Enthusiasm is awesome. It's an encourager - the cheerleader of the feelings family.

It's also like an older brother who builds up your confidence only to trick you into leaping off the garage with nothing but a pillowcase parachute and your own eagerness to keep you airborne.

Enthusiasm sometimes ends badly. Or at least not how you had planned, even if no one shattered a femur in the driveway.

Following the stuffed poblano attempt, it occurred to me that enthusiasm and I might have gotten ahead of ourselves.

So I decided to reel it in, start with what I know, build on my existing expertise. What is in my realm of expertise? Mashed potatoes. Rice. Sandwiches.

More specifically: Grilled cheese sandwiches (or as a friend in college used to call them, toasty cheeses).

The slice-of-American version is a classic, and it pairs well with a bowl of tomato soup. It also tastes great if you're 11 and it's a school snow day and you're famished after spending the morning building the most intricate snow fort ever seen before, complete with booby traps.

But it's also possible to take time-honored fare and fancy it up a bit - give it grownup feel without forgoing what made you love it as a kid. I can do that.

Enter the brie, the honeycrisp and the spinach. I stole the idea for the appetizing trifecta from a quesdilla recipe in a magazine.

I worked in some inspirational layering, buttered the bread, toasted it like one toasts a grilled cheese.

And there you go. I even made a bowl of tomato bisque. And by "made" I mean heated up. One thing at a time.

For more stellar grilled cheese combinations, check out this Beautiful Mess blog entry: Fancy grilled cheese 9 ways