“A Deconstructed Grilled Cheese,” Or In a Less Artsy Fartsy Way–Fried Cheese Filled Bread Balls

Few of the foods I have loved from my childhood evoke more ire and disdain from friends and celebrated food icons than the much maligned processed cheese food, also known as American Cheese, the boldly orange stuff found in convenient individual plastic wraps. Often considered a lowbrow food, it must be admitted that it is a much used ingredient by harried mothers everywhere seeking to make something quick and satisfying for their children after a long day of school and a great way to shut them up for a few minutes which they scarf down their white bread and American cheese while watching the afternoon cartoons.

Before then, I actually did not know what a true grilled cheese sandwich in this form was for a long time. My family had always simply placed the cheese on bread slices, and toasted them in the toaster oven, and I had liked it just fine, and still did after learning the proper way. Truth be told, I still enjoy this as a quick snack when I can get away with it. But when I witnessed my friend’s mother butter the sides of two pieces of bread, slide not one but two pieces of American cheese between them, and them grill them between the plates of a George Foreman grill did my perception of how grand a grilled cheese could be was truly elevated. Perhaps that experience was one of the contributing elements to my love of cooking and its abilities to transform food.

So it is this memory that I pay homage to for this post, and with love that I transform it into this. I really hope I’m not using the word deconstruction incorrectly when I call this a deconstructed grilled cheese. It seems more like a reconstruction, but obviously I haven’t watched enough Top Chef to figure it out.

So behold my creation of love and quick thinking, a “deconstructed grilled cheese,” which is now in the form of homemade bread dough, studded with chopped garlic, stuffed with American cheese, and fried to doneness.

Prepare to Gougere!

A few weeks back, I gave my first try at using choux pastry to make profiteroles, most definitely a sweet treat. This time I am using it as a vessel to serve of some cheesy goodness, seeing as how cheese is this week’s theme for the 52 week cooking challenge.

Oh, a quick aside, here is a shout out to a young person in PA who has just started checking out the blog and going through some challenges right now.  There are people thinking of you and rooting for things to work out! All the best luck to ya kid.

Ok back to business.

The preparation is called the gougere and is prepared almost exactly like the choux pastry for the profiteroles, with possibly the slight change of slightly more salt. And of course the addition of cheese. I’d like to take the time to add a caveat that one not go too crazy with the salt depending on the cheese you intend to use.

If you had, say a particularly salty Parmigiano-Reggiano, rather than adding a full teaspoon extra of salt, you might just want to go for a pretty big pinch.

And if you don’t care about looks and feel very lazy, they can end up rather flat looking. But still wonderfully creamy and cheesy on the inside.

Cream Cheese Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped Jalapeños

Also known as Atomic Buffalo Turds, Armadillo turds and all sorts of other animals that need to do various things. By the by, this is my first time trying to blog using the Windows Live Writer so hopefully this post won’t stand out terribly, but if so, you know why!

The process for making these are probably just what you’d imagine it to be. But I need a reason to show off some pretty pictures right? I recommend wearing some food quality plastic gloves for this process by the way. Here are the ingredients I’ve used. Cream cheese, jalapeños, bacon. I think you can use whatever white cheese you’d like, but something milder would probably work better. Pepper jack might actually be interesting, but probably redundant.

Slice the peppers in half.

Remove the seeds.

And stuff with cheese of your choice! Cream cheese is advantageous in terms of ease.

Wrap each pepper half in half of a bacon slice. Or a whole slice if you’re feeling particularly sumptuous. Spear with a toothpick to secure the bacon. Do a better job of me with covering all of the cheese with bacon if you’re going to be grilling and need to turn it over due to overly hot temperatures in the case you don’t have full control over the charcoal.

Grill or baking the stuffed peppers. If grilling, I’d recommend indirect heat if possible, covering and keeping an eye on it, checking it say, every 5 minutes until cooked. As I didn’t have that option I actually had to flip it onto both sides to cook the bacon. If baking, it is 10-15 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

Once finished, have a cold beer or perhaps a glass of milk ready and enjoy!