Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Spicy Pickled Tomatoes

I have a new favorite cookbook.  I know it's a little ridiculous to call something my new favorite cookbook when I have only made a salad and a condiment from it, but I LOVED both of those dishes.  And the only reason I bought the cookbook is because it was on sale at Anthropologie.  I didn't even realize they sold cookbooks but it was on sale, the pictures inside were pretty and Hugh Acheson is perhaps my favorite Top Chef judge of all time.  So I bought it.  And I am genuinely (and thoroughly) excited by a number of recipes so it worked out really nicely.  Stay tuned.  If I had my way (instead of work having its way with me) I would have made at least 3-4 other recipes from the cookbook already.  I have 4-5 more recipes already bookmarked that I want to make as soon as possible.  I promise to make more as soon as I can.  I guess I should mention the name of the cookbook sooner or later - it's A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for your Kitchen by Hugh Acheson.  It helps that I am in a Southern phase recently - this weekend we had great meals at Maysville and Mighty Quinn's Barbeque.  I didn't take any pictures since we were at both restaurants with friends, but they were both totally yummy.  Every year summer hits and I start thinking about Mexican food and Southern food.  I want tacos, barbeque, buttermilk biscuits, cornbread and beer.  And tonight, Alex really wanted grilled cheese, which isn't exactly Southern, but it's not not Southern?  I had mentioned grilled cheese as a natural pairing for these pickled tomatoes when I asked Alex to make them last week, but I didn't know that Alex was going to get so fixated on the grilled cheese idea.  I went to the farmers' market this afternoon after the gym and was ready to make a peach, prosciutto and mozzarella salad for dinner but Alex was dead set on the grilled cheese with spicy pickled tomatoes idea.  I picked a rather labor-intensive grilled cheese recipe from Serious Eats that I saw a few months ago because I always feel like our grilled cheese sandwiches aren't as crispy as I want.  This grilled cheese took awhile, but it was perfect.  And I do mean PERFECT.  As far as methods go, I don't think it can be improved upon.  I might experiment with adding new ingredients in with the cheese (or try other cheeses or types of bread), but I have never had such a nicely cooked grilled cheese.  And the spicy pickled tomatoes were delicious.  It was such a fun play on grilled cheese with tomato soup (or ketchup).  The acidity and heat of the tomatoes really complimented and cut through the richness of the grilled cheese.  I can't wait to try these tomatoes in other dishes - I'm thinking cornmeal-crusted chicken breasts or sauteed chicken breasts.  I don't know, but I think these tomatoes are the perfect thing to keep in the fridge at all times to really jazz up a meal.

Recipes after the jump!

Smoked Salmon and Egg Tartines

Growing up my parents would buy bagels and lox for us on random weekend mornings.  I was always so excited when I would come down for breakfast and see the bag of bagels on the counter with cream cheese and lox in the fridge.  Once I moved to NYC all of a sudden bagels with cream cheese and lox became insanely accessible.  And then I discovered that lox and scrambled eggs work really well together too.  I guess I should say thanks to the guys at Barney Greengrass for teaching me that.  I don't know why smoked salmon and eggs work so well together, but they do.  This morning for breakfast I was thinking about making scrambled eggs with some smoked salmon that I picked up from Zabar's, but then I decided that I wanted to make an egg salad with smoked salmon instead. So that's what I did.  I had some fresh dill that I picked up for another recipe and dill is such a natural pairing with salmon so I threw that in.  I don't like too much mayo in my egg salad, so I added in some whole-grain mustard, which I do with every salad, including tuna salad.  You don't want more than a touch of mustard because you don't want the flavor to fight with the flavors of the smoked salmon and the dill, but a little mustard is the perfect touch for me.

Recipe after the jump!

Dinosaur Kale and Feta Panini

As today was my first trip to the farmers' market in quite some time (since the Sunday before Thanksgiving if we're entirely accurate), I got really excited and picked up some fresh bread and some kale with the brilliant idea of making a grilled cheese.  I love grilled cheese and I have been tempted to throw some kale in there for awhile.  This panini was really the combination of a bunch of ideas from several different sources.  The idea of adding kale to a grilled cheese first came from a cashier at Trader Joe's who told me that he puts kale in his mac n cheese.  It seemed like an interesting idea and I have been toying around with the idea of adding squash to my mac n cheese for awhile, so why not add some kale?  But that got me thinking about the combination of kale and cheese. Then one day I was flipping though Cooking in the Moment by Andrea Reusing and I saw that she had a Kale Panini in there with farmers cheese or feta cheese, blanched kale and pickled chilis.  When I had been thinking about a grilled cheese I had been thinking more of a fontina or other creamy cheese that melts really well with something else saltier thrown in to give it a little more flavor, but a panini using feta seemed to make sense.  I think Alex was a little worried by the idea of the kale dominating the cheese (and I was too) so we decided to go with feta because it is assertive enough to hold its own against most ingredients.  And then today we were eating lunch at inoteca and they had a speck, mozzarella and pickled red onion panini.  So Alex threw in the idea of quickly and lazily pickling some shallots and throwing them in our panini for some sweetness and some acidity.  I had originally been planning on sauteing the shallots in with the wilted kale, but that sounded even better.  Alex has been on a roll lately with the suggestions.  I'm not exactly sure what has gotten into him, but I like it!

So throw it all together and bingo, bango, you have a panini!  And it was a  really tasty panini if I do say so myself.  I thought the flavors worked really well together.  The feta was salty and creamy (thanks to Andrea Reusing for that idea), the shallots were sweet and punchy, and then the kale was garlicky and savory.  If was just very satisfying.  It had enough of the grilled cheese aspect to it to resemble comfort food, but was sophisticated and complex enough to make it new and exciting.  Plus the addition of the kale made me feel a little less gross afterwards.  As much as I love grilled cheese, sometimes it just sits like a lump in the bottom of your stomach, but this sandwich didn't do that at all.  I think it had a lot to do with the proportions of cheese to kale and the addition of the shallots.  Go team Boyne!

Recipe after the jump!

Lamb Souvlaki Sandwiches with Tzatziki Sauce

I periodically tell Alex that we need to make more Mediterranean food.  Asian cuisine is our go-to, and failing that we end up making "American" food or Italian food.  Rarely do we make Mediterranean food, which is something that I really want to change for a number of reasons.  First, I love Mediterranean flavors - lemon, oregano, olive oil, olives, garlic, tart yogurts, etc.  The flavors are so simple and yet so satisfying and delicious.  I also love how healthy the diet is overall.  And while lamb isn't exactly as healthy as say, tofu, it is an indulgence that I enjoy from time-to-time and is totally fine when eaten in moderation.  I might try the recipe with chicken or pork in the future, as healthier alternatives to lamb, but we used lamb this time because I picked up some leg of lamb the other day with souvlaki in mind as the end goal.  I actually picked up several pounds of leg of lamb because there are several lamb recipes that I have been wanting to make, but haven't gotten around to because leg of lamb tends to be pretty pricey in NYC.

Since lamb (and all red meat with the potential exception of bison) isn't exactly super healthy, Alex and I made a resolution about a month ago to only eat it at restaurants or on the weekend.  No cooking red meat during the week.  But we broke our resolution this time because we had guests coming for the weekend and I really wanted to make my souvlaki.  Oops.  In order to lighten this sandwich up, we used multigrain flatbreads and added chopped up baby spinach, tomatoes and onions.  We also used nonfat Greek yogurt to make the tzatziki, rather than the whole-fat variety.  I find that when you make tzatziki with nonfat yogurt instead of whole-fat, it is a little thinner and less creamy.  Since we were using the tzatziki as the sauce for our sandwich and not a dip that was supposed to stand alone it was absolutely fine that it was a little thinner.  The end result was that the dish wasn't as heavy (or detrimental to your health) as it could have been, while still retaining a lot of flavor.  The rosemary and garlic in the marinade made the apartment smell delicious while we pan-roasted the lamb, and marinating the lamb overnight gave it really nice flavor.  I'm glad I stuck to my guns on this one because it was a really nice and satisfying meal.  Maybe I will try it out with pork next time, but then again, maybe not...

Recipe after the jump!

Thai Chicken Wraps

Back in March Alex and I had a Thai Chicken Wrap on our flight back from Colorado.  It was legitimately good - for airplane food it was close to amazing.  I was expecting something totally pedestrian and lame, so I was pretty impressed.  Way to go United!  So the other day when I was thinking about what to make for dinner tonight, I started thinking about that Thai Chicken Wrap.  Since I couldn't remember exactly what went in that wrap, I decided that we would throw in some romaine lettuce, red bell pepper, carrots and fresh herbs.  And serve the wraps with a nice spicy peanut sauce.  

Our Thai Chicken Wraps turned out really nicely.  The chicken was moist and fairly flavorful and there were tons of fresh crunchy veggies in the wraps to give them some substance.  We ended up using napa cabbage instead of romaine because Alex came home from the grocery store with napa cabbage and no romaine.  Oops.  I'm sure that at one time or another we have all gone to the grocery store and ended up with the wrong ingredient.  I know I have.  The switch worked out just fine.  I briefly considered adding some scallions or some red onion, but got lazy.  The next time I make the wraps I will probably throw in a few thinly sliced scallions.  I also considered tossing the napa cabbage in the peanut sauce to more evenly distribute the sauce throughout the wrap, but decided that might be overkill.  If you did that you might end up with overly dressed, soggy wraps.  And no one likes that.  The Thai Peanut Sauce came from a recipe we found on a blog called She Simmers.  I have never added curry paste to a peanut sauce before, but it is delicious.  The curry paste gives the peanut sauce some heat and a nice aroma.  The coconut milk makes the sauce nice and rich.  This sauce is pretty thin, so if you want a thicker peanut sauce, you can either make the sauce in advance and refrigerate it (it will thicken up a lot as it cools) or cut out the water.  I liked the peanut sauce so much that we might make some satay to serve with it later this week!  And I liked the wraps enough that I am already looking forward to having another for lunch tomorrow.  Yum.

Recipes after the jump!

Greek Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Grilled cheese sandwiches always remind me of my childhood.  My mom had this little toastie maker and she used to make us cheese toasties and ham and cheese toasties regularly for dinner.  Man I loved those ham and cheese toasties.  Somehow she never made us more traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, but I guess that's not all that surprising.  The first time I made a real grilled cheese with bread, butter, and American cheese slices in a pan on the stove top was on a trip to West Virginia that I took with a friend in ninth grade.  Even though grilled cheeses are incredibly nostalgic for me, this particular grilled cheese doesn't remind me of anything that I ate during my childhood.  I certainly never had a grilled cheese sandwich with feta cheese and tomatoes in it.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I tried feta cheese until I was in college.  And I didn't try a grilled cheese with tomatoes in it until well after college.  I'm still not sure that I'm a big fan of tomatoes in grilled cheese sandwiches, but I do know that this was a very interesting take on a grilled cheese.  I have made all sorts of grilled cheese sandwiches with a variety of different types of cheese, but it never would have occurred to me to use feta.  And I never would have added in fresh oregano, but I really enjoyed the hint of fresh herbs in the sandwich.  I might steal the idea, but use fresh basil or another herb next time with a different cheese.  All in all, I liked it.  It was an interesting concept and very tasty.  But I'm not entirely sure that I would make it again as is.  The first thing I would substitute is probably the cheese because feta isn't a great melting cheese.  And what defines a grilled cheese better than melted, gooey cheese oozing out after each bite?

Recipe after the jump!

Truffled Steak Sandwiches

When I bought Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics by Ina Garten Alex and I weren't really expecting much.  But I had picked it up a few times at Barnes & Noble and there were a lot of recipes that struck me as good, simple dinner party fare.  Actually, the recipe that really sold me on the cookbook was the White Pizza with Arugula.  I was also pretty excited by the recipes for Dinner Spanakopita and the Creamy Cheddar Grits.  I haven't made the spanakopita, but given how successfully everything else we have made from this cookbook has turned out I know they will be fabulous.

It never would have occurred to me to use black truffle butter on a steak sandwich.  But it was awesome - rich, earthy and flavorful.  It was the element that really brought the sandwich over the top.  The recipe as written would have been the most luxurious steak sandwich ever because it called for truffle butter and 2 pounds of fillet of beef.  That stuff is expensive!  Instead of fillet we used hanger steak because I really love the flavor of hanger steak and once thinly sliced I thought it would be an ideal sandwich steak.  The peppery arugula cuts through the richness of the black truffle butter and the steak.  The shards of Parmigiano-Reggiano gives the dish a salty, nutty bite.  The dish seems too simple to be truly delicious, but it really is.  It comes together really quickly and easily and could be the centerpiece of a lunch party just as easily as dinner for 2.  You could serve it with a cheese and fruit platter, a nice salad, and a simple dessert and have a fantastic meal for a lunch party.  Or you could do what Alex and I did and serve with a simple arugula salad for a really nice lunch or dinner.  Hurray for my absolute favorite every day cookbook for providing us with another tasty meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Spicy Turkey Meatball Subs

The Greenmarket in NYC sells spicy turkey sausage that I am obsessed with from DiPaolo Turkey Farm.  It is delicious.  I bought some recently and have been pondering what to do with it.  The idea that I kept coming back to was making a meatball sub.  What makes that idea unbelievably strange is that I have never ordered a meatball sub in my life, nor have I ever been tempted.  But I couldn't resist the idea of ciabatta bread filled with spicy turkey sausage meatballs, topped with fresh mozzarella cheese, and lots of fresh basil.  We cheated and used jarred tomato sauce, but the sub was all about the other ingredients for me anyway.  I just wanted the tomato sauce to add a little moisture and a hint of tomato sauce flavor.  I briefly considered making some homemade tomato sauce and decided that was taking a meatball sub just a little too far.

Seeing as I have absolutely zero experience with meatball subs, I am not sure that I am a fair judge of how this one ranked against the all of the legitimate meatball subs out there.  Nor do I even know what makes a standard meatball sub.  Alex tells me that our sub wasn't as saucy as a normal meatball sub and that our mozzarella was much fresher and higher quality than what you would usually find on a meatball sub.  So that is the sum total of my meatball sub knowledge.  With all of that said, I really enjoyed this sandwich.  The fresh mozzarella melted down over the meatballs and was all warm, gooey and delicious.  The meatballs were moist and very flavorful, both of which are serious achievements with turkey.  The sausage we used was fairly spicy, but if you are using a sweet turkey sausage, or if your sausage just isn't that spicy, you can add a pinch of dried chili flakes to the spaghetti sauce.  Then you had all of that fresh, sweet basil to give the dish a little something extra.  If you don't love basil as much as I do (and I think it's absolutely heavenly), then you can cut back on the amount of basil in the sub and be just fine.

Recipe after the jump!

Hanger Steak Sandwiches with Romesco Sauce, Arugula and Onions

When Alex and I made our Hanger Steak with Roast Vegetables and Romesco the other night we made two steaks, which left us with a nice rare hanger steak hanging out in the fridge, plus a tupperware full of leftover romesco sauce.  I had this vision in my head of a steak sandwich on ciabatta with the leftover steak, arugula, roast asparagus, and onions.  But then the grocery store didn't have any ciabatta, or really any bread that we wanted at all.  So we had to settle for an Italian loaf (the baguettes were totally skinny).  And we ran out of asparagus so there went the roast asparagus.  But this sandwich was really yummy regardless.  My only complaint was the bread - it was a little dry and tasteless, but sometimes you don't have time to hit a nice bakery for bread and have to deal with whatever is left at the grocery store.  It happens.  But if you make our Hanger Steak, I highly recommend doubling the amount of steak so you have some leftover and can make some steak sammies.  They're yummy.  I'm not going to post a recipe, since this sandwich is really just bread, a handful of arugula, some sliced steak, thinly sliced onions, and a generous smear of romesco sauce.  If you have roast asparagus or a nice tomato, feel free to add that too.  I also think a nice fried egg with a runny yolk would be a wonderful addition if you want to get messy.  And you can always customize to your own personal tastes.  That's the beauty of sandwiches.  Enjoy!

Goat Cheese Sandwich with Bacon and Honey-Vinaigrette

So this sandwich is an interpretation of another of our favorite meals in Aruba, this one served at a restaurant/bar called Bugaloe Beach Bar & Grill on De Palm Pier.  If you are staying anywhere from Holiday Inn down to the Westin in Aruba, you really need to check it out.  The view is amazing because the restaurant is on a pier jutting out into the water, and the food is fantastic.  The week that we were in Aruba, Alex probably had 5-6 of these goat cheese sandwiches.  The first time we had the sandwich was in August 2008 on our first trip to Aruba and it was entirely due to our love of that sandwich that we went back to Bugaloe.  They really are that good.  I also really enjoy their grouper sandwich, but I have to find some really good grouper before I attempt that one.

My version of the goat cheese sandwich is a little different from the one they served at Bugaloe, but I think it's just as good.  First, I used baguette, instead of the softer bread they used in Aruba.  Second, I toasted the bread to warm it up and make it crustier, rather than warming the goat cheese while leaving the bread un-toasted.  Third, my honey-vinaigrette is sweeter and thicker than the version they served with their sandwich.  Last, and this was somewhat out of my control, our bacon was thicker and therefore packed more of a salty, porky punch than Bugaloe's.  And our goat cheese was creamier, whereas theirs was tangier (again, not much I could do about that).  With all of that said, this is a seriously delicious sandwich and so long as tomatoes are in season, I highly recommend whipping up a sandwich or two.  In each bite you get salty bacon, creamy/tangy goat cheese, sweet honey-vinaigrette, lettuce and tomato.  It's kind of like a BLT, only light years better.

Kelly, this one is for you!

Recipe after the jump!

Tuna Tartines with White Beans and Pesto

So this tartine was a play off one I had at Le Pain Quotidien the other day.  It was the dish that kicked off this whole week of recipes built around white beans.  For those of you who live in NYC and like Le Pain (and like tuna), I totally recommend the tartine.  It's delicious.  But if you don't live in NYC, you can now make my version of the tartine at home!  It's not going to win any beauty contests, but it's delicious.  My version isn't an exact copy of the Le Pain tartine because, as always, I tweaked it a bit.  Instead of a regular hummus spread lightly on the bread under the tuna, I made a white bean "hummus" with some of my leftover cooked white beans.  And then I scattered a few white beans on top for even more bean action.  My second tartine was more liberally topped with additional white beans, but unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it.  I also made homemade pesto, which I mixed in with both the white bean hummus and the tuna fish itself.  The Le Pain tartine was drizzled with a very loose and runny type of pesto, but I made a more traditional pesto and served it mixed in with the ingredients, as well as smeared on top.  You could also use store bought pesto, but since I had fresh basil I decided to go ahead and make it myself in my adorable little Cuisinart Mini-Prep Plus.  Lastly, I used thick slices of the leftover fresh sourdough as the base of the tartine, rather than the heartier, more thinly sliced whole wheat bread they used at Le Pain.  All in all, I loved my version.  I might even like it more than the Le Pain version, although I would have to try them both again to decide...  Life is tough.

Recipe after the jump!

Chicken Banh Mi

If you have never had a banh mi, you don't know what you are missing.  Banh mi might possibly be the best sandwiches in the world (although I have recently tried versions of the Cambodian equivalent at both Num Pang and Kampuchea Restaurant here in NYC and they were delicious as well).  They originated in Vietnam and I think they represent a wonderful fusion of French influence and Southeast Asian flavors.  The traditional banh mi I grew up eating was a large French bread like roll with a smear of pork pate, various cold cuts or slices of roasted pork, cilantro, jalapeno, and then pickled daikon and carrots.  When I was younger my mother would drive down to Falls Church, Virginia where they have a large Vietnamese-American population and pick up banh mi by the half dozen for our family.  In recent years the banh mi has exploded on the foodie scene and has been served everywhere from Momofuku Ssam to the Blind Tiger Ale House to more traditional Vietnamese sandwich shops.

Since Alex and I both love banh mi, we couldn't pass up the chance to make banh mi during our all Asian-inspired Chinese New Year week.  We decided to make the Garlicky Oven-Roasted Chicken from Andrea Nguyen's Into the Vietnamese Kitchen:  Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavor and serve it in a variation on her banh mi recipe.  Can you tell how much I love this cookbook by the sheer number of times it has showed up on my blog already?

The Garlicky Oven-Roasted Chicken was delicious.  I would make it again anytime.  It was moist and flavorful, even though I substituted bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts for the more naturally flavorful thighs used in Nguyen's recipe.  And when you serve the roast chicken in the banh mi it makes such a wonderful sandwich.  If you build your sandwich together, you get the salty, savory, garlicky flavor from the chicken; the freshness of the cilantro; the spice from the jalapeno; and the coolness of the pickle in every bite.

Recipes after the jump!