Tuesday, March 2, 2010

....doesn't seem like a bad idea at all.

So..... What did you do last night?

There was a spaghetti dinner at church Sunday night, and the unused noodles and sauce fell to us, for which we are extremely grateful. Freezer space at the A.C. is tight this time of year so Tyler, J.Boggs and I went to the A.C. last night and took it downtown to the kitchen at the church so we could use it tonight. 

During the day I was thinking about the fact that we had spaghetti two weeks ago. We try not to repeat meals too often, but the reality I come back to is this: to me, two weeks ago is just "two meals ago", while to our friends it's 14 days with lots of other things in-between.

But.....nonetheless, I was thinking of other things we could do with the noodles and sauce. I didn't think of anything new, but I did make a list of things we could incorporate them into. So when I called J.Boggs and Tyler to help carry it downtown, I also floated the prospect of some food experimentation. Who could resist experimenting in the kitchen with nothing to lose and projects you can eat?  Not Tyler and J.Boggs, anyway.

After loading it up and taking off, we stopped at the store for some supplies, then went downtown.

First Experiment  
Grilled Cheese/Spaghetti Sandwich  (Griddle)
Nothing fancy. Butter the bread, slice of cheese,nice spoonful of spagetti and grill it. Tyler left it on long enough for the bread to get good and brown on both sides. We made two the first time. We could tell they were going to be awesome when we cut them in half. They were pretty darn good! We looked at each other kind of surprised at the fact we made something that good. Warm and gooey with cheese and buttered bread....the only thing we missed was garlic and then it would've been an Italian meal on a sandwich.
Grade- Solid "A". Home run first time up.

Second Experiment
Grilled Cheese/Spaghetti Sandwich  (In the oven)
Heated the ovens and assembled the sandwiches. 6 minutes on each side. I had more love for it this way than the other 2 guys did. They liked it but liked the stovetop method better. I was a little closer to putting them as equal in my taste for them. The oven method does have one drawback. The middle of the sandwich is softer and doesn't hold the spaghetti as well as the stovetop method, which makes it a little messier.  While I don't hold that against the sandwich, it is a consideration when deciding if we would use that method to fix them on Tuesday nights, which was the purpose of the experimenting.
Grade- "B+"(that's an A- from me and B's from the other 2) Good eating. This method gives you an outer crust on the bread. mmmmmm

Third Experiment
Spaghetti Cheeseburger
Easy enough. Tyler grilled the burgers, we put a slice of cheese on them and topped with spaghetti. Put the buns facedown on the grill for about 20 seconds.
I put A-1, Texas Pete, and a little mustard on mine. J.Boggs and Tyler went A-1 and Old Bay. The grilled cheeses had gotten us pretty excited so we were ready for this. We did 1-2-3 "Bite" and started moaning. It was soooo good. I know I say that about a lot of things but this was. The A-1 was a great call.
Grade- "A+ " Hands down the best thing we did all night.

However, it wasn't all dancing bears and lollipops. Experiments 4 (Fried spaghetti) and 5 (Noodle Pancakes) were not successful on any level and best left undescribed.

So our thinking is, Grilled Cheese/spaghetti sandwiches and Spaghetti Cheeseburgers are valid options for meals on Tuesday nights (especially Spag. CB's). The plan is to make about 10 GC/S sandwiches tonight and take them out as testers to our friends and see what they think. After all, it's what they like that matters.
If we served based on what I liked, we'd be rolling out Peanut Butter, Banana, and Cheese sandwiches and Chocolate Milkshakes every week...... which, now that I see it written down......

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