Croissant with Grilled Spinach & Goat Cheese

This week, I decided that I was going to call AOL’s bluff and see if they really knew grilled cheese sandwiches. I was about to put them to the test. I decided that I was going to follow one of AOL’s recipes. Ever since I started this project, I have been using some sort of traditional bread, bread that comes in loaf form. This week I decided it was time to think outside the box a bit more and use a croissant for the basis of my grilled cheese sandwich. Again, I must say thank you AOL, the croissant was delicious. I had been hesitant to use non-original recipes, but after eating tonight’s grilled cheese I won’t be.

ingredients:

Fresh Spinach
Goat Cheese
Gruyere Cheese
Onion
Fresh Croissant

thoughts

The most interesting part of the grilled cheese was how the recipe suggested that you put the sandwich together. For all of my other grilled cheeses, I put the cheese on last, on top of all the other ingredients. That is a typical grilled cheese sandwich. However, the recipe suggested that I mix the goat cheese in with the spinach and onions. Interesting, huh? I thought so as well.

I was instructed to finely chop up the onions, put them in a pan with butter and brown them. Simple enough. Next I added in the mostly dry spinach, cover and cook until it was becoming wilted. Finally, I added in the goat cheese, stirring everything together. That became the basis of my grilled cheese and let me tell you, it was delicious. I did add some salt to the mixture, prior to putting it on the croissant and I may have actually added too much. That is something I will need to keep in mind in the future, even if I am a fan of salt.

Adding cheese into the ingredients, instead of on top of them, is definitely something I should try again. The goat cheese was a perfect cheese for this type of mixture and grilled cheese. If you out there in Internet land have any suggestions for other cheeses that would work in a similar situation, please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

The gruyere on top, which could have also been goat cheese, did not melt as much as I would have liked. That may have been partially because of problems with our oven, but I also wonder if gruyere has a higher melting temperature. It did brown, but unfortunately, did not completely melt . It didn’t affect the taste, but it did affect the look which in cooking is a big deal. I will have to play with that in the future.

And the croissant. I love them plain and could eat a few at a sitting. The croissant worked very well with this grilled cheese and added a nice flaky texture. The croissant was there but allowed the other ingredients to pop as well. Everything worked very well together and surprisingly, the recipe came from AOL. Whowouldathunkit?!

the grilled cheese:

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