Just for Fun :-)

This weekend I had my book club over-- we had read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  I decided to make a yellow brick road out of grilled cheeses.

I also had some fruit corresponding to the different colors of each of the parts of Oz:

And, last but not least, melted witch cupcakes (in the book she melts into a brown puddle... gross, but good for making chocolate cupcakes)!

I know it's not all grilled cheese related, but just felt like sharing :-)

Inside-Out Grilled Cheese

You may recall that my sous chef is out of town this week which means I was left to my own devices! *muahahahahaha*  Rather than stick with a traditional GGC recipe, I decided to branch out and come up with my own creation (and since I would be the only one who would have to eat it I was free to mess up as much as I needed to).

But what to make...hmm...

Ever since my first trip to the Wegman's cheese section I have been contemplating the mysterious entity known as "Bread Cheese."  Bread Cheese basically looks like a pack of cheesey breadsticks because it has that sort of charred look on the outside, but apparently it's just solid cheese.  I wasn't really sure what this cheese would be like, and the description certainly didn't help:

"Makes a great breakfast, delicious snack or wonderful dessert.  Be creative!  Dip it in coffee.  Cube it and microwave it for 30 seconds, saute in a skillet and top with jam, honey & walnuts or syrup."

Umm... what?  This food can allegedly be a breakfast, snack or dessert?  It goes well with coffee and syrup?  What?  But, hearing that it can be directly sauteed in a pan made me start to wonder about making an inside-out grilled cheese (obviously with the bread cheese on the outside and the actual bread on the inside). 

I actually bought the bread cheese a couple of days ago so I could get a feel for how it tastes before deciding what to add to it.  The verdict: it's really salty.  It's like really salty mozzarella cheese.  But that's fair, it just means it really is a blank canvas for me to dress up however I'd like. 

So, I hit the grocery store yesterday evening to find some suitable accompaniments.  I came across an asiago cheese crusted baguette-- and as we all know, if there is one thing that can make cheese better it's more cheese :-)  Plus, the whole loaf was on sale for $1.50-- done.  On a whim I went over to check out the cheese fridge since I was at Safeway and wanted to see what their cheese selection is like (compared to Wegman's).  Immediately a collection of jack cheeses caught my eye, one of which happened to be pesto jack.  I was already contemplating putting pesto on the inside out grilled cheese, so this was certainly an option to do that.  But (even for me) this would probably be too much cheese.  I decided to buy it anyway since I was in the mood to experiment.

When I got home I got out some other ingredients I had (leftover beefsteak tomato and mozzarella, both from last week, some garlic powder and some tomato sauce). 

I grated up the pesto jack to start off and had a taste of it-- it had a very sharp flavor which confirmed that it couldn't go on the bread cheese, that would just be too much.  Instead I went ahead and put some straight on a slice of the bread (with a few shreds of mozzarella as well), buttered each side and fried it up as a straightforward pesto jack grilled cheese. 

This browned up PERFECTLY and looked delicious with the already cheese crusted bread and the gooey pesto jack in the middle.

Oh yummm :-)

But let's not forget what we came here to do-- experiment with the bread cheese.  There was no way I would've been able to handle a sandwich made out of that entire slab of cheese, so to start off I cut off a thinner strip.

Next I cut that in half horizontally so as to make actual slices of bread(cheese).

This was pretty thick at first, so I actually ended up skimming off some of the middle to make them thinner and thus more edible (too much salty cheese would be an overload I was not ready for).

Next came a slice of bread in between.

Hmm... that looks boring.  Ah yes!  My delicious beefsteak tomato!  Let's add some of that.

Ahh, much better :-)

There wasn't much more to do at this point than plop it in the frying pan and hope for the best!

At first all seemed well.  I heard it sizzling, but the cheese was holding up and not oozing all over the place, so that was a plus.  It even survived the first flip remarkably well to show a nicely browned first side.

Sadly things quickly began to devolve.  Since there was nothing gooey holding the tomato and bread together and since the cheese was kind of heavy, the filling started to slip and slide all over the pan.

I tried just letting everything grill individually and reassembling at the end, but this didn't work as well as I hoped it would since the bread was still soggy (thanks to prolonged contact with the juicy tomato).  Oh well!  I was at least on the right track.  Surely my next endeavor would prove more successful.

This time I figured the key would be to put less cheese on the outside in hopes that it would actually melt onto the bread (rather than get soft but not really adhere to the bread a la the first sandwich).  I also opted to skip the tomato as it only seemed to make things more difficult during the cooking process.

This seemed to work decently well-- the cheese was melting a bit more (since there was less of it) and it was definitely easier to flip the whole thing and keep all the pieces together.

Now I had three nice little grilled cheeses to sample, but I couldn't let the rest of that delicious pesto jack go to waste!  Ditto on the Asiago bread-- that stuff is GOOOOD (I had been snacking on both of these during the whole cooking process).  I figured since I was trying new things, why not make a double decker grilled cheese that incorporated some of the jack and some of the mozzarella?

Since I was back to using bread as the exterior I was confident that the filling would stay in the sandwich more easily, so I opted to add in my beloved beefsteak tomato and to top it with some pesto jack.  Next came another slice of bread that was topped with mozzarella and a sprinkle of garlic powder (why not?).

Oh hello, deliciousness!  Into the pan you go!

The cheese melted surprisingly quickly leaving me with my fourth and final sandwich of the evening :-)

Taste Reviews and Final Results:

The first thing I noticed was that the aroma I got was from the asiago bread.  It smelled amazing and made me even MORE hungry for the bread, which is saying a lot since I had been snacking on it already.  I brought along a small bowl of pasta sauce just in case I needed a little condiment action (since sous chef wasn't here to take the lead there).  I'll break my comments up so each sandwich gets its own little feature:

1) Standard Grilled Cheese: Pesto and Mozzarella
This one was very gooey with a perfect crunch thanks to the nicely browned crust.  The pesto jack has a bite to it, but surprisingly not too much (when I sampled the cheese on its own I thought it might be too strong for a sandwich, but I guess the bread balanced it out).  I'm not sure how much the mozzarella actually contributed to the sandwich since it's so mild I couldn't really taste it one way or the other.  I could take or leave the tomato sauce on this one since it just sort of drowned out the flavor of the pesto jack.  Overall it basically was a simple but super cheesy grilled cheese.  Deelish :-)

Sandwich:	Pesto and Mozzarella on Asiago Bread
Gooey-ness:	4
Aroma:	3.5
Appearance:	Perfectly crisp with delicious fried cheese oozing out.
Taste:	A-/B+

2) Inside-Out Grilled Cheese with Tomato
On one side of the sandwich the cheese had actually melted to the bread, so that was surprisingly good :-)  I thought that (since it had been so all over the place in the pan) it would be very hard to eat, but it was actually no problem.  In the first bite I couldn't actually tell if I was tasting the bread or the cheese-- which was odd considering both had their own distinct flavors.  But, the more I ate the more I could tell that the cheese was taking over.  It was just SO SALTY!  The tomato on the sandwich didn't do nearly enough to cut down on the salty flavor and although the pasta sauce helped, I had to put so much on to balance out the flavors that it basically ended up tasting like I was eating a very cheesy pizza.  Overall, not impressed.

Sandwich:	Inside-Out Grilled Cheese and Tomato
Gooey-ness:	5 (sloppy, not runny)
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Looks... interesting.
Taste:	D+

3) Plain Inside-Out Grilled Cheese
First observation: the top of this sort of looks like a pancake.  But that's neither here nor there.  Moving on.  I was scared to try this without sauce after how salty the last sandwich was.  I took one bite without sauce but then proceeded to literally pile it on.  Again, it was no big whoop-- it still just tasted like salty cheese and tomato sauce.  Boo.

Sandwich:	Inside-Out Grilled Cheese
Gooey-ness:	2
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Looks like two little pancakes with bread in between.
Taste:	D+

4) Double Decker Grilled Cheese
I would say this is tied for most successful sandwich of the night (with the basic pesto grilled cheese).  The first tastes I got were the garlic and tomato-- a very welcome change after the salty assault on my taste buds courtesy of the last two sandwiches.  The light sweetness of the garlic and tomato was immediately followed up with some sharp support from the pesto jack.  I'm not really sure how necessary the middle slice of bread is, particularly considering it just gets soggy due to its proximity to the tomato (just like the inside out grilled cheese with tomato).  If I had toasted the middle slice of bread beforehand that would've been ideal!  But, since I liked this bread so much I was still happy to have an extra slice of it in there.

Sandwich:	Double Decker Grilled Cheese
Gooey-ness:	4
Aroma:	4
Appearance:	Looks thick with perfectly crispy outer edges.
Taste:	B+/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!

And, just to affirm that I'm not a fatty for eating four sandwiches, here they all are on my plate so you can see how small they are:

Phew!  That was a lot to cover!  All in all it was a mixed bag, but I enjoyed experimenting.  As a result of this week's craziness I'm not sure I can even think about what will be going on next week.  Rest assured, it will be much less all over the place than this was!

P.S. I did a field report on Sunday, but I think it made me sick, so I prefer not to talk about it.

Smoky Southwestern Grill

Sorry for the delay!  It's been a busy week!  So let's dive right in :-)  I still had some goat cheese left over from awhile back (don't worry, I checked the expiration date, it's still good), so I was perusing the sandwiches that involve goat cheese.  One that caught my eye was the "smoky southwestern grill."  The recipe involved some cooking over an open flame, but I was ready to step up my game and accept the challenge.

The ingredients are pictured above, but in the name of accuracy I'll recite them.  One loaf of ciabatta bread (but when I went to the grocery store they had sold out, so I got some pane Italian bread instead), 4 ounces goat cheese, 12 ounces mozzarella (I mis-read this as 16 oz... oopse!), 3 large strips of bacon, olive oil, a tomato and two Anaheim chiles.  Deelish!

Reading the first few steps left me certain that this would be a labor intensive sandwich, and it had me diving in with the most daunting task of all: grilling the chiles over an open flame (aka one of my gas burners... apparently a broiler is also acceptable, but less fun). 

Ooooh, pretty!  The pyro in me was excited!  The apartment owner without renters insurance in me was worried I would burn the place down (I just narrowly escaped this fate a few weeks ago courtesy of my toaster oven and was not anxious to re-visit that state of panic).

Annnd here we go!  Standing over the stove waiting for the outer skin of the pepper to char completely.  But it was taking forever to start!  I mean 30 seconds later there was still no sign of charring!  (I'm so patient)  That's when I decided to just touch the flame with the pepper.  I heard a scary pop, but I guess that was just air getting released once the skin burned or something, because upon closer examination I saw that I was actually right on track.

A few minutes more the first chile was ready!

Next I placed it in a "re-sealable plastic bag" where it was to sit for 20 minutes (I imagine this is to allow the smoky flavor to really set in).  Once I had both chiles in I started the timer and commenced with other prep work while I waited.

Task 1 was frying the bacon!  The recipe actually calls for 6 strips, but since these strips were so big I went ahead and just got 3.

I let these simmer for awhile (while I went ahead with grating the mozzarella and slicing the tomato).  I was supposed to cook them until they were crispy, but since I never cook bacon apparently to me "crispy" actually means "burned."

Oopse!  Oh well, the plan was to coarsely chop them anyway, so they're really supposed to be like bacon bits-- and bacon bits are hard, right?

By the time I finished with the bacon, the chiles were ready to emerge from their plastic bag hideout.  GGC directed me to remove the charred outer skin with a small sharp knife and to cut the chiles into long thin slices.

Chiles and Bacon Bits

*Phew!*  It may not sound like a lot of prep work, but it felt quite arduous.  Good thing I was finally ready to assemble the sandwiches.  I had already sliced the bread horizontally and then split it into four pieces (each about 3"-4" wide) and had pinched out the inside of the bread to create wells (we have a lot of ingredients to squeeze in)!  So, in order, I evenly distributed the mozzarella, bacon bits, chiles and tomato (one large slice for each sandwich).

I got kind of wussy on the bacon and only used maybe half of what I had cooked (and considering that was already half of what the recipe called for I was definitely skimping).  But oh well!  It's my kitchen and I'll alter recipes if I want to!

Next came the goat cheese.  The recipe called for four ounces of crumbled fresh goat cheese (split evenly among the four sandwiches), but this was A LOT!  It barely stayed on the sandwich without falling all over the place.

So I didn't end up using all four ounces, but I got pretty close.  Next came a light coating of olive oil to the outsides of each sandwich before tossing them in the pan.  These required a lot of squishing with the spatula to try to keep them flat and together, but they flipped surprisingly easily!  Maybe that was due in part to the slight bacon grease residue (I emptied out most of the grease, but left a light coating for flavor purposes).

I was pleasantly surprised by two things: 1) that the mozzarella actually melted very well and 2) that the crustiness of the bread helped to prevent it from getting too charred during cooking (as we all know, that's a perpetual problem for me in my constant war with the gas stove).

At long last we were ready to eat!

Taste Review:

As I'm sure you can tell from the picture above, the colors in the sandwich were the first thing that jumped out at us!  Bright red tomato, lime green chiles, bright white goat cheese, brown bacon-- definitely aesthetically appealing.  We could also smell the bacon and, even though I'm not a huge bacon eater, I can't deny that bacon smells amazing!

The first few bites tasted strongly of tomato and cheese.  Goat cheese is just a hard flavor to get past, so that was definitely dominating.  The combination of the melted mozzarella and the goat cheese was VERY creamy, but not in that it was literally gooey, more in that it had a rich and smooth flavor (especially when combined with the cool tomato). 

Although this creaminess was nice, I think it was missing the contrast that the chile and bacon were supposed to provide.  For whatever reason (maybe because I didn't use enough bacon?) I couldn't get a strong enough smoked flavor from these additions.  Again I think this goes back to the fact that the goat cheese has a very pungent taste that is hard to get past.  Towards the end of eating, Colin actually scraped the goat cheese off of his sandwich and said that he enjoyed it much more as a result.  I would agree that the goat cheese is an unnecessary addition to the sandwich and would like to try the sandwich without (or at least with less) goat cheese sometime.

As a random aside, this actually reminded me of the salami and cheese sandwich from a few weeks back-- the one with ricotta, mozzarella, pepperoncini and salami.  This had a similar consistency and flavor profile, but with some minor tweaks to make it more "American."

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Smoky Southwestern Grill
Gooey-ness:	3
Aroma:	3
Appearance:	Bright and colorful!
Taste:	B+ Without goat cheese B- With goat cheese

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it was a good place to start, but the recipe could use some tweaks to really make it outstanding.

Next Week: My sous chef is out of town, so if there are more seafood related recipes you can rest assured that I'll be making one!

Follow-Up to Yesterday

Here's a more in-depth description of the grilled cheese martini!

Grilled Cheese Martini?!

Sandwich making is going to be delayed until tomorrow night (so probably no post until Friday), but in the mean time this might help to quench your thirst!  This sounds a little crazy to me, but it could be worth a try (looks like I JUST missed it, though)!

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/voracious/2011/08/beechers_grilled_cheese_martin.php

Smoked Salmon and Brie Quesadilla

Phew!  It feels like forever since I've been in my home kitchen frying up a grilled cheese, so I was excited to be back in business this week.  Since I haven't done a quesadilla in awhile I figure it was time to give one a go.  I was torn between two different recipes, but one looks like it might involve a trip to a specialty grocery store, so I figured I'd stick with the easier one and worry about building in extra prep time some other week.

As mentioned, the ingredients were easy to find-- tortillas (already had these), smoked salmon (1/4 pound), cream cheese (4 ounces), diced red onion, capers, lemon juice, pepper, butter and 8 ounces of brie.  There were a couple of varieties of brie ranging from mild to strong.  I know I like brie, but I didn't know specifically what kind of brie I like best.  I figured I'd split the difference and go with medium (it was described as "buttery," and we all know that's a good thing ;-)).

OK, so prep was actually very easy.  In a small bowl I combined the cream cheese, 1 Tbsp capers, 1 tsp lemon juice, and 2 Tbsp diced red onions.

I had left the cream cheese out to soften, but it still required a little work to get the mixture to just the right point (where the red onions and capers were evenly mixed in throughout).

While I was finishing that up, my sous chef worked on buttering one side of four tortillas and placing them buttered side down on a plate for me-- although I guess stacking buttered tortillas means all but the one on top will end up buttered on both side.  Oh well!  If I've learned one thing from Paula Dean it's that more butter is never a problem.

It was then up to me to spread half of each tortilla with the cream cheese mixture.

Easy enough.  Next came the brie.  The recipe advises to cut the brie into 8 slices with the rind removed.  After channeling my fourth grade spatial relations skills I figured out how to cut four (relatively equally sized) slices of brie from a triangle wedge and proceeded to slice the rind off of each.  Once this was done each tortilla got two slices of brie (I cut some slices in half again to make sure it was evenly distributed so as to allow for easy melting, but even this left some pretty big pieces that didn't quite melt easily).

Voila!  Time to fry.  I cooked the tortillas on medium heat (the recipe advises medium high, but my gas stove will have none of that) for about 2 minutes on each side (while covered, of course) to make sure the cheese melted.

Once I removed the quesadilla (and let it cool for a second), I opened it back up and added a slice of smoked salmon (luckily the 1/4 lb. pack I bought was already separated into four slices-- makes my life easy).

Now, time to eat!

Taste Review:

Strangely enough, the first thing we smelled was the cream cheese (you would think the salmon would take charge).  The quesadilla itself had a perfectly crispy tortilla-- it was nice and thin and crunchy.  I like this better than cooking a tortilla in oil and having grease ooze everywhere (then again this may have more to do with the amount of butter used than the fact that butter was used).

I didn't notice a huge salmon taste, but that may be because I actually like salmon.  Colin isn't a huge fan and his immediate comment was "I don't like the salmon, this would be better with turkey."  That may be, but I know the whole salmon/cream cheese thing is a popular bagel topping, so I have a feeling plenty of people would be happy with this combination.

I was pretty skeptical about the capers, but at first they provided a good bite to contrast the creaminess of the cream cheese and brie.  Sadly, the more I ate the less I liked the capers.  The sandwich would be bland without them, but when you get a bite with a caper in it the flavor is so strong it drowns out both the red onions and the salmon (two pretty strong flavors in and of themselves).  In fact, for awhile I forgot there were red onions on the sandwich at all!  There's no doubt that some sort of additive is necessary to keep things from getting too bland, but I don't think capers are the answer.  Colin suggests pepper instead (like a green bell pepper), but I think that might just add one more flavor.  Instead, I would go with more onions and no capers.  The onions would balance out the blandness whereas the peppers might override it.

Speaking of additives-- as soon as I handed Colin his plate he said "I'll get the salsa!"  I pointed out that salsa with salmon, cream cheese and brie may not be the best combination.  He agreed and said he would wait to taste to decide what to add (oh ye of little faith-- not all sandwiches need a condiment)!  Anyway, he didn't actually end up adding anything, but (per above) that doesn't mean he wouldn't have changed/amended things if he could have.

As for the cheeses, there was no real distinction between the cream cheese and the brie.  In one bite I got a nice big piece of brie and loved how mild and creamy it was!  The brie and cream cheese made the quesadilla very rich, but in a good way.  I didn't feel sick when I was done eating, just like I had had a decadent treat.

FINAL RESULTS:

Sandwich:	Quesadilla
Gooey-ness:	3.75 (oh man! getting into quarter points!)
Aroma:	2
Appearance:	Crispy brown exterior with interesting pink and white interior.
Taste:	C+

Next Week: Perhaps a meat grilled cheese (even though I'm still not sure they're truly grilled cheeses, I've gotta make them all)!  And/or a sweet grilled cheese.