grilled cheese season

Is it me or are grilled cheeses everywhere these days? (See here and here.)

One of my favorite kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches is the kind you get at a diner - the kind that comes with crunchy buttered bread and gooey American cheese and a little bit of pickle.


the Big Boy triple decker

But I also enjoy a little more flavor, hence, the grown-up grilled cheese. I was first introduced to grown-up grilled cheeses in 2005 in Domino magazine and their winning combinations of Gorgonzola & Honey, Cheddar & Mango Chutney and Smoked Mozzarella, Prosciutto & Basil.



I have made all three and each one is a home run. And, if you have the time, they make the BEST party food. Our local sub shop sells day-old loaves of their bread (which is the size of a baguette but much softer) so if I'm cooking for a group I'll pick up 6-8 loaves, a hell of a lot of butter, and go to town making piles of mini sandwiches.


best party food ever

Here is a closer look at the recipes - complete with beer parings!



You know what else I like on my grilled cheese? SUGAR. Here's another winner of a combination. This recipe calls for a panini press but I just grill mine up in a pan. (Click on the photo for a closer look.)



Happy grilling!

thanksgiving weekend

My mother and brother came to visit for Thanksgiving and the weekend was spent eating, watching basketball games, eating more, and traveling to IKEA to pick up furniture for Matteo's new room.







I've been cooking a lot. Thanksgiving dinner, of course, (which I give myself a B- for, it wasn't my best I have to admit) but lots of other stuff too like pumpkin waffles, this spinach and gruyère strata (always a crowd-pleaser), and leftover turkey and dumplings. I'm getting better at cooking for people and am learning that making hearty, cold-weather foods comes much easier for me.

One lesson I learned the hard way this weekend, don't set a dirty dishes outside your kitchen door! Our kitchen is tiny, so I set the hot roasting pan outside on the concrete while we used the rest of the counterspace to wash and dry the other dishes. When my mom went to go get it, an opossum was licking up all the juicy turkey scraps that were stuck to the bottom of it. Eeeeew. No matter how much bleach I pour on that thing I don't think I'll ever be able to use that pan again. Kevin and I also saw him when he came back for seconds. That sucker was HUGE and totally going for his.

In more pleasant news, Matteo is a great help in the kitchen and this year we made the gingersnap pie crust for my traditional pumpkin cheesecake together.



I want him to appreciate food and the process of making it. I think my favorite part of the whole weekend was Saturday night when I was cooking up the strata for Sunday's breakfast. He came in the kitchen, looked up at me sweetly and said, "Smells pretty good, Mama!" I thought I was going to melt faster than the butter in my pan.

Here's the recipe for our special cheesecake. It's adapted from Cooking Light so it's fairly guilt-free.

Ginger Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients

crust:
37 gingersnap cookies, coarsely broken (about 9 ounces)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

filling:
1 (8-ounce) block fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 (8-ounce) block 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
3 eggs

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. To prepare crust, finely grind gingersnaps in processor. Add butter and blend until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press mixture over bottom and up sides of 9-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray. Bake crust until color darkens, about 8 minutes. Cool completely.

3. Reduce oven temperature to 300°.

4. To prepare filling, place cream cheeses in a food processor; process until smooth. Add 3/4 cup granulated sugar and next 4 ingredients (through pumpkin); process until smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time; process well after each addition. Pour cheese mixture into prepared pan. Bake at 300° for 50 minutes or until almost set. Turn oven off; partially open oven door. Cool cheesecake in oven 30 minutes. Remove from oven; cool on a wire rack. Cover and chill 8 hours.

buttercup squash soup

Last week's CSA box came with some nice winter squashes so Matteo and I made buttercup squash soup for dinner. This is a Food Network recipe that was provided with my weekly CSA newsletter. It was easy to throw together and came out great.



Buttercup Soup

3 Tablespoons of butter
3/4 C coarsely chopped onion
2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 potato, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 jalapeño, seeded coarsely chopped
1 buttercup squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
4 C chicken stock or water
1/2 C cream
Salt and pepper
Sliced scallion and diced red pepper, for garnish

In a large pot, melt butter and cook onions until tender. Stir in carrots, potato and jalapeño and toss to coat. Stir in chopped squash. Pour in chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes until vegetables are tender. Puree soup in blender in batches. Return to pot and stir in cream. Season to taste and garnish with sliced scallion.



I also made cooked up the Brussels sprouts that came in the box last week. They were tasty but stunk up the whole house! Is there a way to cook them without leaving such a strong, lingering smell?

CSA - update

So I cooked those radishes last night or, more specifically, I roasted them. They were okay, better than expected actually. Until I got a little wild and sprinkled them with cumin.



I love how my mom is the only one to agree with Matt. See why I have such a fear of leafy greens? This is where it all comes from!

our CSA

We bought a CSA share for the summer and last night I picked up our first box of produce. For those of you unfamiliar with how CSAs work, it's like a produce subscription service with a local farm. The consumer pays a certain amount of money at the beginning of the growing season to help with the farmer's costs, and in return, you get a box of mixed produce from the farm every week. This is the farm we're signed up with.

Gardening and knowing where your food comes from is a big deal in Madison. Like just about everyone I know, I have my own garden in the backyard and shop fairly regularly at the farmers markets. I feel good about doing my part to eat locally. But I usually plant and buy the same few vegetables (lots of squash, bell peppers, corn, carrots - all the colorful stuff). One of my reasons for buying a CSA share is to branch out and expand our family's culinary horizons.

Look at all that green stuff in that box! The extent of my current green consumption is spinach salads and homemade kale chips so this is a whole new world. That entire box is green with the exception of a bunch of radishes. Radishes - yuck! But this is what it's about, right? Not just eating locally, but eating what's in season and no longer being intimidated by the veggies that fall out of my comfort zone. Each week with our box we get a newsletter about how things are going on the farm and suggested recipes for that week's haul. I guess this weekend we'll be eating braised greens and roasted radishes!

We're in the middle of a drought here in southern Wisconsin. The grass is dry and brittle, the temperatures are in the 90's, and we haven't had significant rain in weeks. We had a very early spring and many crops and plants are about a month ahead of schedule. The newsletter sent with this week's CSA box was all about how challenging this weather is for farmers. Another reason I wanted to get a CSA share is to better understand where our food comes from. It's one thing to buy a head of lettuce at the grocery store, it's another to get it directly from the farmer who grew it.

It isn't always easy to eat well AND eat healthy but here in Madison it is. I've lived in places where fresh produce was hard to come by, but here it's plentiful and affordable and people are really thoughtful about what they put in their bodies. I'm excited to see how things go with our CSA share this year and am already looking forward to seeing what's in our next box.

family dinner

With my birthday money this year I bought two wonderful things: a Burley trailer for my bike, and this new book.



I am super excited about the Burley, but I think I'm almost as excited about this book. As I've mentioned before, one of the things I miss most when I'm coaching is having time at the end of the day to make a decent dinner. Matteo has sat at the family dinner table with us since he was just a few months old and this ritual is really important to me. And now he's at an age where we can even have little conversations about things. Here we are last night, talking about our days over ice cream.



I'm not a great cook. I'm not one of those people who can organically throw together delicious meals on instinct. I never invite friends over for dinner because my friends are all better cooks than I am. I mean, seriously, I still have days when I can't even follow a recipe correctly. Just a few months ago I made a HUGE batch of Six-Week Muffins - which are so named because you make enough to literally last six weeks - and by mistake put in 5 teaspoons of salt instead of 2 teaspoons. I ate one, got a massive headache from sodium poisoning, and had to throw all of the batter away. It was ridiculous.

But I love cooking and always wish I had more time for it. And I am fortunate to have a treasure trove of family recipes that have been passed down to me, which I've always been too intimidated to try. This book is particularly aimed at helping parents with young kids find ways to get good dinners on the table, and create and incorporate family traditions into the family dinner experience. It's for people like me - people who might not have a lot of time or experience in the kitchen, but really value family dinner time and want it to be special through good food and good conversation.

The book evolved from this blog, which I also really enjoy. And if you want to know more, here is the book trailer:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJDNi1Otstc&w=560&h=315]

everything tastes better wrapped in bacon

Yeah yeah I know they're gross, but I'm a big fan of hot dogs. Especially hot dogs out of street vendor carts. When I worked in DC my favorite lunch cost $2.25 - a $1 hot dog wrapped in foil, a bag of chips, a can of soda and a three pack of chocolate chip cookies. That's some kind of deal.

I'm also a big fan of Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Whenever we see our Michigan relatives there's at least something from Zingerman's that comes along for the ride. Their giant paesano bread wheels are practically part of our family. Zingerman's baked goods are also great default gifts when we can't get our own gift together in time. (Hi Mom! Hope you liked the brownies this year!)

Imagine my delight this morning when I opened my inbox to find an email from Zingerman's with a recipe for BACON WRAPPED HOT DOGS.  Holy. Crap. These people are marketing geniuses because this is now one mailing list I'm never going to unsubscribe from.

Bacon Wrapped Hot Dog Recipe
Prep
Wrap a slice of bacon around each hotdog like the stripes on a candy can or barber's pole. Lay the wrapped dogs in a plastic bag or container. Chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes. You want the bacon to stiffen up a little bit to hold its shape. Tip: Thinly sliced bacon is easier to use and adheres to the hot dogs better than thicker cut.

Cooking
I prefer grilling (the traditional approach, since they're street food). The dogs can be cooked on the stovetop as well. Place a cooking sheet or aluminum foil on top of the grate and use this as your cooking surface. Lay the dogs on the sheet. Cook for a few minutes on each side until the bacon is as crisp as you'd like it.

Buns & Toppings
The sweeter the bun you can find, the better. If you're lucky enough to have a Mexican bakery in your area, shop there. Bun toasting is optional.

Standard toppings: yellow mustard, ketchup, crema (you can substitute sour cream), chopped jalapeños—either roasted or grilled.

Optional toppings used by different vendors: chopped tomatoes, chopped onions, relish, mayonnaise, mango, pineapple, salt.

good eating

I was a notoriously finicky eater as a kid. Just ask my friend Jen, who spent her 11th birthday tromping around Baltimore's Inner Harbor looking for a restaurant that had a grilled cheese on the menu because that's just about all I ate. To this day I'm still not a fan of most fish, and my understanding and appreciation of vegetables is limited. An ex-boyfriend once asked me to pick up avocados so he could make fresh guacamole and I came home with artichokes. Whoops!

Matteo hit a crazy growth spurt this week. When he first started daycare two weeks ago, 9 ounces of milk got him through the day. Today I had to send almost double that amount! And when we eat dinner he stares at the food going into our mouths, hypnotized, like the snake in the old Disney Robin Hood cartoon.



Last night as a test, I put a teeny bit of ice cream on my spoon and fed it to him. He lunged for it, sucked it down, and then looked up at me like some sad urchin in a Dickens novel. I practically could hear him thinking, "Please mum, can I have some more?" If he had a little empty gruel bowl in his hands he would have held it out in front of him.

I was hoping to get him to six months on nothing but breastmilk but I think it's time to test the waters of real food. As much as I can, I want to try to make my own baby food. It's good for Matteo, but even better, it's good for me to get to know and love vegetables. I can't expect him to become a good eater if I'm not, so we're definitely in this one together.

I just bought this great new baby cookbook Love in Spoonfuls, which has really simple recipes for each stage of baby eating: 4-6 months, 7-8 months, 9-11 months and 12-18 months.

First up, winter squash purée. Wish us luck!