Apple Grilled Cheese with Grainy Mustard

Apple Grilled Cheese with Grainy Mustard - July 18th, 2012

My favourite soup & sandwich combo will always be a Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup. That is comfort food to me. While there wasn't soup on the menu that day, I relished making a this new take on a grilled cheese sandwich.

Apple Grilled Cheese with Grainy Mustard - page 177

"The "white-bread-and-butter fried cheese sandwich" of years past is transformed with spelt bread, low-fat cheddar cheese, whole-grain mustard and thinly sliced tart apples. And, while we may have updated this classic sandwich for modern and health-conscious tastes, we didn't dare tamper with its trademark simple assembly or minimal ingredients. Five ingredients and 10 minutes is all you'll need to get our grilled cheese on the table!"

I love that by using apples in this sandwich I am able to use my panini grill. I once tried to use it for making your old-school regular bread & Kraft cheese slices type of Grilled cheese but that went horribly awry. The pressure from the grill flattened the bread beyond and all the cheese squeezed out and pooled around what was once a sandwich. The apples give the bread some stability and it grilled quite beautifully.

A few slight changes due to ingredients on hand. We didn't have grainy mustard, but already had several bottles of other varieties so I didn't want to buy another one. I used regular Dijon. I also didn't buy a loaf of spelt bread, but used Sobey's Ancient 12 Grain.

I am now officially IN LOVE with Granny Smith apples in my grilled cheese now. When I made these I sliced &divided one apple between the two (with a few pieces going to the dogs), but next time, going to really layer the apple slices. The apples soften up in the panini press from the heat as they bake. So delicious.  Also, I may not be able to return to using the processed cheese slices ever again. This was so so so much better. Grating real cheese into the sandwich changes everything.

Another healthy update for this grilled cheese was the exclusion of butter/margarine. Prior to this recipe, margarine was a staple to making a perfect grilled cheese sandwich. Well, I am about to blow your minds... Olive oil. You need only a light brushing of oil on the outside pieces of bread and it will grill-up so crispy and golden brown.

We enjoyed this one so much that Niall made it again for our lunches the following day.

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