GRILLED CHEESE, ALL JAZZED UP.

Grilled cheese is the ultimate comfort food.  It's been around since childhood, toasty warm from the pan with crisp crusts and gooey middles.  It's also made a big appearance in the restaurant scene, with gourmet ingredients like brie cheese, specialty chutneys, and artisan breads.  Either way, it's always irrefutably delicious.

Now that I'm gluten free it's more difficult to get gourmet grilled cheese out on the town, so I brought it back into my kitchen with a few of my own tricks.  This grilled cheese is intensely melty on the inside, finely crispy on the outside, and bursting with flavour from all angles.

I did two sandwiches, each with it's own extra pop of flavour, spread liberally on the inside of the bread, right beside the slices of cheese.  The first is a standard pesto sauce.  This nutty, herb sauce is packed full of taste, and will really kick the sandwich up a notch.  

On the other sandwich, I used a roasted red pepper puree, called ajver (pronounced like 'iver').  I luckily snagged one of these little jars of homemade heaven from my boyfriend's mother's kitchen.  I've used it mixed with goat cheese for a dip, or mixed into scrambled eggs, or in this case, as a sandwich spread.  It adds a ton of flavour to the grilled cheese, without taking over the taste of the cheese itself.  You can usually find a jar of ajver in the ethnic section of the grocery store (or you could make your own too!).

The cheese I used was a spiced gouda, party because I knew it would taste good, and partly because that's what I had in the fridge at the time!  My favourite option is a strong gouda or sharp white cheddar, but you can use whatever you have on hand.

The next way to trick out your grilled cheese is to do a parmesan crust on the outside of the bread slices.  Start by softening about 2 tablespoons of butter in the microwave, and then mix in about 2 tablespoons of freshly grated parmesan cheese.  Once you have a good, cheesy paste mixed together, spread that over the outside of the bread slices.  Then pop the sandwiches onto a hot pan, and cover with a lid to make sure the cheese inside gets fully melted.  The sandwiches only need about 1-2 minutes on each side, as the parmesan crust gets crispy pretty quickly.

Dig in quickly!  You'll love the extra bite of sharp cheese on the outside, the unique flavours inside, and the crunch these jazzed up grilled cheeses have.  It's comfort food, at a whole new level - no ketchup required.