Grilled Cheese Goodness and Leftovers

I am savoring these nice cool Fall days and maybe hoping for a little Indian Summer. How about you? The cooler weather also puts me in the mood for things like chili, roasted vegetables and homemade soup which I really LOVE to make! I'll post about that and share some secrets for the best pot you've ever made another day. So today I thought I would share my grilled cheese makeover with you. Maybe you can whip one up for lunch and see if you can get the family to notice anything different. We personally think our new version is way better than the old.

See, healthy food doesn't look so bad does it??

I have said before that we don't eat a lot of bread around here. We do like bread for sure and I have some homemade breads I really love to make. I will say it is hard to find a really good healthy bread. I mean one that is 100% whole wheat, no enriched or bleached anything, and one with no high fructose corn syrup, and not too many calories per slice. Then  if you find that, to find one that will hold up for a grilled cheese sandwich and not get soggy is a whole new battle. So we have switched to sprouted grain breads.

Ezekiel bread is found in the frozen section of health food stores. I can find this bread in Willmar at both grocery stores if you want to try it. This is the bread that most health food experts like Bob and Jillian from the Biggest Loser eat and recommend.

We also like this one from Trader Joe's and it is much less expensive if you are fortunate enough to live close to one. We are going today and I will be stalking up!

The next thing to switch is the butter you usually slather on that bread! I really have never had a love affair with butter unless it was cinnamon or honey butter. We don't have much we even use butter on now. I do allow myself some butter occasionally but because it has all that saturated fat in it I try to avoid it. Especially since there are some fairly good alternatives out there these days. The best one to buy is called Earth Balance but it is expensive. So I buy Brummel and Brown Spread because it is made with yogurt.

I have a friend who is a very picky eater and she even like the taste of this one. This lasts a long time at our house because like I said we just don't have a need for much "butter" these days.

Now the insides of that yummy sandwich. I have switched our family to reduced fat cheeses. This is one of the easiest changes for your taste buds to make. You will never notice the difference so go ahead and trust me on this one. You could always start with something like mozzarella anyway since it is lower in fat to begin with. The cheese I happened to use this time was something marvelous we picked up at Whole Foods. I am going back there again today too!

This was an English Aged Cheddar of some sort and even though it was crumbling it worked very well!

Now is the time to be a grown up and get adventurous with your grilled cheese! This time I spread a little garlic pesto mayo on the inside of the bread (use mayo with olive oil), then topped that with all natural black forest ham, spinach, sliced tomato, and red onion. I don't even know what to say to tell you how good this sandwich was. There are no words!

Gooey but crunchy goodness with lots of flavor!

Another good way to try it is with some Dijon mustard spread on the inside, all natural turkey, spinach, and sliced pears, and cheese of your choice. Sometimes I don't even put the cheese on that one! This is a great thing to experiment in the kitchen with. I think I might go Mexican with it next time! So get out the griddle and start cooking and let me know how it turns out!

So last night Miles and Evan went to the football game. Normally I love to go too. It is one of my favorite things about living in a small town. However it was quite cold last night and Faith and I both have allergy issues so I didn't want either one of us outside with the wind blowing all that allergy stuff around. So I needed some dinner for myself. Remember I made Tex Mex stuffed yellow squash earlier in the week? I had some leftover filling I was going to put in a tortilla for lunch one day. Well that never happened but this did......

Oh my goodness I love it when accidents like this happen!!! Again no words for how yummy this was!

I heated up a whole wheat pita, spread it with guacamole, topped it with my heated leftover filling, and added some Parmesan cheese. I then heated it again for a little bit to melt the cheese some and sliced it up! Delicious, fantastic, superb, yummy, wonderful, new creation! There are some words for you I guess! So now I guess you will have to make the Tex Mex squash won't you???????