Bacon-Beer Bread Grilled Cheese--Vote for Me!

About a week ago, I came across a post on DudeFoods blog (check out his blog--he eats the craziest concoctions and lives to write about them), talking about the ultimate grilled cheese contest. With a $50 Williams-Sonoma gift card and cheese at stake, I knew I--along with Nate's help--had to participate.

We immediately put our heads together to think of a delicious grilled cheese we could enter. We had lot of ideas (one involved a pretzel roll; the other involved some Mexican cheeses), but ultimately we decided on the Bacon-Beer Bread Grilled Cheese we made for dinner Sunday night and submitted to the contest.

Low and behold, our creation is one of nine finalists in the contest! We're alongside some pretty crazy and delicious-looking grilled cheese creations. Even if we don't win, it was really fun coming up with something somewhat crazy (it's not everyday we make bacon-beer bread around here, but it could come to that). But, it would be fun to win, so I ask that you check out what we made and go to DudeFoods' Facebook page, "like" the page and then vote for our creation by "liking" the photo.

Bacon-Beer Bread Grilled Cheese (serves 2)

• four slices beer-bacon bread (see recipe below)


• sharp cheddar cheese (enough slices to cover one side of the bread)


• chipotle cheddar cheese (enough slices to cover one side of the bread)


• Bavarian mustard


• 3 slices cooked cherrywood-smoked bacon


• 2 eggs, fried


• 1 large tomato, sliced


• butter for outside of sandwich

For each sandwich, take two slices of bread. Spread butter on outer sides of bread and mustard on the inner sides. Top bread with slices of sharp cheddar, followed by the cooked bacon (1.5 slices per sandwich), tomato, 1 fried egg and chipotle cheddar. top with other slice of bread.

Cook in a large skillet over medium heat, until bread is browned and cheese is melted. Put cover on skillet if cheese isn't melting.

The sandwiches were very over-the-top compared to the grilled cheeses we usually make, but they were so tasty, and all the flavors worked really well together. So, if it sounds good to you, too, please go vote for it!

Beer Bacon Bread (12 slices, 1.5 lb. recipe)
Recipe from Betty Crocker's Bread Machine Book

• 3/4 cup flat beer


• 1/2 cup water


• 1/4 cup chopped green onions


• 2 Tbs. mustard (we used Dijon)


• 1 Tbs. butter, softened


• 3 1/4 cups bread flour


• 1 Tbs. sugar


• 3/4 teas. salt


• 1 3/4 teas. bread machine or quick active dry yeast


• 1/3 cup crumbled cooked bacon (we used cherrywood-smoked bacon)
  

Measure carefully, placing all ingredients except bacon in bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Add bacon at the raisin/nut signal.

Select basic/white cycle. Use medium or light crust color. Do not use delay cycles. Remove baked bread from pan and cool on wire rack. (We like slicing the cooled bread with an electric knife.)