Field Report: The Big Cheese Truck

Although my vacation schedule didn't allow me to do a standard post this past week, I did get in some quality grilled cheese time nonetheless.  Starting with:

The Big Cheese Truck at Movie Under the Moon!  I love Movie Under the Moon as it is, but once I heard that the Big Cheese truck would be making an appearance (and that The Wizard of Oz, one of my all time faves, would be playing), I knew I had to go. 

Ironically the same day that I saw that the Big Cheese would be coming I had been thinking to myself that I was disappointed that a grilled cheese truck of some sort would never make its way all the way out to my office and that the next time I had a weekday free I should go in search of the truck.  Well, it must've read my mind!

They didn't have a super extensive selection and many of their choices are quite similar to sandwiches I've tried before, but I'm always pumped to get a new take on an old favorite.  Since we were at Movie Under the Moon, I decided to try the "Midnight Moon," which (as you can see) consisted of goat Gouda and caramelized onions on multigrain.  The description reminded me of the much-hated Dutch Grilled Cheese, but it sounded different enough that I was willing to give it a try.

Here's the sandwich-- pretty straightforward.

And here's the sandwich after being savagely ripped open by me :-P

I was interested to find out what goat Gouda tasted like.  Turns out it's basically like a firmer goat cheese (rather than being easily spreadable and runny it has some more substance to it).  I liked the combination of the goat cheese and the caramelized onions (in this case caramelized white onions rather than the red onions used for the Dutch Grilled Cheese), but could've used more cheese.  The bread was really hearty, so it was easy for some of the would-be gooiness to get muted by the dryness of the bread.  On the whole I liked it and found myself wishing that Colin and I were hungry enough to split a second sandwich.  I think this was partially due to their high quality ingredients-- they use artisan cheeses sourced exclusively from Cowgirl Creamery and bread from Lyon Bakery, both hipster-esque DC foodie spots.  I'm glad I got to encounter the DC grilled cheese truck and look forward to the day when our paths may cross again.

Stay tuned for my mass production grilled cheese making at the beach (special guest appearance by the Cheese Whiz Kid).

Salami and Cheese 1

I can't say that I was particularly excited about this week's sandwich.  I've never actually been sure of what meat(s?) salami even is, and haven't been particularly inclined to find out due to its unappetizing appearance.  But, my mission is to stick with GGC in good times and bad and thus it's time for me to conquer my fear of this mystery meat and dive right in with a salami and cheese grilled cheese.  You'll notice the title of this post is "Salami and Cheese 1," which means that there are, in fact, two delightful (?) salami and cheese recipes for us to try.  Oh joy.

Alright, so I didn't get to hit my usual shopping grounds (Wegmans) due to some time constraints, so instead I swung by my local Safeway on my way home.  The ingredients were straightforward enough that I was confident I'd be able to find the necessary items even at a less gourmet grocery store.  The only potentially hard to find item was olive bread, but GGC advised that if you couldn't find it then you could use regular hearty white or wheat bread with sliced olives instead.  Safeway did actually have olive bread, but they weren't willing to slice it for me because apparently the olives jam the slicer.  I don't really like olives that much, so this was the only sign I needed to show me that olive bread was not the way to go.  As suggested I got some regular hearty white and some pitted kalamata olives from the olive bar.  Add to that 12 paper thin slices of salami and 6 ounces of Fontina cheese and I was ready to roll!

I wasn't familiar with Fontina aside from knowing that I've tasted it before, but always in combination with other cheeses on some sort of sandwich or pizza or something, so I never really knew what it tasted like on its own.  The cheese I got was labelled "Denmark's Finest Fontina: A delicate, nutty cheese with a distinguished flavor," and I'd agree that this is an accurate assessment.  The cheese is mild, but does have a subtle flavor to it that I guess could be classified as nutty.  I had more than enough cheese for the recipe, so I bided my prep time by snacking on some of the excess ;-)

I started off by cooking the salami in my non-stick pan for about 2-3 minutes (or until it turned brown and started to shrink).  I should've realized that trying to cook all the slices at once wasn't a good plan because they all started to stick together and I had to use a fork to peel them apart.  This was not helping the salami's case that it isn't gross-- it was all greasy and gradually getting crispy, but still unappetizing looking.  I tried to forget about the fact that I would soon be ingesting this.

Once the salami was cooked I brushed four slices of bread with some olive oil on one side and placed them oily side down on my work surface.  Next came the cheese-- spread evenly over the four slices, followed by the olives.  I opted to leave olives totally off one sandwich and only put them on half of another because I knew I wasn't an olive fan.  Finally I added the salami (again, on just 2 and a half sandwiches-- who knows how salami and my taste buds would get along) and finished the sandwiches off with four more slices of olive oiled bread.

Into the frying pan they went where they browned up nice and evenly.

There was nothing to force the salami to adhere to the bread, so the sandwich didn't get as gooey as some of the other sandwiches have since the salami served as a buffer between the cheese and one slice of bread, keeping half of the sandwich pretty dry.  But that doesn't mean the cheese didn't melt, so in no time the sandwiches were all ready!

Taste Review:

Let me start out by saying that I don't like olives.  Not one bit.  Even though I was skeptical about the salami, I was willing to give it a try, but olives-- not for me.  So, take this review with a grain of salt-- especially if you're an olive fan.  In fact, you might actually like what I'm about to say-- in the first bite of the sandwich virtually the only taste I got was that of the olives.  They add a LOT of saltiness to the sandwich, but unfortunately the saltiness is the element of olives that I dislike.  In fact, they were so salty that they drowned out whatever taste the salami brought to the table.  Part of this could've been because I don't actually know what salami tastes like on its own, but based on the strong meaty smell I find it hard to believe that when left to its own devices that it wouldn't taste pretty strong.

What the salami does bring to the sandwich is crispiness-- the cooked salami is brittle and adds an extra crunch to the chewy bread.  The more I ate the more I started to notice an after taste from the salami, but I still couldn't get past the olives.  Oddly enough, I could've been alright with just the salami and cheese, but I was picking out the olives by the end.  The cheese adds the nice standard gooey cheese texture, but since it's so mild in comparison to the olives and salami, it's very muted.  The olive oil on the outside in lieu of butter makes the sandwich greasy, but not overly so.  I didn't feel like my hands were gross by the time I was done eating, but I was glad there was some sort of oil on the outside.

Colin's assessment was that the sandwich was good with ketchup even though he couldn't pinpoint what exactly the ketchup added.  He suggested that the sandwich might do well with some sauerkraut, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about adding something so sour/bitter to the already salty/bitter taste of olives.  In fact, he liked the fact that the olives are the main flavor in the sandwich.  Oh well, to each their own I suppose!

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Salami and Cheese 1
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Colorful and interesting with gooey cheese, bright salami and black olives.
Taste:	C

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Again, if you like olives this sandwich would be right up your alley.  Alas, I do not.

Next Week: I'm on vacation, so grilled cheesing may be delayed, but once we get cooking it will be salami and cheese part 2 (and I promise-- no olives)!

Apple, Ham and Cheddar on Sourdough

It feels like forever since I made my last grilled cheese!  Two weeks adds up quickly :-)  So, let's dive right in.  This week's sandwich features a combination that I've often heard about, but never tried: apple and cheese.  I like apples, I love cheese, so this sounds like a recipe for success.  In case you can't already tell, the ingredients for this sandwich are very straightforward.

The recipe calls for: 1 small Granny Smith apple, 1/4 pound smoky ham, 6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, sourdough and butter.  I was excited to get to use the same delicious sourdough from Wegman's that I used for the crab-feta melt (it was a crowd pleaser then, so I knew it would be again).  When looking for cheddar I was sort of overwhelmed with the number of options Wegman's offers and wasn't sure which qualified as "regular" cheddar.  I ended up going with a "Classic Reserve Extra-Aged Vermont Cheddar" that had been aged 2 years.  I'm not sure why, but I tend to prefer white cheddar to orange (to me it just tastes sharper and more genuine).  Upon tasting my first sample I knew I had made the right choice-- both Colin and I agreed that it was high quality and just sharp enough without being too strong.

The first step was slicing the apple into 1/8" slices.  The recipe called for a 5 ounce apple, and since mine was heavier than that I only used about 2/3 of it.  Although my slices did not come out neat and even, I still got the job done.

Aside from shredding the cheese, this was really the only prep work that was required, so that was nice!  I'm always a fan of an easy to assemble sandwich.

The recipe is intended to make 4 sandwiches, but since the sourdough was smaller than a standard loaf of bread I went ahead and made 6.

As usual I started with the bread (buttered on one side) and evenly distributed the ham on each slice.

Next came the apple slices:

And, finally, the cheese!

This was already shaping up to be a pretty thick sandwich, and adding the second slice of bread didn't help matters.  Oh well!  GGC suggested flattening each sandwich a bit using your spatula, so I made sure to do that to each before I started cooking (and again while I was cooking).

Once I started cooking I immediately recalled one of the reasons I love Wegman's sourdough: it browns so nicely and evenly!

The cheese was also melting quickly and evenly (I think because the bread is a little porous and lets heat in easily) to the point that I hardly needed to cover the sandwiches while they cooked (not to say that I didn't, but only had to do so as a precautionary measure).  Another positive was that, despite their thickness, the sandwiches were actually really easy to flip!  I think that's because the ham and apples are solid enough to stay in the sandwich without too much help, and once the cheese started to melt a bit it was clumped together and less apt to fall out.  So, if ease of cooking is any indicator then these were going to be good!

Once all 6 sandwiches were cooked and waiting on the sandwich warmer, we were ready to go.  Colin, the resident condiment king, smelled the sandwich while it was cooking and selected some condiments to taste with it.

I suppose it wouldn't be a true tasting without him giving his input on the need for ketchup, but looks like he expanded this week to also include a sample of Dijon mustard.

Anyway, time to taste!

Taste Review:

In my first bite I tasted the ham, then the apple and then the cheddar in that order.  So at first it didn't seem like the flavors were going to blend together, more like they were going to sort of co-mingle but still stand on their own.  As I kept eating I found that this wasn't entirely the case-- I started tasting the smokiness of the ham combined with the sharpness of the cheese, but slightly tempered by the vague sweetness of the apple.  So even though the apple wasn't a standout flavor, it did a lot for the sandwich because it added a crispness and freshness that allowed the sandwich to be gooey and like a classic grilled cheese, but to still have a fresh crunch.  This was especially good since the sourdough was kind of chewy-- some crispness was definitely needed. 

The sandwich was kind of greasy, but I think that's because the bread is porous, so rather than cooking off a bit, the butter sort of sank into the bread.  Again, this is where the apple came in handy-- it gave a light and fresh taste to what would otherwise be a traditional greasy/gooey grilled cheese.

Some potential criticisms are that it ends up being a bit too sweet with the apple and ham, but I think for the most part the sweetness and sharpness successfully balanced each other out.  In an effort to control the sweetness Colin added some Dijon mustard.  He liked this combo because it gave the sandwich more of a kick in the form of added spice (surprise, surprise, Colin likes spicy food), but for me this was too much.  He declined to try it with ketchup because it just wouldn't have been the right flavor combo (it's true-- ketchup + apple?  No thank you). 

Additionally, if you want to really get the full taste of the ham you might want to add more.  As it stood now, the ham seemed to be there just to provide smoky flavor, not to actually stand out on its own.  This is an individual preference, though, because I liked it just fine.


Overall I was a big fan of this one-- as predicted, the apple provides a light fresh edge to a sharp and delicious grilled cheese making it a perfect treat for summer!

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Apple, Ham and Cheddar on Sourdough
Gooey-ness:	4
Aroma:	3
Appearance:	Green apple adds color to the gooey cheddar cheese and perfectly toasted sourdough.
Taste:	A-

Gooey Scale	Aroma Scale
1 = still cold/hard	1 = can’t smell a thing
2 = slightly melted but still firm	2 = tender waft
3 = melted evenly	3 = makes your stomach growl
4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite)	4 = strong scent
5 = runny	5 = overpoweringly pungent
6 = sloppy mess!

Next Week: The first in a two part series involving salami and cheese.

Field Report: Cheesie's Pub & Grub

This past week I was in Chicago for work, but made sure to take advantage of the opportunity to do a field report!  My dad had suggested a restaurant he found online: Cheesie's Pub & Grub.  They advertise themselves as Chicago's first ever grilled cheese restaurant, so of course it was the perfect choice for my outing :-)  Since I was in Chicago, I was lucky enough to be able to include two new guest tasters: Caroline and Coury!

We decided to get three different sandwiches to share so as to maximize our tasting possibilities.  There were seven sandwiches on the menu and one additional "Sandwich of the Month."  I was excited to see that the sandwich of the month was a "Chicago Style Hot Dog Grilled Cheese."  Back when I was first thinking about some of the grilled cheese recipes I could make I got to thinking about cities I had been to and their signature foods; and a Chicago style hot dog was one of the culinary trademarks that came to mind.  Of course, I could never re-create it as accurately and deliciously as a true Chicagoan, so lucky for me here was my chance to try one!  We asked the cashier which her favorite was and she said it was The Mac-- a sandwich featuring mac and cheese filling, so we got one of those as well.  To round out our trio we ordered The Frenchie, which I was drawn to because it had french fries on the sandwich (another option I plan to explore later, but more in the Pittsburgh style).

Alright, so the first sandwich on the hit parade was the Chicago style hot dog.  To familiarize everyone with what a traditional Chicago style hot dog entails, it's a beef hot dog with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt.  The grilled cheese included several key elements from the traditional hot dog: the beef hot dog, relish, peppers and mustard; but also included American and cheddar cheese and was served on Texas toast instead of a hot dog bun. 

The first thing I noticed was the strong taste of mustard and relish (which makes sense since those were the key elements from the original Chicago style dog that were included on the sandwich).  Although there's no ketchup on a real Chicago style dog, we all felt like the sandwich could've benefited from a little something to counter the strong mustard taste.  Maybe if the tomato slices and onions had been included they would've helped to balance it out a bit?  Hard to say for sure.  One thing we definitely liked was the bisecting and flattening of the hot dog-- it made the sandwich very manageable and easy to eat neatly, but Caroline and Coury both would've liked some more hot dog since the condiments were pretty strong (as I'm not a beef eater I had no real opinion there).  Speaking of potential additions-- we thought it could've handled a stronger cheese to compliment the strong mustard flavor.  My first thought is jack cheese instead of the American (while keeping the cheddar), but I'm sure any number of combos would be tasty.  My only other note was that I got all the pepper in one bite towards the end, so I think making sure it's spread out more evenly would be good.  Even though there's a good amount of commentary here, I was still pleased with the sandwich.  It definitely encapsulated much of what I expected and hoped for in a Chicago style hot dog sandwich, but I just needed a little something to cut the mustard (*ba dum ching!* seriously though, no pun intended, less mustard taste would've been fine by me).

Next up was the sandwich that elicited three "WOW!"'s upon first taste.  Coury further elaborated with a "This should be illegal."  The delicious concoction to which she was referring is: The Mac.  More specifically, American cheese, Merkt's cheese and homemade macaroni and cheese on Texas toast with a tomato soup dip.  I wasn't familiar with Merkt's cheese, but an internet search informs me that it's a type of spreadable cheese based out of Wisconsin.  Whatever it is, it's good!  My first bite was dipped in the tomato soup and it was a nice pairing, but the sandwich was so delicious it also stood firmly on its own. 

The macaroni helps to keep the interior of the sandwich fluffy and light even though it is smothered with cheese, so you don't feel weighted down by eating such a rich combination.  It was neat that they could find a way to keep an overall light feeling while still sticking with a basic starch/cheese combination.  Even eating just the mac and cheese would've left me satisfied, so the fact that it was on the sandwich just made it that much better!  The cheeses combined to be very creamy (almost like Velveeta), but didn't taste cheap at all like some mac and cheeses can tend to taste.  The crispiness of the Texas toast added some crunch that reminds me of homemade mac and cheese when it's covered with real bread crumbs.  This was an AWESOME combo and one that I would definitely make a trip back for the next time I find myself in Chicago.

Last, but not least, came the Frenchie.  This sandwich consisted of American cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese sauce, thick cut french fries, bacon and chives on sourdough with a side of sour cream.  In short, it was a loaded baked potato in sandwich form.  The sandwich was very rich between the cheeses, potato, bread and bacon, so the sour cream was a good accompaniment since it gave a little tang to contrast the richness.  The chives also helped to add a little kick and further cut the fattiness-- I mean, chives are a vegetable, right? ;-)  Even though there were three different types of cheese they blended together well without making it too cheesy.  I could actually taste the french fries more than the bread, so it was almost like the bread was just there to hold the sandwich together, but that was fine by me since the filling was so tasty!  A baked potato is great and a baked potato in sandwich form is even better :-)

Final Rankings (in order of preference):
1) The Mac
2) The Frenchie
3) Chicago Style Hot Dog Grilled Cheese

So while the restaurant is new (only about a month old), it's well on its way to being a major success.  In addition to enjoying the delicious sandwiches, we all split an order of sweet potato fries (which were yummy) and while we didn't have a drink there, there's a nice little bar in the back that serves a solid collection of (mostly local) microbrews.  Grilled cheese and beer is certainly a recipe for happy customers!  The staff was also super friendly (shout out!) and we briefly chatted about some fun ideas for grilled cheeses.  I will definitely make a trip back when I find myself in Chicago again.

Next Week: Time for some fresh summer flavor courtesy of fruit!  Introducing: Apple, Ham and Cheddar on Sourdough.  Until then...

Back of the official Cheesie's shirt that I bought.