The Pilgrim

Happy day before Thanksgiving to all!  As mentioned last week, my goal for this week was to find an appropriately Thanksgiving-themed grilled cheese and I definitely hit the jack pot courtesy of The Grilled Cheese Academy (which isn't so much an actual cooking institute as it is a marketing website for the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board), so to them I say:

(I also commend them on the success of their marketing campaign).

The ingredients were easy to find, particularly because it's the holiday season and cranberry sauce is on sale!  I snagged the following:

3 Tbsp cranberry sauce, 3 Tbsp Dijon mustard, butter, sage (I couldn't find fresh sage, so bottled had to do), honey wheat bread, 8 ounces each of Wisconsin Gouda, turkey breast and spinach.

First up I prepared the cranberry-mustard by combining the cranberry sauce and Dijon mustard.  I decided to use 4 Tbsp of cranberry sauce instead of 3 because I know Dijon mustard tends to have a kick to it that I'm not always the biggest fan of-- so ideally more cranberry sauce would balance it out.

Next I mixed 1/2 stick butter with about 1 Tbsp of the sage to make sage butter.  I must say I wasn't nearly as excited about this as I was about the garlic-cheese butter, but anytime we're adding a little zest to the butter I'm on board.  After grating up the Gouda I was ready to go. 

Down went four slices of honey wheat bread that had been buttered on one side.  Next came the cranberry mustard (it said to do 1 Tbsp per sandwich and serve the rest on the side, but I just decided to use it all). 

Which was followed by the Gouda, evenly distributed over the bread.

The recipe actually calls for 16 slices of Gouda, but since I'm opposed to cooking with slices unless absolutely necessary (and not having any idea what "16 slices" translates to in terms of ounces), I figured 8 ounces total would work just fine-- and it did :-)

I hadn't read the recipe too closely (surprise, surprise), so I realized a minute too late that I wasn't supposed to put all the Gouda down at once-- just half of it.  So I took some back off of each sandwich and added the 8 ounces of turkey to the sandwiches in the removed cheese's place.

The spinach was to come next, but the sandwiches were already looking so tall that I decided to only include spinach on two of the sandwiches.  All of the sandwiches were then topped with the remaining Gouda and a second slice of bread and voila! Into the pan they went.

Thus far my only experience cooking with Gouda has been the less than stellar Dutch Grilled Cheese, so I was hoping this would prove a more successful endeavor.  I had forgotten how quickly and smoothly Gouda melts!  It was starting to ooze out of the sandwich within about a minute of being placed in the pan.  This meant all of the sandwiches cooked up pretty quickly, which is always a good thing when they look so delicious!

Taste Review:

The sandwiches were very visually appealing-- good colors inside with a nice browned exterior (you could even see the sage flecks on the bread).  Colin thought it looked sort of like a club sandwich (although I think that was mostly due to the turkey).

The fact that I was able to slice through the sandwich like it was warm butter clued me in to the fact that the insides would be very creamy and indeed they were!  Colin was so awestruck by the creaminess that all he could say was "Oh man!  Oh man!"  When I asked for further elaboration on his thoughts he cut me off with a "Shh... don't talk" at which point he commenced singing Take My Breath Away TO the sandwich.  I could see his vote was in.

The sandwich is really so creamy that it's almost like you don't have to chew.  The cranberries and Dijon mustard balance each other out very well-- both could be strong flavors on their own, but compliment one another nicely.  I was glad I added some extra cranberry sauce because, as usual, the Dijon was a little too spicy for me-- I like things on the sweeter side.  It said it all when Condiment King Colin acknowledged that this sandwich needs no additional condiments.

I didn't really notice a difference between the sandwich with spinach and the one without because the main focus was the creaminess of the cheese and the cranberry mustard.  As for the sage, I don't know what that tastes like on its own, but I could tell there was a light herb undertone and obviously that's to the sage's credit.  I think it was there to give the illusion of seasoned turkey (like you would have at a Thanksgiving dinner).

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	The Pilgrim
Gooey-ness:	4
Aroma:	2.5
Appearance:	Looks like a colorful club sandwich.
Taste:	A

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Looks like I can add this sandwich to the list of things I'm thankful for this year.  An added bonus is that it's probably not hard to re-create this with your Thanksgiving leftovers!  All you'd need to buy is the Gouda :-)  Happy Holidays to all!  See you next week (not sure what we've got in store for you then).