I saw something somewhere about a danklicious smashed meatball grilled cheese and I thought it was an awesome idea.  I totally forgot about it for a little while until yesterday when I was at Trader Joe's.  They had this amazing looking Asiago that's flavored with rosemary and olive oil. YUM, right? So anyways, I had to buy it and make this little meatwad baby for you guys.  I would normally give a shout out here to the recipe that inspired it, but I can't remember :( meep.

So to make this little baby you're going to use :

Ingredients

-2 slices of Eli's onion bread
-2 pads of real salted butter
-1/2 cup of shredded rosemary and olive oil Asiago
-2 cheese stuffed meatballs







I guess I should begin by telling you about the meatballs.  I used trader joe's grass fed beef, an egg, some panko, finely diced onions, garlic, and basil, salt, pepper, and this awesome seasoning that I use on about everything.... and it's called Instant Gourmet.  I combined everything and rolled 'em into little balls and shoved a small chunk of the asiago in the middle.  Once they were shaped, I sprayed some pam into the pan and cooked the meatballs, turning occasionally until the cheese started to ooze out.

Oh, and if you don't wanna try to wing it with my vague recipe, use this cute little recipe from my good friend Ashley at Lovely Little Vices.

But once you have them on hand, go ahead and pile half of the cheese onto one slice of bread.



NOW SMASH YOUR MEATWAD!


Then center it on top of the cheese.


Now pile on the remaining bit of Asiago.


And put on the top piece of bread.


BUTTER.


At this point you'll want to melt the other pad of butter in the pan because it's way tooooo hard to try and flip it before it's melted.  Once it's creamy go ahead and put the sammie on the butter and put the press on top.  If you don't have a metal press, you can use a heavy pan or a tinfoil wrapped brick or something.


Once it gets nice and puuuuuurdy, flip it and put the press back on top!


When it' equally golden on both sides, take it out of the skillet and slice it!


Although this is a really flavorful grilled cheese, I thought it would be even better dipped in some marinara sauce... and i was right! So pair it with some delicious sauce and have a super fun party time and gobble up this meatwad of a grilled cheese.

Oh, and keep livin' large, boy, keep living large.

xoxo,

GCS

I just spent four dollars on ONE tomato.  Yep, I have a problem.  I think I could have probably gotten this entire sandwich for that much money somewhere else, but nope, I had to get the biggest, most beautiful heirloom tomato from union square. And it was totally worth it.  So basically after buying this tomato I decided I had to do a grilled cheese around it and I thought what better than the all time Italian classic - the caprese.

So there's a lot of ingredients that go into this one, but I promise it makes it reeeealllly good.

Ingredients:

- 2 tbs hot pepper infused olive oil
- 1 ts garlic salt
- 2 pieces of olive oil & garlic ciabatta
- 1 clove of garlic
- mozerella (amount dependent on bread size)
- 1/2 tbs balsamic glaze
- 3 big basil leaves
- 1 heirloom tomato (or more)




So the first thing you'll want to do is to sprinkle the garlic salt onto the mozzarella.  I think it makes the mozzarella much tastier and my mom did it when I was little so I think it's the right way.


Now you can lay half the cheese onto one of the slices of bread.  Make sure to slice the cheese so it fits onto the bread without any of it hanging off.


Then slice that beaut of a tomato and lay it down on top of that.  Eat the rest of the tomato with salt and pepper and enjoy.


Next drizzle some balsamic glaze on the tomato. The balsamic not only tastes delcious and balances out the saltiness of the cheese, but it also functions as a glue for the basil, which is the next step.


At this point you'll want to julienne the basil and sprinkle it on top of the mater.


Now put the remaining cheese on top!


Almost done, almost done, almost done!  bread time!

After about a minute and a half it should be golden brown.  When it gets all pretty like that, drizzle the remaining olive oil and flip it. Be careful because when mozzarella melts, it's that not sticky and there's a lot of stuff on this guy so stuff might fall out. If it does, REMAIN CALM, just take everything back to your cutting board and reassemble, but don't burn yourself.

One of my good friends and fellow grilled cheese enthusiasts, Christian Torres, came and visited the city last week.  Torres is an amazing photographer who resides in Atlanta, Georgia... AND he just so happened to make a nifty exchange with me.  I agreed to make him lots of GC's if he agreed to use his photography skills to make my blog look a little prettier.  He agreed and these are the lip-smacking results!

We got really creative when we were thinking of new concoctions. After hours days of debating we finally settled on the following ingredients:


- 2 slices of french bread
- 1 tbs olive oil
- 1 handful of shredded gruyere
- 1 handful of shredded swiss
- a few fresh basil leaves
- however much calabrese salami you like :)




This one begins like most of the other sammie's on my site... Gather ingredients and sprinkle half of the cheese on one slice of bread.  Remember to try and center it around the middle so it won't ooze out and burn the cheese.


Next, place the salami on top of the cheese. Oh and don't be shy, feel free to stack it as high as you like!



 Ok, now sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the pile.  Remember to keep that cheese centered because this is turning into a big boy.


Done?? K, now put his top hat on.  Isn't that a good lookin'?


Now here's the tricky part:  Because this is so big you're going to want to be really careful when transfering this pup to the the skillet.  If you're confident enough, go ahead and heat the skillet to medium and drizzle some olive oil in the pan.  You'll also want to use a weight if you have one on hand to try and smush the sammie and help it all stick together.



 If any of the cheese falls out, don't worry, just scoop it up with your spatula to avoid that nasty burnt taste. Once it starts to heat up, put the press on top of this baby and wait a few minutes until it turns golden brown on the bottom.


Hot and crusty like the one below? Flip it over and try to equal out the color.  If not, you can put the press back on top to lend a helping hand.


After it's nice and golden on both sides, take the GC off the stove top and slice it immediately! You're going to want to do this because gruyere and swiss are firmer cheeses. Unlike softer cheeses like brie or tallegio, once these cheeses melt, they create a glue rather than a cheesey ooze.


Also, if you're a dipper like I am,  try this sammie with some yellow mustard and enjoy!


So if you end up making this delicious GC and/or enjoy these badass photo's you should really check out Christian's blog.  You can find it at http://tuckedintanktop.blogspot.com.  Thanks again Torres! You da bombbbbbbb <3

xoxo,

GCS