Almost every day I wake up in the morning wishing I could just stay home and cook all day. I don’t much care what it is. I don’t even necessarily want t eat it. There’s just something about the magic of turning ingredients into food that I find so calming.
Work gets stressful. People think I’m dumb. But in my kitchen, I’m the boss. I do actual dumb things in there all the time, but I don’t much care. It’s quiet. It’s warm. It smells great. Where else would a person want to be?
The truth is, I’m usually so frazzled by the time I get home from work that I can barely summon the energy to stand in front of a skillet for 10 minutes. Lucky for me, you can make something pretty amazing in that amount of time.
This gooey, delicious Continental Grilled Cheese is a fantastic mash-up of European flavors. It’s lacking in any sort of authenticity but completely loaded with good things to eat. It starts with buttery brioche which gets spread with some tart cherry jam. Polish ham went into my sandwich because I couldn’t find the Black Forest ham the original recipe called for. All of this is held together with oozing brie. It’s so right.
There are few things in life that make me quite as happy as gooey cheese. The crunch from the grilled brioche is the perfect contrast to the ultra soft brie, and the slight smokiness of the ham and sharp sweetness of the cherry jam is spot on.
Take a deep breath. Be good to yourself. Eat a Continental Grilled Cheese. Smile. Be Awesome.
- 2 slices brioche bread
- 1 tablespoon cherry jam
- About 2 ounces brie, enough thin slices off your wedge to cover both slices of bread
- 1-2 slices Polish ham
- 1 tablespoon butter, softened
- Place a skillet over medium low heat on your stove to heat up while you build your sandwich.
- Start building your sandwich by spreading cherry jam in a thin layer on each slice of bread. Next, lay slices of brie over each slice of bread, then add your ham. Close up your sandwich and spread the top, outside piece of bread with your softened butter.
- Place your sandwich in the preheated skillet, butter side down. Spread the new top with butter as well and cook for approximately three minutes on each side or until your bread is as dark brown as you like.
- Slice and eat quickly before the cheese drips gloriously down your hand.
