Here's whatchaaaa need...
Ingredients:
- 2 slices of muenster cheese
- 2 slices of white bread
- four thinly shaved pieces of speck
- 1 tablespoon of good and evil pickles
(or any sweet and spicy pickles)
- 1 toaster
Now before you begin - please take these necessary precautions and pay attention to these slightly horrifying important parts.
1. CLEAN OUT YOUR TOASTER.
2. FLIP YOUR TOASTER ON IT'S SIDE.
3. DO A TEST RUN.
4. DO NOT LEAVE YOUR TOASTER UNATTENDED WHILE YOU'RE MAKING THIS GC.
Basically just pop a piece of bread in there to see if you have any hotspots. These are areas that burn quicker than the rest of your bread. If you have a new toaster, you probably won't have this issue. But if you've got them you need to be aware and take extra steps before you start to toast the cheesed up pieces. Of course, my crappy old toaster had one really bad hotspot; in the back of the top slot which caused instant burnt toast once it was flipped on its side. I'll tell you how I remedied this later on in the post.
Another point that I need to mention is that when I was doing the research for this post, I found that quite a few people had toasters that had these metal gates that sort of gripped the bread while it was being toasted. My hand-me-down vintage toaster is probably about 8 years old, so it doesn't have any fancy metalwork. But some do, and if yours does, this method won't work for ya. SORRY! The heated metal prongs will press into the cheese and start a smoky mess and maybe even start a fire which is not a lawsuit I'd like to deal with. So yeah, give up now if that's what's going on in your kitchen. Come back next week and I'll have a new method just for you!
So when you use the whole "toaster technique" you're going to want to use a super flat slice of cheese. Using shredded cheese would be an absolute mess and would definitely fill your house with the smell of burnt cheese. No bueno.
So yeah, stick to the sliced stuff and lay one slice on each piece of bread.
Also, now that you're aware of your hot spots and are ready to start to melt some cheese, go ahead and gently press down your toasting lever and watch the magic unfold.
I let mine toast for about two and a half minutes on the "low" setting. And because of my toaster's hot spot, I made sure to rotate my bread half way through so the back wouldn't get all burnt up and cause my house to smell like death. Yes, death. It's awful, but not as awful as burnt hair. That's the worst.
And here's another tricky part, if your toaster is anything like mine, it will projectile-launch your toast four feet across the room when it decides it's "done". This is a serious issue. Cheese burns are no fun and they seriously feel like molten lava if they just so happen to launch out and hit you in the stomach while you're wearing a bikini*.
Make sure to gently pop your toast out, and have a shirt on, please, please, please take my advice and have a shirt on.
Now this is the part when you need to work quickly. After the cheese has melted, take your toast out and start piling on the good stuff.
I threw on some speck, which is like a juniper flavored version of prosciutto. It's super yummy and salty and good, and I actually like it about 300 times more than regular ole' prosciutto.
Then I piled a couple of these delicious sweet and spicy pickles that my friend Bev mailed me from Florida. They're called good and evil pickles and they're made by the wonderful people at Mercier Orchards. Basically it's equal parts whole garlic cloves, sliced jalapenos, and cucumber rounds. They're super spicy but it's not overwhelming because the sweetness masks the burning which in turn, forces you to keep eating them so that you maintain this equilibrium of hot-to-not-so-hot balance.
Am i the only one that experiences this vicious and sometimes fattening cycle? I think that's why I always eat way too much chips and salsa at Mexican restaurants. Sorry, back to the point.
Once your fillings are all in, place the other piece of cheesy toast on top. If you're not afraid of a few hundred calories more, smear some butter all over the toast to make it more grilled cheese-ish. I felt really weird about not putting butter all over this sandwich but I'm going back to Florida for a visit next week and i might have to be in a bathing suit, so i figured I could go without it... even if i felt like a traitor.
Now slice it down the middle and serve immediately!
In conclusion, this is definitely a method that should be used only in desperate situations. To be honest, I'll probably never do the toaster technique again, but at least we all know that it can be done without the tricks of cable television! I mean, it's not that bad, just a little dry and anxiety provoking (totally didn't even think about cleaning out the crumbs before I did a test run which was a bad idea).
And of course, I'll be back next week with a new and exciting grilled cheese cooking method, so stay tuned!
xoxo,
GCS
Anna
You explained this very well. At first I thought that I would try this as soon as I would arrive at home. After reading through the last paragraph I'm not so sure anymore. Maybe your method will help me one day when desperate times call for desperate measures.
Anonymous
Gotta try this! Sent to me by my aunt who's kitchen I almost burned down when I was 10. Figured the tooth picks would hold it in place.Did pretty well until the flames turned them into torches. The toaster's last appearance was that of a flaming ball being ejected from the side door of the house. No other harm except to my uncles perception of reality when he heard the story. lol
Anonymous
i needed this yestereday!!! im so glad i found it today because i needed it for garlic bread
Anonymous
Like your writing style
Mike Schuman
Delicious looking sandwich! When I was in the Air Force and living in the dorms we thought we were so clever to make grilled cheese sandwiches using foil and an iron. I wish you'd had lived across the hall from me back in those days. But in those days we weren't co-ed yet.
Anonymous
Well what is the good of it if you have the toaster that closes when you put the bread in.
They don't have the ones that stays open while the bread is in as far as I know anyway.
But it is one great idea.
Anonymous
Memory Lane at work here. I used to use this method after my divorce back in 1980 when all I had left was a toaster and a refrigerator and of coarse no money. The one thing you must do FIRST is dump your crumbs out, then a long glide path helps unless you have a catchers mitt handy. Never did figure out how to keep the slice on the top from landing on the bottom slice upon ejection. God Bless You !
Anonymous
I had passed this on to a friend and this was her reply: I had received this from another friend a while back. I showed it to my co-workers. One of them tried the grilled cheese in the toaster. I wish we would have had a camera. When it was done toasting (remember that the toaster is on it's side) it shot his bread right out and on to the floor - cheese side up. It was so funny. Definitely too funny!
Anonymous
So good to be here.
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Tia Aguilar
Love this idea! Thank you.
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