One of the many things I love about Sal is that she's always up for doing stupid things like hanging out all day making and eating as many cheese sandwiches as possible. This was a particularly awesome plan as it not only fitted in with my International Cheese and Chocolate Month theme but also with her dirty sandwiches theme. Brilliant!
We started by popping to M&S and Infinity Foods to grab the ingredients we needed to go with the ones I'd brought back from the US.
We bought two kinds of bread, VBites ham, a tomato and some Violife original slices that I forgot to photograph. I had the soya milk and the Vitalite already and the Earth Balance Mac & Cheese and Daiya Provolone Slices came from Austin.
We decided to make the sandwiches in order of perceived awesomeness in case we got full and didn't enjoy the final sandwiches so much. Smart logic! Obviously that meant that the mac & cheese toastie was up first. I love my toastie maker and I don't use it anywhere near enough. Cheapo white bread is the only sensible toastie bread, that's what this machine's built for people. Don't fight it!
If you aren't familiar with the humble toastie (or jaffle as they call it down under) it's a staple of students and lovers of hot filthy sandwiches everywhere and you butter the outside of the bread just like when you're making a sandwich in a cast iron pan. The toastie maker seals up the sides and makes pockets of cheesy melty deliciousness that are usually hotter than the sun. Classic toastie fillings across the UK include cheese, cheese and ham, cheese and pickle and cheese and baked beans. Basically cheese is important so why not give mac & cheese a whirl?
Unsurprisingly this was freaking awesome, just look at it. And it's my favourite combo - carbs on carbs! Or really, in this case, carbs in carbs.
I'll tell y'all more about the mac tomorrow when I do a full review (and giveaway!) of both kinds of Earth Balance boxed mac & cheese but so far so good, we'll just say it lived up to my expectations! You could totally use any mac and cheese here, I think two big dessert spoonfuls would be the right amount, any more and you'd end up in a serious overflow situation.
Grilled Cheese number two involved another of my ridiculous kitchen gadgets, the panini press. This sandwich was a little fancier so we whipped out the multi seeded bread. This had the Daiya provolone slices, VBites ham and sliced tomato inside. Here's Sal capturing the bubbly meltiness of the cheese.
Unfortunately looking at the bubbly melty cheese was the high point of this sandwich experience. Daiya provolone is, um, gross. Seriously. Why is is so sweet? Blurgh. Even the meltiness couldn't win us round here!
Posh sandwich, thumbs down. Neither of us will be eating the rest of the cheese and that says a lot. We decided to gift it to Sal's dad who will literally eat anything including dried hunks of TVP. Don't ask.
Next up was Sal's recreation of a pre-gan sandwich she used to make whilst drunk many years ago. It's a cheese and ham sandwich and she used Violife cheese slices and VBites ham and to say that I was dubious about it would be a massive understatement. Why? You ask, cheese and ham seems pretty normal right? Well alarm bells started ringing when she said she was planning to use my microwave to make it. Yup. I was highly suspicious. Bread...in the microwave? I think I may have accused her of being a disgusting dirty savage. I totally ate my words in the end though because this was a DELICIOUS dirty sandwich. It's not gourmet, it's not fancy and sure, the bread was a touch soggy but look at the hot melty deliciousness.
As you can tell the melting potential of the cheese is very important here and Violife was a clear success. This also only takes one minute in the microwave and, a definite bonus for a sandwich that is apparently best enjoyed drunk, you don't need to turn on the grill or the oven or even mess with anything remotely likely to burn down the house. All you need is to be able to exercise patience and not burn your tongue on the cheese! This is a definite win my friends so don't knock it 'til you've tried it! Disclaimer: We are both kinda gross. Your milage with the soggy bread may vary. You cannot hold us accountable if you try this and aren't a fan. Good melty cheese is totes essential.