Think outside the... cheese?

We have been attempting to eat more veggies lately, and it has even affected our grilled cheese sandwiches! These are so fun, I throw whatever we have on hand in there and Alex and I haven't had any that we didn't like yet. The boys pretty much do plain bread/cheese/meat ones still :).
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Some of our new favorite grilled cheese ingredients are:

Green onions

Avocado

Cilantro

Spinach

Avocado

CHEESE

Avocado

and green onions.

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See a theme here? If you're a pepper and onions kind of family, by all means throw some in!! I'm not crazy about that idea, crunchy or cooked into slimeyness. So we haven't gone that route yet, but I bet Alex would like it :). Anyways, for tonight I happened to have some more exotic ingredients on hand, so here's how it went...

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First I smeared some garlic mayo (plain ol' mayo with some minced fresh garlic mixed in) on the first slice of bread, sprinkled on chopped green onions, layered on some fresh spinach, sprinkled some feta cheese, added sliced avocados, ham, smoked gouda cheese, and topped with a second slice of bread.

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Now seriously, I don't usually have feta or gouda on hand, and cheddar and/or mozzarella are usually our cheese options. The spinach is also unusual. Anyways, some tips to remember when making gourmet grilled cheese:

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1. When working with small pieces of non-sticky food (i.e. green onions, grated cheese, etc.) I like to put those directly on the piece of bread that will go on the griddle. That way they have time to melt/wilt into the bread before you need to flip it.

2. Cheese against the bread (on both sides, if possible!) will help glue the whole thing together better.

3. Avocado is really good on grilled cheese. You can smoosh it, slice it, whatever. It makes the whole thing more creamy feeling and doesn't taste too green :). If the smooshiness of it bothers you, sprinkling a little salt on it can help it to blend in a little better. I thought the idea of it was weird at first too. You should all try it!

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**NOTE** I did not really burn the sandwich in the picture. It is on (store-bought) whole wheat bread in bad night-time kitchen lighting and I'm not that handy with a camera to begin with!! Haha.

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***ANOTHER NOTE*** Don't you love extra notations? Anyways, a fun thing that we learned recently (thanks to pinterest!) is that if you get a package of green onions and save the root ends, stick those in a jar with some water on your kitchen windowsill and they'll keep growing and you can just clip off however much you need whenever you want. It's been a few weeks and ours are growing like weeds still!

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****ME AGAIN**** Just kidding.

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P.S. I know grilled cheese is a super boring thing to post about, and this one is a weird one to boot. So maybe someone else should get on the ball and post something better soon, ok? Like maybe chocolate? Seriously, I need chocolate. I may need to test Becky's 14-layer crepe thing one of these days... Or maybe Sara's Death by Chocolate trifle. YUM!!! Gotta do something to counteract the healthy ingredients in these sandwiches. Haha!! HEY! Someone did just post something here recently. I'd better go check it out instead of dragging this out even longer.