Sammiches

Who doesn’t love grilled cheese sandwiches? Well, actually I’m sure there are plenty of people who don’t, but I’m not one of them. I love cheese, bread and fat, and the combination of the three is like a holy trinity of yum. They’re quickly prepared, and suitable for lunch, brunch or a midnight snack. I’m very fond of the old-fashioned grilled cheese and tomato soup combo. That used to take care of me on many a cold winter’s day growing up. My favorite was grilled swiss on wheat bread. Grilled cheese is one of the foods I think of as “platform foods.” Delicious in its most basic state, but also easily raised up by a simple change of ingredients. This post is dedicated to some of my favorite grilled cheese combos.

My Method (Yes, I’ve thought about this far too thoroughly for normal mental health.):

I like my grilled cheese to be quite toasted with lots of crispy brown on the bread., and gooey inside. This can be difficult to achieve, especially if you are making a particularly thick sandwich. All too often in the past I ended up with burnt bread and cold cheese. Through trial and error, I’ve come up with the method that produces the desired balance between crispy on the outside and tender and melty on the inside.

1. Cook your sammie on medium-medium low heat, not high. If you cook it on high, the bread will probably burn before the cheese melts.

2. Put a lid on the pan. Cook the sandwich uncovered on one side, then flip, cover and cook the other side with a lid on. This helps hold the heat in and melt the cheese.

3. I think my sandwich comes out crispier if I butter the bread rather than the pan, and use a thin coating of butter or oil. Too much fat soaks into the bread and inhibits crisping. Spread a thin layer of butter or oil from edge to edge of the bread. If you use too little fat, and you might as well just make toast.

4. If you’re making grilled cheese sandwiches with “extras” make sure the extras are at least room temperature. Ice-cold sandwich fillings also prevent the meltiness which I highly prize.

5. Don’t walk away from your sandwich while it’s cooking. It’s shameful how quickly a sandwich can go from deliciously toasted to heinously carbon crusted. A table-top grill, like a George Foreman, is a bit more forgiving. You can walk away from those for a sec, but still, just keep a sharp eye out.

A Few of My More Successful Grilled Cheese Experiments:

Spinach Tomato Crunch Grilled Cheese

Ingredients

2 slices of good Italian bread (sturdy and crusty)
good tasting olive oil
garlic powder
finely shredded parmesan or romano cheese
your favorite pesto
baby spinach leaves (they are more tender)
tomato slices
mozzarella cheese (smoked is delicious)

Take the bread slices and brush a layer of olive oil on one side of them. Next, sprinkle them liberally with garlic powder and parmesan cheese. Lay one slice of bread cheese side down in the pan, and spread a dab or two of pesto on top. Throw on a slice of mozzarella. Next layer the spinach leaves, tomato slices and a second slice of mozzarella cheese before topping it with the second slice of bread, cheese side out. (I try to keep the tomato slices from touching the bread directly, so that things don’t get too soggy.) Grill on both sides to your desired level of brownness and enjoy.

BJC Sammie

2 slices of wheat bread
butter
cooked bacon strips
pickled jalepeno slices
sharp white cheddar cheese slices or pepper jack if you want even more kick


On buttered bread, layer cheese, bacon, jalepeno, and more cheese. Grill until the bread is toasty and the cheese is melted. If you dip the finished sandwich in salsa, it’s quite yummy.

Pear-Cheesey

2 slices of dense multi-grain bread
butter
dijon mustard
thinly sliced pear
brie cut into slices, rind and all

On the ubiquitous buttered bread, spread dijon mustard, and layer cheese, and pear. Grill until golden brown and delicious (GBD). I know this sounds like an odd combo, but it’s delicious. The sharpness of the mustard just cuts through the richness of the cheese and the sweetness of the pear.

Breakfast/Brunch Grilled Cheese

2 slices of raisin bread
butter
cinnamon
cream cheese
dried cranberries
chopped walnuts or chopped pecans
honey or maple syrup
apple slices

Butter the bread and sprinkle lightly with cinnamon. Mix in proportions to your taste the cream cheese, cranberries, nuts and honey or maple syrup. Spread the mixture on buttered bread, add apple slices and grill until GBD. Be careful with the raisin bread, because it’s more prone to burn during grilling. Also, the cream cheese won’t melt like regular cheese, so you want to bread to be well grilled and the cream cheese to be soft and warm.

Reason #167 to start doing more Tango:

Around here, milongas have better snacks than most lindy events. At the last milonga there was cheese, bread, fruit, chocolates, tapenade, hummus, veggies, and other finger foods. At the last exchange I went to there were peanut butter jelly sandwiches, and pretzels. I still love to swing, but unless I'm poor, I know to get fed elsewhere.

Girl Jam/Grill Jam

In sharp contrast to the two weeks prior, it has been quite chilly and damp outside today. It’s a good thing, we needed the rain so that the spring things that have begun blooming can keep on keeping on. That said, it was quite a comedown from my weekend, which was mostly sunny and warm, and that was just on the dance floor. I just returned from the Northeast Girl Jam, a follower-intensive workshop in Rochester New York. I had a couple of breakthroughs about things that I needed to fix in my dancing, and got to spend time with a lot of people who make me feel good just by being themselves. I also managed to squeeze in some good eats. If you’re ever in Rochester, grab a bite at John’s Tex-Mex Eatery. I had a shredded pork tostada (delicious) with a side of mashed potatoes and plantains (which I’m already working out how to replicate at home), and an orange-mango mimosa. The mimosas orange and orange-mango were the Saturday drink specials, and were wonderful and refreshing at $2 the glass. The menu was very vegetarian/vegan friendly and the service was friendly and smooth. If you need a cup of coffee, then the Muddy Waters Coffeehouse is a good choice. Our friends Ogden and Erin scoped it out, and bless their caffeine loving hearts for it. They have the most chocolate-y mochas I have ever had, good enough to really call dessert. They had some nice brewed coffees on offer as well.

One of the great features of NEGJ were the after-parties at the Lindy Compound. Every night after the official dancing was over, people would stop by Wegman’s to pick up supplies and then descend upon the Compound for dancing and merrymaking. Sunday night after the last workshop had wrapped up, Grill Jam began. Again sponsored by the immensely hospitable people at the Lindy Compound, it featured a bit less with the dancing and a bit more with the cooking and eating. Our car group once again hit the local Wegman’s for some food ideas. After a bit of wandering around picking up things our shopping cart contained:

One whole pineapple
A large package of chicken breast tenderloins
One large red pepper
One bottle of Iron Chef Teriyaki sauce
One bag of Wegman’s Spring Mix salad greens
½ lb container of deli Caprese salad made with grape tomatoes and mini balls of fresh mozzarella

When we got to the compound, the grill was already going full-blast and cooking space was at a premium. I spotted sausages, steaks, vegetable skewers of at least three sorts, chicken leg quarters, veggie burgers, and sliced bananas. I can’t take credit for the items on our menu because Ian and Laura were the main motivators in that department, but I did end up doing prep with the assistance of Laura and Ian and then jumping into the grilling game with Matt S. Those are my two favorite parts of the process anyway. Here’s what we ended up with on our plates:

Teriyaki Chicken
Grilled Red Pepper Slices
Grilled Pineapple
Spring Greens with Caprese Salad

Prep:
In a bowl, toss the chicken with teriyaki sauce, and a dash or two of toasted sesame oil to coat lightly, season thoroughly with garlic powder, and black pepper. I used a lot of black pepper, so that the dish was almost spicy with it. I wish I had found some ginger to throw in, but I had to be satisfied with the items I could find rummaging my host’s cabinet. Set the chicken to marinate for a minute while you prep the pineapple. Peel and slice the pineapple into 1/4 inch slices and do the same for the red pepper. Make sure the pieces are large enough not to fall through the grates of the grill. Set them aside while you put the chicken on the grill over the medium hot part of the flames. As soon as the chicken is on, put the pineapple and pepper slices on the grill too. Cook the chicken until it is done through, and cook the pineapple and peppers until they have nice brown grill marks on both sides, and have wilted a little. While your grill stuff is cooking, pick the greens and toss them in a bowl with the Caprese salad, adding a bit more olive oil and vinegar if the mixture is too dry. Put everything on a plate and shovel it into your mouth after a long hungry day of dance workshops.

I literally had to slap hands to keep people from snatching bits of grilled pineapple off the plate. Even without additional sweetening, the pineapple takes on an almost caramel tinge of flavor which goes well with the sweet teriyaki chicken, and contrasts nicely with the sharper flavor of the red pepper. And of course, salad is always good with grilled food.


A big shout out goes to Steve Losh for taking most excellent photos of the Girl Jam. All the dancing pics I have in this post are his. You can read about how he does his photography thing at his blog.

Girl Snacks

Thanks to my friend Andrea I've discovered the best snack mix ever. She made it as a solution to GORP, since she is allergic to peanuts. It started out really good, and when she decided on a whim to throw in some chocolate covered pretzels, it was perfect. She offered it around this past weekend while we were at the Northeast Girl Jam, and the ladies loved it. It hits all the craving marks dead on.

Andrea's Better Than GORP

Mix in equal parts, and store in a zippy bag or a tight-lidded container:

Cashews
Craisins (dried cranberries)
M&Ms
Chocolate covered pretzel twists

Eat by the fist fulls. It makes a nice change from boring old raisins and peanuts.

Two Trips, and an Umami Explosion

I’ve been dancing up a storm lately. First, I went to The Boston Tea Party, an event that has workshops and competitions in both Lindy Hop and West Coast swing. It was an awesome weekend. I saw many people I hadn’t seen in a long time, had some great dances, participated in my first dance competition (alternate finalist in Novice Jack and Jill!), and mostly ate things that could be stored in a mini-fridge and prepped on a hotel room table. I did have the Midnight Breakfast buffet that was served at the event. It was pretty good spread, and the bacon was spectacular, being thick-cut and meaty. I did go out for one "real dinner". We went to Joe’s American Bar and Grill, which is evidently a chain, but a decent one. I kicked off the meal with a very delicious Dirty Martini, followed by fried calamari and hot peppers with marinara dipping sauce (a healthy portion which I split with a friend). For my entree, I opted for the steak tips special. The "tips" turned out to be chunks of filet mignon, grilled perfectly medium rare, with a side of bourbon steak sauce. Yummy, and just the thing to fortify me after a long day of dancing, and my first competitive event.

The following weekend I went to DCLX, the Washington DC Lindy Exchange. I had an awesome time and ate some great food, including a delicious (and inexpensive) Japanese lunch, homemade spicy chili (Thanks Tony!), and some Extra-Long Twizzlers I found at a CVS in Maryland. More to the point of this entry, on Friday night a potluck was served at the evening dance. There were a plethora of tasty bites at the potluck, including some chipotle hummus which I quite enjoyed. My hands-down favorite the vegan steamed buns. It was the same soft, sweet, dough that is usually wrapped around BBQ pork buns, but instead of pork, there were mushrooms and greens. They were so delicious. The salty-savor of the filling was a nice contrast with the sweetness of the dough. I ate at least three of them, and I thought about the savoriness of them for a long time afterward. If I really enjoy eating something, I analyze the flavors in my head to see if I can figure out what made it so good, and if I can duplicate it. I didn’t think I could produce steamed buns in my tiny kitchen (which is currently rather in a state of disarray, and lacking steaming infrastructure), but I figured I could do something with the filling. I didn’t get to speak to the cook about it, so I had to rely on my flavor memory and feel my way through the recipe.

I couldn’t tell what kind of greens were in the buns, it was something mild but flavorful, but I did detect soy, garlic and dried shitake mushrooms. All of these ingredients fully explained the mouth-watering savoriness of the buns. The filling was full of ingredients that either contained lots of glutamate, or had umami-enhancing properties. Soy sauce, dried mushrooms, and greens all have major savoriness factors. I would love to share my thoughts about umami, but this post is already pretty long, and there is a pretty good explanation of it at http://www.umamiinfo.com/ . Like I said, I couldn’t get it together to make steamed buns, but I did manage to throw together something pretty tasty all the same.

Umami In My Tummy Spring Rolls

½ lb of Swiss chard, chopped fine
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic minced
5-6 dried shitake mushrooms, reconstituted and chopped fine
1 tablespoon or so of soy sauce, sweet soy sauce if you have it
2 teaspoons of sesame oil
1 package of wonton wrappers
oil for sauteeing
oil for deep frying

Make the filling:

Reconstitute the mushrooms. Place them in a small cup or bowl, add ½ cup or so of boiling water, cover with saran wrap and let sit for 15 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the liquid chop, and set aside. Reserve some of the mushroom liquid, straining it if it contains any grit. Heat a couple of tablespoons of canola oil over high heat in a wok or heavy-bottomed frying pan until the oil shimmers. Add the onion, garlic, and chard to the hot pan and cook for about 3 minutes, stirring rapidly. Next, add the mushrooms, a tablespoon or so of the liquid from the soaked mushrooms, the sesame oil and the soy sauce. Cook for a minute stirring so that the soy and sesame oil are evenly distributed, then remove from the heat and set aside.

Prepare the rolls:

Have a saucer of water at hand. Take a wonton wrapper and place about a tablespoon of the sauteed greens and mushroom mixture about a half inch from the bottom of it. Fold up the bottom of the wrapper so it covers the filling, then fold the vertical sides of the wrapper in to form an envelope. Roll the filling up in the wrapper until there’s a quarter-inch edge showing. Moisten your finger with water, run it along the edge of the wonton skin, roll it completely up, and press gently to seal. Set it on a plate, and cover with saran wrap or a damp paper towel to keep it from drying out. Repeat until the filling is used up. At this point, the rolls can be covered in saran wrap and stored in the fridge until you are ready to fry them, though I don’t recommend storing them much longer than overnight.

Fry the rolls:

If you have a deep fryer, use it. If you don’t have a deep fryer, heat cooking oil over medium high heat in a deep, heavy frying pan. The pan should be at least three inches deep. You’ll probably need at least an inch or so of oil to fry in, and adding the rolls will raise the level of the oil another inch, so better safe than sorry. When the oil is hot (about 365 degrees if you’ve got a thermometer) place the rolls one by one into the hot oil. Be sure not to crowd the pan, but to place the rolls so that they have plenty of space around them. Fry the rolls, turning them if necessary until they are golden brown and crispy, probably about 2 minutes if the oil is hot enough. Take them from the oil and let them drain on paper towels. If they aren’t being served immediately, or if you’re making several batches, put them on a paper-lined cookie sheet in a warm oven.

Cooking tips:

Try to keep the size of the rolls uniform when you make them, so that they will all fry at the same rate. Don’t over stuff the rolls, or they’ll probably break open when you cook them. You can use any kind of tender green in this recipe, I was thinking that watercress or young kale would work well. I’m thinking that they would have benefitted from a sweet, gingery dipping sauce, so I’m going to make some the next time around.