Grilled cheese w/ ketchup: moral imperative, or mortal sin?

[308Mike]

I may burn for this, but a little ketchup also goes well with Boston Baked Beans, along with a little bacon and a drop or two of molasses.

(I think it's to hide the Boston.)

Why on earth would you want to make boston baked beans any sweeter?

You must not have actually had Boston baked beans, because the real thing has as much molasses in it as it does beans (and also has bacon or salt pork).

I don't know about Boston Baked Beans, but my mom was probably making a cheap version of it and didn't even know it (based on your description). She would take a can of Campbell's Pork & Beans, add a large amount of brown sugar (which contains large amounts of molasses) along with some other items, and slow cook them for a while before ringing the dinner/supper bell.

Ketchup has four uses:
1. Dip fries into.
2. Topping for hamburger/cheeseburger.
3. With meatloaf.
4. In soup beans.

5. Slathering over pan-fried liver.

Ugh. Why eat the filter out of a cow?

Hypocrite warning I will #$%^ up a sack of oysters in basically any form you can think of to present them.

Trust me, if we didn't eat that $%%^&*()@%^^$@%& piece of "FOOD", we didn't eat that night - and yes, my brother and I sometimes went to bed hungry instead of eating that thing which contained some LARGE VEINS/ARTERIES in it (which we HATED running into while eating that gray [when cooked] piece of "FOOD"). My brother and I KNEW that there were MANY people in the world who would LOVE to be able to have the OPPORTUNITY to eat something like that - BUT WE DIDN'T LIVE THERE!!!!! And we told our mom so (as a kid, she went to China when her dad was stationed there prior to WWII - I have my grandfather's photo albums containing pictures of them in China, and a few photos showing the Chinese whacking off Japanese heads).

I actually like the t-shirt which says: "Please Mom, No More Organ Meats!!!"

When we had liver for dinner, my brother and I used to go through a WHOLE BOTTLE of ketchup during that meal, just to cover the taste/texture/flavor of eating that filter. YUCK!!!

Although there are MANY filter feeders we eat on a regular basis, NOT wanting to eat the actual isolated FILTER is MUCH different than eating the entire creature, including the filter. There are quite a few seafood items MANY of us like/love that are filter feeders, and although some other may not be "filter feeders" but they may be scavengers, such as crabs & lobsters. Personally, although I can NOT STAND eating liver, I will eat, without hesitation, many types of scallops, oysters, clams, crabs, lobsters, crawfish, and on occasion mussels. There are LOTS of things I will eat, and the list of things I REFUSE to eat is actually quite small (unlike my wife, where the situation is reversed - it is MUCH easier to list the things she WILL eat than what she will NOT). I've had fresh scallop, right after pulling it off the bridge piling and bringing it up to the surface, eating it (the circular muscle which is used to open and close the shell) as fresh as you can get.

Eating filter FEEDERS is NOTHING like eating the FILTER. I've done BOTH, and prefer to not eat the cow filter EVER AGAIN (perhaps if it was an alcoholic, it might have been already tenderized/marinated)!!!!

[Dinochrome]

I've never had it that way, but it makes me want to try it.

The way I fix my Grilled Cheese sandwiches is to take a couple of matched pieces of bread, butter the outsides of each piece for grilling. Grill each butter'd side (usually using margarine, and only cooking ONE side at a time) of bread, and as each piece grills, slap a piece of Kraft American Cheese on it, while the other side is grilling.

After slapping another piece of sliced cheese on the piece grilling (and if I feel like making it extra cheezy, I break up a piece of cheese and separate it into 1/3'rds, then spread it acrocc the piece already melting before slapping ANOTHER piece of cheese on it and then putting the top piece of butter'd bread on top (buttere'd side UP), then I flip the whole thing over so it's now resting on the uncooked butter'd side so now IT can grill and melt the cheese between the pieces of bread.

When done to a nice grilled brown color, remove and place onto plate along with a sweet pickle on the side.

YMMV.

This is exactly how I do it. We use seven-grain bread and real butter fried until crispy. The Kraft cheese melts perfectly just as the second side gets done. The buttery taste combined with the nuttiness of the sunflower seeds in the bread make a perfect complement to the cheese. No ketchup, but tomato soup and the grilled cheese make a fine lunch on a grey rainy day.

[HTRN]

I soak my beans (you can use navy, pinto, red, black, or white.

Do you use salted water? I've read some interesting things recently on salting the soaking water in beans, and on how it gives superior results - something to do with magnesium ions in the skin of bean being replaced with sodium ions, causing the skins to cook much quicker, and therefore, you don't get overcooked inside of the beans.

[Darrell]

My baked beans are a pinch of this and a handful of that--basically a couple cans of pork n' beans, bacon, onion, garlic, brown sugar/molasses, a little chile pequin, and... a 4 oz can of chopped green chiles in place of green pepper. They really do something to the dish.

[Darrell]

I soak my beans (you can use navy, pinto, red, black, or white.

Do you use salted water? I've read some interesting things recently on salting the soaking water in beans, and on how it gives superior results - something to do with magnesium ions in the skin of bean being replaced with sodium ions, causing the skins to cook much quicker, and therefore, you don't get overcooked inside of the beans.

ETA per HTRN's comments--many people say not to put any salt in the water until the beans are done, they think it makes the skins tough or the beans harder to cook. I do not subscribe to that notion, though.

[HTRN]

Yutoob vid of a guy putting the theory to the test.

This goes into the science of it.

[308Mike]

BOTTOM LINE: *IF* you feel the NEED to use ketchup on a grilled-cheese sandwich, perhaps the ingredients/components are lacking in flavor!

I've NEVER felt the need to add ketchup to any grilled-cheese sandwich. I find the mix of flavors of grilled bread with butter/margarine, your favorite bread (for me, it's a Milton's Healthy Whole Grain Bread bread). I just LOVE smelling the sizzle of this bread with butter on it just before I put slices of cheese on it!!

*IF* you feel the need to put ketchup on your "grilled cheese" sandwich, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate your ingredients to see if something is lacking - or perhaps you REALLY LOVE this version of the classic Grilled-Cheese Sandwich.

Check your taste buds, perhaps there's something you're not catching which may make ALL the difference in the world!!

Or, as other's have suggested, use a DILL pickle as a side to the sandwich instead of a SWEET PICKLE. I prefer a SWEET PICKLE, but you may not. BOTTOM LINE, only YOU can decide what you REALLY LIKE.

Take your time, we'll be here (and curious to your responses), but only YOU can make the final decision. And DO NOT let the decision ride on the choice of PICKLE!! LOL!!

[evan price]

No ketchup- but I have been known to add pickles. Yum!

[Captain Wheelgun]

Ketchup, no. Ham, yes.

[Jeffro]

No ketchup, but tomato soup and the grilled cheese make a fine lunch on a grey rainy day.

Ketchup, no. Ham, yes.

Yes! Thin deli sliced ham, slice of American cheese, buttered and pan toasted, plus a hearty bowl of tomato soup. Yum. I've been modifying the el cheapo canned condensed stuff with some Rotel and various spices, too.