Chicken Salad

A few weeks ago while James was in Brazil (and I was on my own) I thawed, poached, and shredded two chicken breasts. Although I only needed one breast to prepare Chilaquiles, I cooked both simply because they came in a package of two. Once the superfluous breast was shredded I put it in the freezer to use later.

Often in the summer I like to have cool salads for meals, so last week I took the prepared chicken out of the freezer, thawed it and made a chicken salad. I decided not to follow any recipe and let the ingredients I had on had be my guide. 

The chicken was mixed with two dollops of  sour cream, about 1/4 c. chopped red onion, and some salt, pepper, and dried basil. At this point I gave it a taste test and determined that it was a bit "onion forward"  so I found some prepared cranberry sauce in the refrigerator and added about two tablespoons. The sweet/tart flavor softened the harsh onion for a lovely flavor combination. We made sandwiches with the salad and had some roasted potatoes on the side.

National Grilled Cheese Day

 For this year's celebration (we seem to manage this one fairly often), we found a recipe whose name practically is the recipe: Blackberry Bacon Grilled Cheese. Anybody who knows how to make a grilled-cheese sandwich need only add these details:

• blackberry refers to blackberry jam
• bacon refers to crispy bacon, cooked before assembling sandwich
• cheese refers to Swiss cheese (I used a nice, soft, lacy Swiss)
• sliced, fresh jalepeños are the only component (aside from cooking butter) not implied in the title
• grilled refers to sourdough bread (which was hard to find in these days of supply-chain challenges)

We had only Canadian bacon on hand, so I substituted that. It was leaner and less crispy than South-of-the-49th Bacon. This somewhat lighter alternative made for a nicely balanced sandwich.

Photo: Lemon Tree Dwelling

The recipe is accompanied by photos that are far superior to any I could have taken of these somewhat messy sandwiches. The recipe itself helps me to understand why so many people whine about overlong, meandering food-blog posts. 

Nothing in the author's discussion of this recipe related at all to the recipe, unless the reader is aware of the coincidence between National Grilled Cheese Day and National Only-Child Day. 

Classic Grilled Cheese with a Twist

We knew it had been a while since we posted a new recipe, but we didn't realize how long! Seems we've gotten lax about finding a recipe, making a shopping list, enjoying (or not) a meal, and then writing about it. For this long overdue post I went to Grilled Cheese, Please in search of something easy, yet enticing.

In addition to shredded cheddar this sandwich has bacon,sliced tomato, and red onion. The onions were sliced and soaked in cold water while the bacon baked (we've recently taken to making bacon in the oven on a foil lined cookie sheet which makes clean up a lot easier). Once the bacon was done the sandwiches were assembled and then grilled on the stove top. The recipe called for sourdough bread, but I just used plain white bread since I had some leftover from the loaf I'd bought for a recent breakfast of french toast. The sandwiches were hearty and full of flavor and texture. We ate them with a side dish of mashed potatoes, and paired with Malbec.

French Onion Sandwich?

From the New York Times recipe pages comes the sandwich version of one of our favorite soups: French Onion. We met in French class, but that is probably not why we like it so much. Could be the cheesy salty sweetness of it. And although we make a lot of complicated soups, our go-to in this category is the frozen blocks from Trader Joe's that transform magically into a layered soup in the oven.

Pam mentioned this recipe when we noticed the Gruyère I had purchased at the very same store --- a cheese introduced to us years ago by the lovely couple from whom we rented our first home in Bridgewater. Since Trader Joe's is a schlepp from here, they would ask us to pick up a package whenever they knew we were headed there.

The recipe is quite simple; it requires a bit of patience but no complicated technique. I sliced a few onions as thinly as I could, and cooked them on medium-high heat, covered for a few minutes. The key was then to lower the heat, uncover, and cook for 20-25 minutes more. For the first half of this, an occasional stir was needed. For the last several minutes, more frequent stirring and steady lowering of the heat was helpful. The result was a darkening, sweetening, and roughly 50 percent reduction in the onions:

Notice I used our enamel pan with a silicone spatula. I would normally use our indispensable cast-iron skillet for this kind of thing, but as he onions got jammier, I was glad to have these tools, to get every smidgeon out and not leave a mess.

I then shredded the cheese -- more than the 4 ounces suggested, as I always do -- and mixed it in a bowl with the caramelized onion. The result was not pretty, so I was pleasantly surprised when my photo of the final result turned out better than the photo posted by NYT on the recipe page. The golden-hour setting sun at our beach house was responsible for that, I think.

Lagniappe

It was a Gruyère purchase that got us into this meal, but right before I started, I noticed that I had only seen Gruyère at TJs, but that I had picked up some fancy cheddar instead. This will be a good excuse to make these again soon. I will also have mustard in some form for dipping, as both the recipe and one of my friends suggest. So it will be EVEN MORE BETTER.

Lots of Chocolate Flay-vor

Mmmm...chocolate

My big sister recently came for a visit. I had seen this recipe for Stuffed Mexican Hot Chocolate French Toast with Cinnamon Whipped Cream and Chocolate-Maple Ganache  show up on my Facebook feed just days before her arrival and determined that it would be the perfect sister activity for her stay. The recipe says it takes an hour to prepare, which may be true if only one person is working on it, but we had three very willing participants (my sister, my husband, and me) for this one. My sister prepared the ganache while I made the batter, and my husband whipped the cream and (natch) made the coffee - you will want plenty of black fair-trade, organic coffee to pair with this very rich breakfast. Anyway, we cut the prep time to about 25 minutes by having each of us working on a different part of the meal. We cooked some bacon to go with it so that we would also have a bit of protein with our victuals. This is a fun, dessert-for-breakfast, special-occasion, many-hands-make-light, work repast. 

While we were cooking my sister also informed me that my niece's beau loves Bobby Flay, to which James and I responded "who's that" and she answered that we were making one of his recipes. We do not watch the Food Network (or any other network for that matter).

All bacon weekend

Over the weekend we had our first snowstorm of the season here in New England. James and I decided to ride it out at "Whaling House" where we would be able to have a cozy fire (actually two!) and a hot tub. We brought a package of bacon with us and planned our meals accordingly. 

Of course no snow storm would be complete without a comforting casserole, and no casserole is more comforting than good ol' mac and cheese. We picked this recipe for Macaroni and Cheese with Caramelized Onion and Bacon from allrecipes.com. I am not sure who did the math on the recipe site to determine that prep time would only be 20 minutes. Adding up the number of minutes of stirring, cooking and simmering time in each step comes out to more than that. Add to that the actual time you need to chop, cut, and wait for water to boil, and it was over an hour of prep work. This was with both of us working on it. The error made amount of prep time was offset by the fact that the top of the recipe also says there is an hour of cook time, but the final step calls for only 30 minutes in the oven. Perhaps the recipe authors are thinking differently than I do about how prep and cook time break down. In any case, this turned out quite good and we enjoyed the leftovers the following day for lunch. There is yet more in the freezer to be eaten another day.

The casserole only called for four slices of bacon, so there was still plenty more in the package for breakfast. Instead of plain old bacon and eggs though I prepared this recipe from allrecipes.com for French Egg and Bacon Sandwiches. Much easier and quicker than the casserole.

Key Lime pie-wiches

Here's a simple summer treat that works as a breakfast, lunch, dessert, or snack-no cooking, or baking involved:

Put a schmear of cream cheese on a graham cracker, and add a dab of Key Lime jelly. Eat either open-faced, or put another graham cracker on top. Sweet, crunchy, and creamy. I invented this myself. Especially good with a nice cold glass of milk.

Grilled Cheese and Fig Jam sandwiches

Sometime in the recent past I found a recipe on the web for this sandwich. I don't remember now where it came from, but it didn't matter too much as I didn't really need a "recipe" since knowing the the name of the dish sufficed for instructions. I won't explain here what I did either, but I will elaborate to say that I used Fig and Ginger jam, and cheddar cheese to make the sandwiches. We ate them with a side of nachos made from the leftover filling of the sloppy joe's we had the night before. The meal was complemented with sangria. All good.

Turkey Reuben

One of James' favorite sandwiches is the Reuben - pastrami, Swiss, sauerkraut,  and 1000 island dressing on rye. He orders it almost anytime we are in a restaurant that has it on the menu. Pam is not fond of pastrami, nor 'kraut and therefore does not share James's affinity for said sandwich. She does however enjoy a similar sandwich made with turkey and cole slaw (the Turkey Reuben, also known as the "Rachel"). We were invited to a cookout on Sunday and told the hosts on Friday that we would bring something made with ingredients from our farm box, which we would be picking up on Saturday. Saturday's bounty included a head of cabbage, so James made some of the tasty lime cole slaw he made for my birthday last year. We had some slaw left over after the cookout so Pam got a bee in her bonnet about making Rachel sandwiches. We seldom would have reason to eat 1000 island dressing, so we didn't want to buy a whole bottle to make the sandwiches. Fortunately it was pretty easy to make a small quantity using roughly equal parts mayonnaise, ketchup, and pickle relish.

To prepare the sandwiches Pam heated the indispensable cast-iron griddle, and melted some butter onto it. Meanwhile she spread some mayo on each of four slices of marble rye bread,and placed the slices mayo-side down onto the griddle. Next she spread a bit of the dressing onto two of the slices, and put a slice of Provolone cheese, and two slices of turkey onto the other slices. Once the cheese had melted a bit she put a spoonful of slaw on top of the slices with the dressing. The turkey/cheese slice was then paced on top of the dressing/slaw slice and the sandwich was removed from the griddle, sliced, and served. These were just as good as anything we've been served in a restaurant, especially when paired with some ice-cold home brew.

One Day, Two Sexy Cookbooks

On Saturday we picked up our fresh produce from our CSA and began looking for recipes to use some of the bounty. For lunch we selected cucumber sandwiches from the Intercourses Cookbook. The recipe was really for the seasoned mayonnaise because we actually do know enough about food to figure out how to slice up a cucumber and put it between two slices of bread without further instruction. To 1/4 cup of mayonnaise I added a dash of red wine vinegar; a bit of chopped fresh basil, parsley, and rosemary; and a dash each of garlic salt, chili powder, and cumin. I used a blender to mix and to ensure optimal creaminess. We turned an otherwise bland lunch into something rather special. We had a side of seasonal fruit salad (blueberries, peaches, and bananas - Pam's favorite mix)!

For dinner we selected a recipe from BootyFood - Five-Spice Jerk Chicken Breast

We started the sauce by sautéeing diced onion and garlic, than added diced jalapeño pepper. In a separate bowl we mixed a bit cayenne pepper, curry powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves, and salt and pepper, then added 1/8  c. each of orange juice and mango juice, and a dash of red wine vinegar. This mix was added to the onion, garlic and pepper mixture and simmered for 20 minutes. The sauce was then cooled and most was then poured over two chicken breasts (a bit was saved out for basting). We let it marinate for about four hours, then baked in the oven. We served this over some leftover rice, and had a side salad, also made with ingredients from our farm box.

Hot, Sweet ... and Hot

We love to watch programs about food, most of which explain new and different ways in which our food systems are bad for us. Occasionally, we indulge in a show that simply relishes delicious food, with little or no regard to the things we usually try to regard in our own food. (See, for example, our posts on Sandwiches You Will Like, and the colossal sandwich we made as a result.)

The 2010 short series Best Food Ever certainly falls into the category of decadence divorced from reality, if the first episode, "Sensational Sandwiches" is any indication. The fact that such an indulgence appears on a network known as "The Learning Channel" is an indication of just how low the bar on educational television has been lowered.

But watching has no calories, and some local sense-of-place geography comes through in programs like this, so we enjoyed the first episode as it jumped from diner to restaurant to sandwich stand around the United States, Top Ten Countdown style. We could not imagine eating most of the sandwiches: those that looked delicious were incredibly high in fat, and most provided enough food for a family.

We were very intrigued, however, by The Mighty Cone from Austin. At first glance, this seems like the KFC Famous Bowl that I ridicule so heartily in my Dignity Desert post. In this case, however, the convenience food is the result of a specific request to scale down the price of one of the most popular dishes at a high-end Austin restaurant, in order to bring quality food to a public festival. We could not argue with that premise!

The film -- available above on Netflix -- describes both the original recipe and the modification. Below I describe the modification of that modification, to suit my own cooking style and the ingredients we already had on hand.

First, I skipped the aoli sauce altogether, deciding to take this one sauce at a time.
Second, I improvised an ancho sauce. I could not find one in the store and the recipes I found online seemed like quite a lot of work for a couple tablespoons of sauce. So I whisked one tablespoon of Asian pepper sauce (some times called "rooster" sauce) into 1/4 cup of light mayonnaise.
We had two boneless, organic chicken breasts on hand (NOT from the chickens I transported over the weekend, incidentally), which I sliced into 1-inch strips.
Meanwhile, I crushed together in one bowl:

• 1/2 cup Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, in place of corn flakes
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 ounce sesame seeds (since this is all we had)
• generous helping of red-pepper flakes

In another bowl, I whisked together about 1/4 cup each of olive oil (blood orange infused), serrano-honey vinegar, and Amaretto liqueur (to compliment the almonds).

I heated equal parts of the blood-orange olive oil and Canola oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, and once it was hot, I dredged the chicken strips in the dry mixture and tossed each into the pan, Once seared, I lowered to medium-high heat and turned each strip until cooked through.

We each put a small, softened tortilla (I wrap them in waxed paper and microwave for 30 seconds) on a plate and added a few of the hot, sweet chicken strips. The coating did not adhere nearly as nicely as it does in the original version, so we scooped some of the sticky mess on top. At the table, we topped with store-deli Cole slaw and a bit of the chilled pepper sauce.

We paired this with some general purpose Merlot, to good effect. The result was VERY hot, VERY sweet, and possibly habit-forming.

Carrot Wraps

I sometimes like to challenge myself to see how long I can go between food shopping trips while still enjoying  a good variety of recipes. This requires that I take some stock of I what have on hand, and to be creative with substitutions. I had three raw carrots in my refrigerator, which I had planned to just turn into carrot sticks for snacking, when I noticed this recipe in the New York Times which not only called for carrots, but also for dried apricots, which I also had. I had to reduce the recipe quite a bit to account for my meager carrot count, but I was eating alone that night anyway (James was enjoying a "rubber chicken" meal at the University). I started with one small garlic clove and a handful of walnuts which I chopped by hand, then placed in the blender for further choppage. Meanwhile, I soaked 5 dried apricots in boiling water. When the apricots were softened (about 5 minutes) I chopped and added them to the blender. At this point the recipe calls to add olive oil and vinegar. Having recently become fans of flavor-infused vinegars and oils, I  checked my stocks for some interesting flavors to add, and settled on Blood Orange Olive Oil, and Honey-flavored vinegar. Also added at this time was a pinch of chili pepper and a splash of the water the apricots soaked in. After a bit more blending, this formed into an easy-to-spread paste.

Oh yes, the carrots - these were peeled and cut into sticks, then blanched for about 5 minutes. The sticks were put tossed into a bowl with lemon juice, a bit more olive oil, and some dried mint.

The recipe calls for lavash bread, but I used a soft tortilla shell. The apricot paste was spread onto the shell, carrots were added, then the shell was folded in half and grilled on the indispensable cast iron griddle.

I must say that I made wise choices with my vinegar and oil flavor choices. All the flavors blended well, and made for a satisfying meal. James, who is no fan of carrots, tried one the next day for lunch and declared it "surprisingly good" (although we both agree that we would have preferred the carrots softened just a bit more). I think the paste could be used as a good dip for a veggie relish tray, pita chips or crackers.

A bigger carrot fan than James

Greece is the Word

Pamela: from the Greek, meaning "honey" or "all sweetness". 

In celebration of Pam's 48th birthday, we decided to try preparing some Greek dishes, (and some others that were, perhaps, a bit less ethnic).

We started the day with sausage and egg sandwiches on English muffins, with a side of pre-fab hash browns.  The meal put us in mind breakfast at a certain fast-food restaurant, a place we have, in fact, not visited in several years now. Both the turkey sausage and the eggs were organic, the latter from our friend Lori. Well, from her chickens. (Pam points out that Turkey is near Greece, by the way.)

As we realized only the next day, we actually had Greek yogurt with our McMuffins.
See a review of this yogurt from blogger Eve Was Right.

Home-brew Oak Barrel

Even while our first batch of wine (a Barolo) still ferments in our basement, we have jumped into our premier attempt at white wine, a Chardonnay. Here the birthday girl stirs the oak chips into the barrel. We look forward to trying some of this late in the summer.

Chefs Pam and James pose in our cozy kitchen with our matching anniversary aprons. These anniversary gifts from James' parents are both kitchy and kitcheny, they are also linguistic -- with "chicken" translated in many of the languages used in our house.

A beautiful Memorial Day weekend. We enjoyed eating alfresco.

For our main course, we once again tried our hand with phyllo dough, this time with a delicious Spanakapita - a mixture of spinach, onion garlic, egg, ricotta, and feta cheese layered between sheets of phyllo. We did learn that left-over phyllo dough is probably not worth keeping, though we did manage to use some as a bottom layer.)

Birthday Baklava was made with phyllo, pecans, and a lot of honey - definitely "all sweetness."

Vexillology challenge: what is the state flag in the middle of Pam's candles? Answer here.

Our dinner, and dessert were both (remarkably) well paired with Mead, a wine made from honey. We had to go to three liquor stores in order to find one that even knew what we were talking about. Pioppi's in Plymouth, Massachusetts (the very first liquor store to open after prohibition) is  the place to go. Rather than go to this trouble in the future, we are just going to start making it ourselves.

At the end of the day, there was nothing for it but to watch Pam's favorite movie of all time.

Is it our imagination, or are all three pictures above of the same couple?

If Elvis and Paula Dean Had a Baby, This Sandwich Would Be It

June 2013 Update: Anybody finding this post after the Paula Deen scandal might be interested in a provocative essay about Deen on the Dangerous Minds blog. Richard Metzger's screed references earlier Deen scandals and asserts that a combination of factors led to the speed of her fall from celebrity. Much more constructive and instructive is an Open Letter to Paula Deen from Southern food blogger Michael Twitty, who uses her fall from grace as an opportunity to educate all of us about broader patterns of culinary injustice. Meanwhile, WBUR blogger Caryl Rivers suggests that the Deen story is a distraction from real concerns about race.

I uttered the sentence above at the first bite of this evening's sandwich bomb. We knew it as an Elvis Sandwich, based on our September viewing of Sandwiches You Will Like. (We thought that film would be trouble, and we were right!) But the sheer decadence of this sandwich put me immediately in mind of Paula Deen. Since I mainly know her from occasional NPR segments, rather than print or television, I decided to check the spelling on her web site. Finding the above teaser as the banner at the top of the main page confirmed my inkling that this might have been her kind of sandwich.

The recipe from Peanut Butter and Company in New York City is quite simple: fry bacon, butter bread. Put one slice of bread on a hot griddle, spread with peanut butter, top with banana slices, top that with bacon, and apply the other piece of buttered toast. Grill until brown on the outside and melty on the inside. It is a simple recipe, but not entirely an easy one, as applying peanut butter over a hot griddle to buttered bread is rather a sticky prospect. The term "hot mess" seems to apply.

By the way, we used Cabot butter from Vermont, yogurt bread made in the bread machine by Pam this afternoon (that's Stonyfield yogurt, of course, again from Vermont), rather ordinary bananas as we found no fair-trade types at the grocery this time, and bacon from Nodine's Smoke House, purchased at the nearby Peaceful Meadows dairy store. We love bacon and would eat it all the time were it not bad for us and even worse for the pigs. So we eat it infrequently and from the highest-quality, most local sources we can, instead of factory farms.

We let the bread cool thoroughly and I sliced it as thinly as I reasonably could, but as with all our bread-machine bread, it provided ample heft for these sandwiches. As Pam arrived home from her recorder lesson, the bacon and all the other sandwich makings were ready; I had even preheated the griddle. So the following progression took only about five minutes, ending with sandwiches that were golden-brown outside and gooey inside.

I kept them on the griddle long enough to pack them down a bit. Then I cut them in half (sailboat-style) and served them with chilled, pure apple sauce from Hanson Farm. And a lot of milk, just as Elvis might have done! We agreed that they were far tastier than expected, but also far more filling. Next time, a single sandwich will do for the two of us!

Melty Tuna Melty

As Pam noted in the "Best Tuna Melt" section of her New Jersey entry on Celebrating the States, my usual open-mindedness with respect to food (and most other things, other than Dunkin' Donuts), generally fails me when it comes to tuna. I do not eat tuna salad unless I am at home, and then only if I have made it or a trusted family member has made it under my supervision. For me, incidentally, it is not really a "salad" since it only has tuna, mayo, and ground black pepper.

As Pam rightly predicted in that same entry, my willingness to eat -- and even enjoy -- a tuna melt in which the tuna was polluted with celery and onions did not mean I had turned over a new leaf in this area of gastronomy. Strict limits are still in place. (Sorry to call onion a pollutant -- in its proper place, of course, I love it! Its proper place is anywhere but tuna salad.)

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I have some issues with the preparation of tuna. I rarely prepare tuna melts, but for some reason today I had a hankering for them, and arriving home for lunch just a few minutes ahead of Pam, I decided to surprise her with one (one each, that is).

I made tuna "salad" in my conventional way -- a can of tuna in water (squeezing the water in our dog's food dish -- all of our dogs have loved that) with a minimal mix of reduced-calorie mayonnaise (Hellman's: let's not even talk about Miracle Whip, since this is a family blog) and fresh-ground black pepper. I grilled this on regular whole wheat sandwich bread with freshly shredded Cabot cheeses (Monterrey Jack and extra sharp cheddar), in the style of grilled cheeses about which we've been blogging of late.

Nothing terribly innovative so far, except that this is the first tuna melt I have made since we got grilled-cheese religion, and I stacked the shredded cheese as high as it would go, giving it plenty of time to melt down before flipping the sandwiches.

Here is the innovation, though: on my own sandwich, I added a couple tablespoons of what I call "hots" -- jarred, crushed red pepper. I often order this on deli sandwiches, but never thought to get it for home use until I recently noticed it on a grocery shelf. In this case, it is Gouveia brand, imported to New Bedford from the Azores (an Atlantic archipelago that is part of Portugal).

I would never have thought to blog about this, because it was a simple recipe, but Pam pointed out that we have not posted much lately, so to keep up a weekly pace, I should mention it. Though the meal (which included milk, tortilla chips, and canned peaches with cinnamon) was not fancy, it did meet the main criteria for lunch: nutritious, delicious, easy and cheap!

Sandwiches that You Will Like

Taking its name from an old sandwich shop slogan, this documentary visits sandwich shops all over the country to find out what is unique and special in America's hometowns. From Beef on Weck in Buffalo, New York; to the Philadelphia Cheesesteak; and the Maid Rite in Marshalltown, Iowa; and many others to the north, south, east and west, we found out all about why some folks take special pride in their hometown flavors. We'd heard of Elvis Presley's favorite sandwich before, grilled banana and peanut butter with bacon, but we watched one being prepared at Peanut Butter and Company in New York City, and now have a true hankerin' to try one. Next time we can get some good bacon it will be put to good use! This is a fun movie to watch, but maybe not so much for vegetarians. With a few exceptions, "a lot of beef" is how I can best sum up the sandwiches featured in this film. The companion website does not include any of the recipes featured in the movie, but it offers an opportunity to purchase a cookbook, and provided one "teaser" recipe (not found in the film) and so I prepared the "Spiedie" a favorite of locals in Binghamton, New York.

The first thing one must be aware of is that this dish requires a minimum of 24 hours to marinate, so preparation must begin at least one day in advance.

I took a few liberties with the marinade, using red wine vinegar instead of cider vinegar, since we had the former, but not the latter, and I also added tomatillos from our garden, just because I had so many of them. (And, I will take this opportunity to thank my friend Rob for providing me with the tomatillo seedlings from which James has also made a tasty salsa (you should post that, honey) ). I also used fresh basil and mint because we had those in our garden as well. Otherwise, I used the ingredients as listed. I also deviated from the recipe by not putting the meat on skewers, and simply cooked them on our indespensible cast iron griddle. These were served on nice soft hogie rolls with a side of organic mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Another winner from Grilled Cheese, Please!

Chapter 7 of this book, on Regional American Grilled Cheese would have served me well during my Celebrating the States project. On Sunday I prepared the "Californian" which, according to the book reflects California's "agicultural bounty." This includes raisins, almonds, goat cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, and chiles. The chile and cheeses go between slices of cinnamon-raisin bread, upon which butter is spread and then topped with slivered almonds before grilling. I wasn't sure about including the chiles in this one, but the sweetness from the raisins made a perfect complement with the spicy chile pepper. Another magnificent contrast was the gooey cheese and the crunchy almonds. A perfect sandwich, especially when served with sweet potato chips.

That no pregnant woman should ever have to travel 200 miles to satisfy a craving again

I craved two foods during my only preganancy. Early on I wanted lots of grape juice, although prior to that I was happy to take it or leave it. I accepted this yearning as part of my pregnancy, and towards the end of my first trimester, when James noticed we were out of grape juice and asked if he should go out for more, I thought and minute, then replied "no, I guess I'm done with that." It was not until about two months later that I experienced my only other craving: a Monte Cristo sandwich. James picked me up from work at lunchtime one Friday and asked what I was in the mood for. When I told him I wanted a Monte Cristo, he wondered aloud if there was any restaurant in the Rio Grande Valley that might have them on the menu. Dejectedly, I told him that I doubted it. I don't remember what we ended up eating that day, but I do know that following day, we drove 3 hours to get to Corpus Christi where we thought our chances might be better at finding the sandwich I wanted. I also remember that by the time we got there I was so hungry I was more interested in having any food, than continuing the Monte Cristo quest. We went into a seafood restaurant, mostly because it was open, and were prepared to order anything that looked appetizing. As luck would have it though, the Monte Cristo sandwich was on the menu! I ordered it and ate half, then asked that the other half be wrapped to go. A few minutes later the waiter came out to confess that the other half had accidently been thrown away, and that they would take half the price of the sandwich off our bill. In a rather uncharacteristic move on my part, I explained about waiting a whole day, and traveling 200 miles to get the meal, and inisted that another sandwich be prepared instead. My request was obliged. Later, when one of my co-workers asked if I'd craved anything during my pregnancy and I told her the story about the Monte Cristo, she said me she'd never heard of a Monte Cristo, so I explained that it was an egg-batter fried ham and cheese sandwhich, topped with powered sugar, and served with jam for dipping. She pursed her lips, and said "well, that sounds like something a pregnant woman might crave."

In honor of that day 14 years ago, today we made our own Monte Cristos using the recipe from our new Grilled Cheese, Please cookbook. The one thing this recipe specifically says is that one should NOT grate the cheese "because dipping the sandwiches in the egg mixture is a messy affair." We strayed slightly from the recipe in the book in that we did not use both turkey and ham, only ham, and did not use mustard. Didn't see the point in that at all.  These really are simple, and I don't know why I didn't just make one for myself that day, but that's all amniotic fluid under the bridge now.

Arugula Grilled Cheese?

Yes, arugala grilled cheese! As Pam wrote rcently, we learned about a new grilled-cheese cook book from our local paper. Although this blog is mostly about using cookbooks we already have, I could not resist Laura Werlin's grilled cheese please!, and added it to our collection.

Learn more at
GrilledCheeseSandwich.org

http://grilledcheesesandwich.org/Many of the recipes involve relatively obscure cheese and/or meats. One recent evening, I was looking for a vegetarian meal that would use something from our local farm box, and I found just the thing on page 7. The "burrata with roasted peppers and arugula" recipe calls for an unfamiliar cheese but suggests fresh mozzarella as an alternative. It also calls for French bread and olive oil instead of butter for the outside of the sandwiches. Piled with arugula and roasted red peppers, Pam and I found these sandwiches savory, creamy, and delicious.

It was not, however, a hit with our resident vegetarian, so I will let her choose the next selection from this fun book.

Sautéed Jerusalem Artichokes with Sunflower Seeds

Earlier this month we began picking up our annual CSA farm box from Colchester Neighborhood Farm. This week we received Jerusalem Artichokes (or Sunchokes). We had never had these before and looked to Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for guidance. Her cookbook is over 700 pages long and has recipes for every kind of vegetable you've never heard of. I decided to try the sautéed with sunflower seeds recipe for the jerusalem artichokes. This root vegetable looks a lot like ginger, but is bitter in flavor. I cut the 'chokes into rounds and sautéed in canola oil. I added salt and pepper, then topped with toasted sunflower seeds and parsley and some other herb (the parsley and unknown herb also came from our farm box). James pointed out that I should have shelled the sunflowers first. Well, yes. I was so glad to be using the sunflower seeds that have been in our cupboard for over a year that I didn't think about this part. Mostly we ended up eating around them. I was glad to use the ingredients from the farm box, but I have to say I wouldn't buy jersusalem artichokes on purpose. This was used as a side dish to an old favorite - grilled cheddar, bacon and red pepper sandwiches. We got the recipe from the newspaper a few years ago. We were glad to find it as we were not sure what to do with the red pepper jelly we got in the big basket of  homemade jellies we won at our church auction that year. We ended up liking these sandwiches so much that red pepper jelly has become a "staple on Maple". Of course we made the change of grating the cheese this time! And prepared them on fresh yogurt bread, still warm from the bread machine. We paired this with sweet pineau de pinot from from Westport Rivers vineyard.