Caprese Grilled Cheese

WILL IT GRILLED CHEESE?

It will.

End of summer, still cleaning the last of the basil and the sugar-sweet tomatoes out of my garden (and my neighbor's [she said I could!  I swear!]).

Gardens are kind of sad in September.  Everything's a little dry, a little cold.  The growth has stopped.

I have been replacing harvested vegetables with flowers.  Zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds, and lately chrysanthemums.

Cheers me up.

It's not so bad.  Halloween comin', cooler weather.  Hoodies and cardigans and woolly caps.

Yeah, I guess that will be all right.

Caprese Grilled Cheese
These flavors are the kind you never get tired of.  Add some sourdough bread, you've got yourself a stew sandwich.

Makes 2 sandwiches

4 slices sourdough bread
1/4 cup butter (or so, for buttering bread)
2 oz mozzarella cheese. sliced (or to taste)
10 fresh basil leaves
15 cherry tomatoes (or other fresh tomato varieties)
balsamic vinegar, to taste

Heat a small pan over medium-high heat.  Butter one side each of two slices of bread.  Place one slice of bread in the pan.  Top with 5 basil leaves, 1 oz sliced cheese, and 15 or so cherry tomatoes.  It's okay if some of the tomatoes spill out, they can grill in the pan.  Cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes.  Turn heat down to medium.  Flip, cover, and cook another minute or so.  Remove from pan to cutting board, drizzle hot sandwich with small amount of balsamic vinegar (a little goes a long way here).  Slice in half and serve.  Repeat with second sandwich.

Roasted Tomato, Basil and Hummus Sandwiches

 
Oh my goodness, vacation in Michigan is crazy time!

It'd been sunny and hot and lovely for like, a week and a half.  Then last week?

Tornado!

Okay, it wasn't a tornado but I swear some of those black clouds were spinning.  Plus, the house is near a trailer park.  Tornado bait!

I tried to go running that morning, but it went all black and started lightning-ing and thundering like the voice of God itself.

I called my mom-in-law from the road and she came and gathered me into the car, shaking wet and scared in my running booty shorts.

You know how it's really unlikely that you'll get struck by lightning?  Well, you know it happens sometimes.  And you know that when it does, it's going to be me.

It rained, then it hailed, then the power went out for 16 hours.

But seriously, sorry to the people in the trailer park when you lost power.  'Cause the next day was so, so hot, right?  I hope no one had any sad babies over there. 

Sad babies are so sad.

Last night, rain.  Last night, insane wind storm.

Today?  The power was back, and the sun was back, and the heat was back, and the humidity was back.  I swear I could hear it, a kind of vroooshing inferno upon stepping outside.  My relatives tell me it will be like this until the next horrible storm.

Hooray for summer in the midwest!  I'm not homesick for Oregon yet, but maybe some consistent temps in the 80s?  Well, that'd just be swell.

Roasted Tomato, Basil and Hummus Sandwiches
(makes two sandwiches)

1 lb tomatoes
3 T olive oil
salt and pepper
1 15-oz can garbanzo beans
juice of half a lemon
1 t salt
2 T tahini
2 cloves garlic
1/4 c pine nuts
paprika
6-9 leaves fresh basil
4 slices good bread (I used a light rye)

Put pine nuts in a small pan over medium heat to toast.  Keep an eye on them while you're working, and remove from heat when they start to brown.

Preheat oven to 450.  Slice tomatoes into bite-sized chunks, toss with salt, pepper, and 2 T olive oil.  Place on a foil-lined (easy cleanup!) baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes, or until you get the desired amount of charry goodness.

While tomatoes are roasting and pine nuts are toasting, mix up garbanzo beans (with 1/2 c of the liquid they come in), lemon juice, garlic cloves, tahini, salt, and 1 T olive oil in a blender.  Make a smooth paste out of it.  A smooth paste of hummus.

To assemble, spread hummus on bread (it's good toasted!).  Top with sprinkling of pine nuts and paprika.  Add tomatoes, and finish with 2 - 3 basil leaves per slice.  Have a great summer dinner!

French Onion Soup Sandwiches

Summer is coming!  Summer is coming!  Summer is coming!

Hurry we need to make goals!

Get out your pens, guys!  Ready?  Okay.

This Summer I Will:

Swim in the ocean.  Even if it is the freezing mother effing cold Oregon ocean!

Get a sunburn.  Er, tan.  Suntan.

Wear orange with everything.

Eat grilled and/or barbecued meat at every single opportunity.

Wear socks with high heels.

Sleep outside at least once.  I literally had a dream the other night that I was staring up into the night sky and could see whirling planets and shifting galaxies.  That!

Make and eat ice cream.

Paint my ugly, chipped, dull green kitchen table.  You know the one.  It's the background I'm trying desperately to hide in every photo.

Sometimes you get ril tired.

Paint my ugly, chipped nails hot pink, and keep them reasonably so.

Buy fake snakes to scare the birds?  rats?  children?  strawberry thieves! out of my garden.  If that doesn't work?  Real snakes.

What are your summer plans?  Do they involve hiking, biking, or triking?  Flying to new and exotic locales?  Pinning dead bugs onto cardboard?  It's cool, we all have our hobbies.  Weirdo.

French Onion Soup Sandwiches (adapted from Joy the Baker)

This is the kind of recipe that I got into cooking for.  Easy, fancy, and so lip-smackingly satisfying.  My version here is on gluten-free bread that didn't really lend itself to grilling, but Joy recommends, after caramelizing the onions, assembling the sammich and doing it up like a grilled cheese.  I kept that in the recipe, because, trust Joy. 

Also, very good served with artichokes!  These are part of Project Side Dish, because I'm finally learning that just putting a bag salad and a bottle of Ranch on the table at every meal is not really working, as far as getting my family to eat fruits and/or veggies.  More creativity to come.

4 medium yellow onions, peeled cut in half and sliced into 1/4-inch thick semi-circles
6 tablespoons unsalted butter,softened, plus more for buttering the bread
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper
2 pinches of granulated sugar
6 tablespoons beef broth, beer, or white wine to deglaze the pan (I used white wine, zero complaints)
1 cup finely shredded cheese (Joy recommends Gruyere, I'm a cheapskate so I used Monterey Jack.  Zero complaints), please use more cheese to your own taste
8 slices bread, GF or otherwise

Place a medium, heavy bottom sauce pan over medium heat.  Add the butter and olive oil and stir until butter is melted.  Add the sliced onions all at once.  Stir to coat the onions in the fat.  Allow onions to cook, undisturbed, for about 4 minutes.  Add salt, thyme, and pepper and stir.  Place lid on the pan and allow to onions to cook for about 4 minutes at a time.  Lower the heat if the onions are browning too quickly.  Remove the lid to stir the onions every so often.  The onions will begin to brown, break down, and resemble an onion jam.

When onions are entirely browned and completely soft, add your liquid (beef broth, beer, wine, or water) to the pan.  Using a wooden spoon, scrape any burned bits off the bottom of the pan as the liquid evaporates.  This takes about 30 seconds.  Remove pan from heat and allow to rest while you assemble the sandwiches.

Butter one side of each slice of bread.  On the unbuttered side add a good sprinkling of gruyere, top with warm onion mixture, top with more cheese and the final piece of sandwich bread.  Repeat process in assembling the other sandwich.

Cook sandwiches over medium heat in a medium saute pan.  Flip and cook until golden on the outside and melty on the inside.  Serve immediately. 

Defy the Universe with Your Sandwich

Big day today, guys!  I am having my first guest blogger.

Is it an esteemed food blogger, known far and wide for their creative recipes?  Is it one of my dear readers, for whom I've finally gotten my ish together enough to ask?

No!

It's a bit more local than that.

For you see I am not the only cook in this house, oh no.  While I entertain myself with molasses and rose water, someone stocks his cupboard (his shelf, really) with simpler fare.

But honestly, no one does simple fare better than he.

So, without further ado, I give you...the huzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! (Justin)

Also (oops here is slightly more ado) tomorrow is our 5th wedding anniversary!  How do you like that.  Take it from here, baby!

*Ahem*
My name is Justin. Nice to meet you. I am a man. A 6'4 tall 220 lb man. A hungry man. A man condemned to spend too much of his time hungry, too much of his time rooting around for something...something...there's got to be something delicious here to eat...

...oooh, perhaps I'll make a sandwich. But not just any sandwich. I grow tired of pb&j. Yes, I've had enough of that -- Today I want more than to fill my cavernous gut with something more than my normal lowly proletariat chow...yes! Today I want to glut myself on a sandwich so fine it defies the eternities! I will make a sandwich that challenges forth in glory and triumph. Mmm...triumph...

Man cannot live on bread alone. Man must add turkey, or pastrami, or roast beef. Man must upgrade the lowly bread to rye or sourdough or ciabatta -- something more than that dumpy whole wheat reserved for pb&j. Man begins with a bunch of onions in the cast iron pan. Many onions. Browning onions...man adds cheese --directly on top of the onions in the cast iron. This is a secret learned in the streets of Mexico City...the cheese goes right onto the pan...mmm...queso fundido.

The cheese (in this sandwich mozzarella) gets crunchy on the edges. Man adds turkey meat right on top. Then turns the whole pile over to let the turkey cook. Man has toasted the rye bread already and now adds dijon and mayonnaise. Man has no sauerkraut or jalapenos today. Man sad...man remembers! Woman make guacamole! hooray, sandwich is rescued! (happily applies guacamole).

Sandwich! (man holds above head with both hands!

Man likes chips too.

 Observe this thing I have made!

 Observe it!!!

Mrrrmmm...nuummmm....snarf! mrrruummmm....nummm....yum

Goat Cheese Meatball Subs with Caramelized Onions

Is conundrum.

Started blogging many hours ago.

Blogging frequently interrupted by teeny tiny child.

Child laughs, time to play.

Child cries, rock him down to snoozle town.

Good fun. But blogging?

Doesn't get done.

Only part I need two hands is this. The rest is point and click.

Yet here I am, teeny tiny child asleep on lap. One handed after all.

Most delicious meatball subs. Pictures are fuzzy! Sorry.

Bad pics = great food, as our pic snapping hands trembled with food lust.

Caramelized onions and goat cheese in the meat balls.

Love, love, love.

Love.

Goat Cheese Meatball Subs with Caramelized Onions (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Meatballs
The baguettes or seeded sandwich rolls you’ll use for your sandwiches
2 pound ground meat of your choice
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/3 cup finely grated goat cheese
3/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 small garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 large egg
Olive oil
4 cups prepared tomato sauce (plus extra if you like a lot of extra sauce)

Caramelized onions
2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt

Assembly
2 cups coarsely shredded cheese

Make the meatballs: Split your rolls almost the whole way through, leaving one side attached. Scoop out some of the roll to create a channel for the meatballs to rest in. Grind the bread you pulled out in a food processor or tear it into minuscule bits. You will need 1 1/3 cups or 2 3/4 ounces of fresh breadcrumbs for the meatballs. If you’re not making subs, you can get this same amount of breadcrumbs from 2 to 3 sandwich bread slices. Set rolls aside until later.

Place the fresh breadcrumbs in a large bowl with 3/4 cup warm water and all of the meatball ingredients except for the olive oil and tomato sauce. Combine with a fork, breaking up clumps of meat until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Form mixture into 2-inch meatballs are arrange on a tray. I find wet hands make it easier to form meatballs without them sticking too much.

Heat a generous slick of oil (few tablespoons) in a large saute pan with a lid. Brown meatballs in batches, being careful not to crowd the pan or nudge them before they are nicely browned or they will stick and you’ll leave delicious meatball bits in the pan. These meatballs are soft, so use a gentle hand. Transfer meatballs to a paper towel-lined tray and continue until they are all browned.

Discard the oil and heat your tomato sauce in the pan. Add the meatballs, cover the pan and simmer them on the lowest heat possible for 25 to 30 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through.

Caramelize onions: While the meatballs are simmering, you can cook the onions. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion, sprinkle with salt and a little pepper and cook until they’re tender, sweet, and a deep golden brown, stirring occasionally. This takes me about 30 minutes.

Assemble subs: Arrange meatballs with sauce in the hollowed-out roll(s). Drape caramelized onions over the top and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Place subs under a broiler or in an oven at top heat to melt the cheese.