Hot Grilled Cheese Pockets

The other day, my pizza dough just wouldn’t rise. I was set on homemade pizza for dinner, so I started a second batch seeded with a way bigger spoonful of yeast. Refusing to believe that my pizza dinner dream wouldn’t somehow bubble into reality, I put my two bowls of unrisen dough by the radiator and went for a walk. I was hoping that the watched-pot-never-boils truism would apply to bowls of flour with stunted yeast, too.

When I got back, the doughs-both of them-were bubbling. Pizza failure was averted. But now I had extra dough. I put bowl #2 in the fridge, and two days later, I decided I’d better do something with it.

In most grilled cheese sandwiches, the bread matters, of course. But the quality and freshness of the slices aren’t the most important factor in the quality of the finished sandwich. Leave that to medium-low heat and a generous pat of butter (here’s how to make a perfect grilled cheese).

But what if the bread were perfect too? What if it were chewy, fragrant, salty, and stretchy, like just-pulled-from-the-oven focaccia? And, while we’re at it, what if the cheese were cooked right inside?

You can guess what happened next: I took all the cheeses out from my cheese drawer, combined provolone with mozzarella and a little cheddar. I pulled my dough, now a wind fall, not a burden, out of the fridge and stretched pieces into small rectangles. I filled each with my three cheeses, and folded them over into pockets. Last, I brushed the outsides with butter, sprinkled them with coarse salt, and baked them in a hot oven until I had golden, oozing, fresh grilled cheese pockets. Though the whole activity happened by chance, the results were so good and so easy (once you have dough made) that I had to post about them here.

These would be an ideal lunch or dinner paired with tomato soup.