Product Review: Toastabags

I'm not sure I ever thought I'd do a post that's a product review, but lo and behold here I am!  Awhile back my friend Jessi told me about a product she had seen called Toastabags -- little bags made out of a special material that you can use to cook a grilled cheese in a toaster.  Of course this made her think of me.  They looked interesting enough, but I wasn't quite ready to order them online.  Fortunately for us all, fate dealt me a lucky hand as I navigated the lesser-occupied pre-storm areas of my local Safeway and found my very own set of Toastabags!

I decided for my first trial run I didn't want to get too crazy, so I went with some old standbys-- grated cheddar on Pepperidge Farm sourdough.  In the spirit of a little fun I did use some butter to stick some Parmesan to the outside of the bread a la our Grilled Caprese sandwich.  So after assembling my sandwich I carefully shimmied it into the bag so as to try and not lose the cheese filling.

Despite what this photo appears to indicate, it was a relatively tight squeeze, but it worked well.  I can safely conclude that you could fit just about any average-sized sandwich bread in here.

Now it was time for the toaster.  I use my toaster pretty rarely (I didn't even have one until I looted a freebie from my friend when she was selling virtually all of her possessions), so I didn't really know what to go for in terms of ideal darkness setting.  Oh well!  Trial and error, right?  So I just set the dial to about the mid-point and stuffed the sandwich into the toaster.  This was DEFINITELY a tight squeeze, so even though most breads will fit in the bag, make sure your toaster will actually accommodate 2 slices of bread plus filling in one slot.

The Toastabag didn't actually go all the way into the toaster, so there was a good little piece peeking out for the duration of the cook time.

I realize that the lever is up in this photo, but I assure you that the sandwich really looked no different whether the lever was up or down.  At a point it was just too fat to fit anymore of the bag into the toaster.

Once the toasting was done I decided to show the top part of the sandwich some love and flipped it over to toast the portion that was formerly exposed during the toasting process.  I didn't allow this side to toast quite as long as the first run-through though, because I didn't want to burn the middle of the sandwich.  A few seconds/minutes later...

 

 

Voila!  Mixed results (one side lightly charred, the other not so much).  The cheese inside was definitely melted and the outside of the bread was toasted, so our primary objectives were achieved, but it wasn't quite the same as your standard grilled cheese.  Even though I had put a little butter on the outside of the sandwich (which apparently isn't even necessary), the bread still felt a little dry-- like... well, toast!  Not to say that's a bad thing, just different.  It gives an overall lighter feel to the sandwich.  That's really the only key taste differential. 

I think the real focal point here is the actual preparation process.  What was that infomercial with the tag line "Set it and forget it!"?  Well, that's basically what you can do here.  Instead of standing at the stove constantly flipping/covering/uncovering/flipping/recovering your sandwich, you just pop it in the toaster and get on with your life (for the next two minutes or so).  It's the lowest maintenance grilled cheese I've done (but then again, I don't have a panini press which I imagine involves a similar order of operations to the Toastabags).  The only clear logistical downside is the inability to fit too much filling/crazy ingredients into the sandwich.  We all know I've done some fatty sandwiches in the past (i.e. The Onion Ring Grilled Cheese, The Brunch Grilled Cheese, and The Pulled Pork and Fried Pickles Grilled Cheese to name a few), and clearly none of those would have been possible in my small-ish toaster.  So you either need to manage your expectations there, or get a big toaster. 

All in all I'd say these are handy in a pinch on those days that you don't quite feel like putting all the effort in to make a grilled cheese, or for bringing with you to make a grilled cheese on the go.  Could I have finally found the key to office grilled cheeses?!  YESS!