here! ^^

Atop the prosciutto place your mushrooms and onions.

Gingerly layer with the amazing avocado!

And finally, top it with a big old slice of brie.

This is how they looked mid-toasting. 

Pretty huh? :)

The winner, IMO, is the one on the back left!

Here are Theron's blurry but melty sandwiches.

Now taste!!!

 And now taste your husband's sandwich - even if you have to open your mouth crazy huge.

Yeah, twas delicious!

Then have him explain how he layered it all while you make a terrible face, 

because you put way too much hot sauce on your own sandwich ;)

At least it was fun to make the silly graphic!

Finally - say Thanks for Watching while your tortured dog tries to free himself :D

Now go make Theron's winning sandwich, and as always - Enjoy!

-Val!

PS: Please do share any recipes you guys come up with!

Recipe:

 The Sauce

 - boil jalapenos, habaneros, serranos, and lots of garlic for a long time (at least half an hour)

- blend to death along with salt and peppercorns in your Ninja

Also

- saute mushrooms and onions

- fry prosciutto

- pre-toast some fancy bread till almost perfect

Now, for the layering!

art at it's finest

For this - I just had to use my lovely image I made - hahahaha!

 Start with a bottom layer of toast

- spread on a small amount of your spicy sauce

- top with a decent sized slice of smoked gouda

- delicately add your sauteed mushrooms and onions

- add your proscuitto (or vice versa with the previous one bc he did this the other way around!)

- add your gorgeous avocado slices

- top with a slice of brie

Now toast it till done, and enjoy it!  It really was fantastic!

 Transcript:

Enunciate!

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Cooking With Us.

This time we're gonna make grilled cheese sandwiches.

Theron insisted on smoked gouda because...

Our inspiration was actually from..

(o my god).

A restaurant called the Blind Barber in Culver City, Los Angeles, California.

It was fantastic!

It was fantastic, right?

It was really good.

You wanna say, 'It was fantastic," like I just did?

It was fantastic like I just did.

That's not what I said.

Alright, so...

What we had was habaneros was the main thing.

The also had gouda.

On their website it said serranos.

Oh!

Cheese anyone?

And this is the bread we bought, it's from... Kohler market.

I'm gonna saute the mushrooms in a pan.

Pan frying some mushrooms and onions, and now we're gonna boil our serranos, jalapenos, and habaneros.

And some garlic with them.

Here's Theron's mushrooms and onions.

And these are our, our peppers, and they're gonna boil for a while - and garlic.

That's all of our peppers... the jalapenos, serranos, ha-

woops.

habaneros and garlic...

Into our Ninja.

Woo woo.

Smells good.

It's pretty good, needs salt, but it's good.

It's gonna stay with me for a while.

Oh my god it's hot.

You ready?

hooo!

Alrighty.

Mm, It's good, it's better.

Mmm... Oh, it's really good Lovie.

Better right?

This is freaking delicious!

Yummy.

See? Theron bought prosciutto.

So now we have our bread,

 yeah... Gotta toast it, a little bit not like last time!

We have our sauce.

Yeah.

We'll get out our che- cheese.

We have our veggies...

How are we gonna layer this?

Damn that's pretty good right?

I would like to taste the gouda.

Ok.

It smells like ham.

It's smoked gouda.

Smoked gouda!

Ok, can we make one?

Yep!

I'm gonna put this on the base.

Yeah, that's gotta be the base. The delicious, spicy stuff.

It'll soak into the bread.

Now I'm gonna put a slice of smoked gouda.

Prosciutto.

Great.

It's gotta fit.

It's delicious.

Onion.

Mushroom.

Wow yours-

This is what's gonna go on top of mine to make it all stick.

It's good for you.

That prosciutto is so good lovie.

I'm gonna put mine in the oven, but this is what it looks like.

Yeah it's gonna melt.

Our yummy brie cheese, umm... onion, mushroom, avocados, sandwiches are cooking. And they look good.

I don't see how it could be.

mmmm.

mmm. It's good.

With the mushrooms and avocados?

Yeah I wanna taste that one.

Open up wider.

Oh my gouda!

Mmmhmm

Layered yummy toast, smoked gouda...

A little bit of the sauce.

There's a thin layer of the sauce.

Very thin.

Then, the cooked mushrooms, onions, prosciutto, avocado, and a big slice of brie on top.

It's so good.

Ok!

Thank you for joining us, for another episode of Cooking With Us.

Yeah that's cheese.

I told him he could have some, but not right now.

Brigly Cam.

All Brigly, all the time!