For some reason last week, I was in the mood for a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches as a late night snack. But when I checked the fridge, as usual I didn’t have half the items to make a “normal” grilled cheese. So after giving the fridge a quick scan to see what was available to make a grilled cheese. What I had on hand was six slices of Finlandia jalapeno muenster cheese and some cooked bacon. At the time I didn’t realize it, but now that I think about it, I ended up making more of a “ham & cheese” instead of a “grilled cheese”, but that is where the similarities ends. So on to the fun stuff, and making some sandwiches.

Ingredient list for 3 sandwiches:

• 6 Slices of Rotella’s Italian sandwich bread
• 6 Slices of Finlandia Jalapeno Muenster
• 6 Slices of cooked thick cut bacon
• Land O Lakes Fresh Buttery taste spread

It’s pretty straightforward as far as cooking goes for these sandwiches. In that you butter up one side of the bread, and then put together two slices, buttered sides together. This way you can assemble all the sandwiches at once and then just peel them apart before putting them in the pan to brown.

The cheese and bacon is also easy in that you take two slices of bacon and break them in half into four pieces and place the bacon between two slices of the cheese inside the sandwich.

I’d give you a cooking time for each side, but I really don’t have a fixed time written down on browning each side of the sandwich, since I like to vary the amount of browning each time I make a grilled cheese. But you can check the side notes for a couple of tips.

Side Notes:
1) Overall I’m really digging on the bacon in the grilled cheese, and the jalapeno muenster was a nice change-up from the normal processed American cheese. So this combo is a winner in my book.
2) The first sandwich from the pan will never come out as good as the rest of the sandwiches. It has to do with the pan not fully coming to temperature with the first sandwich. Since after the first sandwich I usually have to turn the heat down from #5 to #4 on my electric range so that the pan doesn’t get too hot now that the pan is fully heated.
3) I’ve also got a couple of slices left of chipotle jack cheese from the Finlandia twin pack, so I’ll let you know how it turns out with bacon as a grilled cheese sandwich.
4) I also made a grilled cheese once before with regular muenster and Cabot Habanero Cheddar. And holy moly was that hot stuff in the spice department, yeah it was flavorful, but hot hot hot.
5) I also like to have a couple of dill pickle spears on the side when I eat a grilled cheese sandwich. But alas, I also didn’t happen to have any pickles in the fridge. One of the downsides of keeping food to the bare minimum in the fridge.