What better to have for lunch when you are not feeling tip top.  Unfortunately, I contracted Covid three days ago, and am now in isolation.  I am doing OK.  In fact, I can’t complain.  Feeling a little achy, don’t have my usual get up and go, an occasional wheez, but other than that, not bad.

Needless to say, during this period of isolation and not feeling tip top, I need to eat.  Well, what immediately pops into my mind is a cup of tomato soup along with a grilled cheese sandwich.  Yes siree!

Making the tomato soup I can handle.  I pour the soup from the can into the pot on the stove and wallah!  After so many minutes I have wonderfully hot soup to slowly sip on.

What I have learned however is that more than one company makes tomato soup.  I have always been a Campbells Soup guy.  Yet, the other day, a good friend mentioned Progresso Tomato Soup with Basil.  I tried it and from now on, I am a Progresso fanatic.  Love it.

But, onto the challenge that really spurred this blog, how to make a great grilled cheese sandwich.  The truth is that over all these years I have never made one before.  I have eaten many, many, but never made one myself.  so, this is a new experience for me.  this is what a great grilled cheese sandwich is supposed to look like.

It should be really easy, I say to myself.  put some bread face down in a frying pan, and then put some cheddar cheese on top of them and there you have it.   well, I tried this yesterday, and let me just say that it did not turn out very well.  A disaster in short.  Not good.  OMG.

How can I screw up a grilled cheese sandwich??????

Well, I did, and I am now determined to get this right.  Please send your recipes to me as soon as you can.

I received one yesterday that is a Bon Appetit recipe that I tried out today.

I will be using white bread this time instead of wheat bread which I used yesterday.  And for those of you that have read my previous blogs, you know what kind of white bread I will be using.  WONDER BREAD!  Thank goodness for Wonder Bread.

Secondly, I will be using some mayonnaise, whereas before it was just butter that I added.

Third, I will be adding the mild cheddar cheese slices much sooner than I did yesterday.

Fourth, I will be cooking one slice of bread first, then adding the cheese, and then, and only then, putting the second piece of bread on top, before I flip it to brown the other side.  Yesterday I cooked both pieces of bread initially on both sides and then I added the cheese and put the two pieces of bread together.  It did not turn out well, let me just say.

Finally, Bon Appetit says that it is very important to cut your sandwich diagonally.  I did not do this.  I did the conventional cut down the middle.

With all of these changes I am saying to myself, I should be good to go.  Ohhhh, I sure hope so.  The way I am feeling right now cries out for some tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.

Let’s cross our fingers.  I entered my kitchen around 1pm today to make what I hoped would be a great grilled cheese sandwich.

Something happened on the way to the second installment of a great grilled cheese sandwich.  I am not sure what went wrong, but once again it did not turn out as I had hoped.

Here is what I did this time.  I coated two slices of Wonder Bread with mayonnaise and placed them in the nonstick frying pan.  I then placed my mild cheddar cheese on top of one of the slices.  Once the cheese was on the slice of bread, I placed the other slice of bread on top of the cheese to complete the sandwich.

I am not sure what went wrong, but the bread never got brown and toasty.  In fact, the bread got soupy and stringy – very flexible.  The bread lost all of its structure.  Maybe Wonder Bread is the wrong kind of white bread to use.

While the sandwich tasted OK, it was very difficult to eat because there was no structure to the sandwich.  Holding the sandwich was like holding a dead fish which had no backbone.  It flopped over my fingers and the palm of my hand.

Visually it did not meet my standards too.  Take a look for yourself.

Suggestions welcome.  I plan to persevere, and tomorrow I will try again.

For everyone out there, have a very special Christmas day, and let’s be particularly thankful this year for every relationship we have.