Pizza Grilled Cheese with Pepperoni and Basil

Guess what?! I just finished my last midterms of grad school EVER.  Oh yes, i'm super pumped and even more excited that this Friday marks the beginning of my spring break!

So what better way to celebrate this exciting milestone than by making a pizza party grilled cheese!  As the Olsen Twin's say (in the best/creepiest video I've ever seen) - GIMME PIZZA, P I Z Z A!

To make it finger lickin' I used:

Ingredients:
-1 rosemary focaccia
-⅓ cup of pizza sauce
-½ cup of Trader Joe's lite 3 cheese blend
- 2 tablespoon of shaved parmesean
- a few slices of all natural/organic pepperoni
(I used Applegate, of course)
- a few basil leaves
- 2 tablespoon of garlic olive oil & butter blend
(one tablespoon real butter (room temp) mixed with
1 tablespoon olive oil and a pinch of garlic salt)
*depending on size of loaf, amount of ingredients may differ*

So to begin you'll want to slice your focaccia in half.  Mine had a giant hole in one side so I had to cut it into thirds and use the most solid pieces. They happened to be the bottom and the middle.

Because I wanted the grilled cheese to brown evenly on both sides, I flipped the bottom piece so that the cut side would be the one that eventually got buttered.

Then I sprinkled on half of the lite 3 cheese blend.  I think it was something like mozzarella, colby jack, and cheddar cheese. I know these aren't your typical pizza cheese, but hey, it's spring break next week and I have to be seen in a bathing suit...HELP *panic attack ensues*

Now it's time for those pep pep's.  Pile on however many you like.  To please my friends, I put on a ton, because let's face it, they're absolutely delicious.

Now gently spoon on the pizza sauce.

Shaved parmesean, awwwww PUT IT ON THE PIZZA.

Almost done... HOORAY! Put on the rest of the cheese blend and then the top piece of focaccia and now it's ready to get grilled!

This is where it gets tricky, but don't sweat!  I have some helpful hints to get this gigantic grilled cheese to cook to perfection.  The first thing you'll want to do is to transfer
the whole entire sandwich to a plate.  Once it's on, smear on half of that garlic butter/oil mixture on.

From here, you'll want to put a big frying pan on top of the plated sammie.

Then flip the entire thing, making sure to hold the plate snugly to the pan.  Once it's flipped, turn the heat to medium and butter the other side.  EASY RIGHT?! (I wouldn't lie to ya).

From here you'll want to cook it for about 3-5 minutes on one side.  If it starts to get golden and crusty really early, turn the heat lower and continue to cook.  You'll want to avoid browning too much at the beginning because it's such a gigantic sandwich and it takes a while to cook through.

If you think you're screwed because it's too dark, simply place a lid on the pan and turn down the heat super low, this will melt and heat the insides without grilling the crust.

Once you see that the cheese has melted and that your crust is beautiful and golden on one side.  You'll want to use the same pan/plate technique to flip the grilled cheese over.  Make sure to use oven mitts because everything is super HOT HOT HOT at this point.

After a few more minutes on the other side, and you should have a beautifully cooked, melted cheesy pizza concoction.  Slice it in like a pizza for even more fun! hahaha, but seriously, it's way more fun this way - TRUST ME.

If not, I suggest you catch up on the best thing that the Olsen's have ever done (besides designing, that is)!

xoxo,

GCS