Every once and awhile, I decide to invite some college friends up for a weekend of fun and excitement. This past weekend everyone visited just so they could eat one of my world famous grilled cheese sandwiches. Well, maybe not exactly, but I do like to tell myself that. We had a great time hanging out, watching some baseball and eating lots and lots of food. The weekend was topped off with a Sunday brunch featuring my Stuffed French Toast Grilled Cheese. Since it was Sunday, and people had far to drive, I cooked (and took pictures) as quickly as possible, insuring that all of my guests would be able to at least try one of my grilled cheese sandwiches.

ingredients:

• Banana/Cinnamon Additions
• Ricotta Cheese
• Challah

the cheese: ricotta

As this grilled cheese was created quickly (more on that later), I did not have time to sample the ricotta cheese before creating the grilled cheese. Therefore, I will just have to let About.com inform you AND me.

Technically, ricotta is not a cheese at all, but a cheese by-product. Its name, ricotta, means cooked again, an obvious reference to the production method used to make it.

Ricotta is made from the whey drained from such cheeses as mozzarella, provolone, and other cheeses. American ricotta is generally made with a combination of whey and whole, low-fat, or skim cow’s milk.

Ricotta is a fresh, soft, snowy white cheese with a rich but mild, slightly sweet flavor. The texture is much like a grainy, thick sour cream. Ricotta is naturally low in fat, with a fat content ranging from 4 to 10 percent. It is also low in salt, even lower than cottage cheese. Since ricotta is made primarily from lactose-rich whey, it should be avoided by those who are lactose-intolerant. (About.com)

thoughts

Yes, this feature is called Sunday Dinners but I wanted my friends to be able to taste my grilled cheese, so therefore, I had to switch it up. I had to devise a breakfast/lunch grilled cheese. The sous chef makes great french toast, which should be world famous, so we played off that, threw in some ricotta cheese and added some yummy bananas. Voila, a stuffed french toast grilled cheese sandwich was born.

After the bananas were completely cooked and soft, I went ahead and added them into the ricotta cheese. I stirred, added brown sugar, vanilla and some more cinnamon sugar to the ricotta. If I were to do it again, I would add even more bananas into the cheese, in addition to more cinnamon sugar. The mixture was good, it just wasn’t as fruity/sweet as I would have hoped. If I had a few more bananas sitting around, it would have been perfect. In my opinion, there is no such thing as “too sweet.”

While I was creating this somewhat fruity/sweet mixture, the sous chef was on the other side of the kitchen, using slices of fresh challah to create french toast. This bread french toast would become the top and bottom of the wonderful brunch grilled cheese we all were about to eat.

The construction of this grilled cheese was actually very easy. All I did was place some of the ricotta cheese mixture on one slice of french toast, topped it off with another slice, more cinnamon sugar and some powdered sugar.

the grilled cheese:

[metaslider id=8180]

stuffed french toast: B+

7 of my friends ate this grilled cheese and I am pretty sure each and everyone said they liked it. (Nothing like inflating your own ego, right?) After hitting publish on this entry, I plan on emailing each and every one of them for more input on the grilled cheese, of which I hope they will respond. (They will respond.) Those answers will be posted at a later date.

Oddly enough, my grade is lower than my friend’s comments would indicate. As already stated, the fruitiness just wasn’t as pronounced as I would have liked. The bananas unfortunately did not shine through and neither did the cinnamon. The french toast was of course great, the filling just needed to be enhanced. I used 4 or 5 bananas as it was so it looks like for the bananas to truly be as potent as I would have liked, I would have probably needed to use 8-10! Keep that in mind if you decide to create this in the future: use a lot of bananas!

ingredients were purchased at…

• Miles Farmer’s Market (Banana)
• Giant Eagle (Ricotta Cheese)