Grilled cheese with apples

Simple but hearty and flavorful. That was tonight's dinner.

Ingredients:
- butter
- wheat bread (two slices per person)
- one large apple, sliced
- two slices Morningstar breakfast strips (vegetarian bacon)
- extra sharp cheddar
- mozzarella
- Market pantry sweet potato fries

Put the fries in the oven.

Heat the Le Creuset skillet with a generous tablespoon of butter. Add the apples and cook until soft. Move to plate.

Heat vegetarian bacon.

Butter one side of bread, place in pan, layer with cheddar, then apples, then bacon, then mozzarella. Top with another slice of bread and make however you normally like your grilled cheese.

I burned mine, but they were so good my seven-year-old didn't care.

Honey-glazed double grilled cheese

Nothing soothes my soul like a grilled cheese sandwich. I bought Archer Farm multigrain sandwich bread at Target last night with this purpose in mind.

Ingredients:
- 4 slices Archer Farm Multigrain sandwich bread
- 1 stick butter, room temperature
- about four ounces extra sharp cheddar
- about 3/4 cup six blend Italian shredded cheese (Market Pantry)
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon canola oil
- 2 tablespoons honey

Put your frying pan or skillet on extra low heat. Drop in the oil and grease pan with fingers or towel. Add one tablespoon butter. Add half the pepper evenly across the pan.

Butter one side of two slices of bread and place in skillet. Coat each slice with an even layer of about 1/4 of the shredded cheese. Cover the cheese with very thin slices of cheddar, covering all the bread. Add evenly the remaining shredded cheese.

Top with buttered slices of remaining bread. You, hopefully, will use less than half the butter. Sprinkle with remaining pepper.

Increase heat to medium and press sandwiches together with a turner. Flip once cheese has melted. Once almost desired brown color, drizzle honey onto the bread. Flip. Add honey to other side. Let first side cook for about a minute-- the honey will burn quickly.

Brown the other side and serve.

Croque Monsieur

I've been dying for Croque Monsieur for days... but it's not an easy thing to solve a craving like this... For one, buying the proper cheese can be very expensive. In this case, $6-plus at the Giant. For a tiny hunk of Gruyère.

So, you economize where you can.

I based my croque monsieur on Ina Garten's recipe in Barefoot in Paris, but where she uses two cheeses, I used four. Sounds fancy, but really, it was an attempt to keep the gruyère from making my daughter turn up her nose, and an attempt to cheapen the overall cost of the sandwich.

Step one:

I sliced 12 slices of homemade cheesy bread that I had thawed from the freezer. I arranged them on a very large cookie sheet. In an oven preheated to 400, I toasted each side of the bread for five minutes.

Ingredients for the sauce: 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon flour, 1/2 cup light cream, 1/2 cup soy milk, 1/2 teaspoon freshly-ground coarse sea salt (from Aldi), 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground four-color pepper, pinch nutmeg, 1/8 cup grated asiago (also from Aldi), 1/8 cup grated parmesan (Aldi), 1/8 cup grated gruyère, and 1/8 cup grated smoked gouda.

Melt butter over low heat, stir in flour and stir with wooden spoon for two minutes. Heat milk and add, slowly, whisking constantly until sauce thickens. Remove pan from heat and add other ingredients. Set aside.

Step two:

Take toasted bread and if desired, spread dijon mustard on one side. I skipped this as my husband hates mustard.

Ingredients for the middle: ham slices (I used tavern ham, one long slice per sandwich. It used more than 1/4 a pound but not 1/2 pound), a slice of smoked gouda for each sandwich, and slightly more than 1/4 cup grated gruyère. Go crazy with the cheese if you wish, but I can't afford it.

Method: On one side of the bread, fold a slice of ham, then add the gouda. I then added a thin layer of sauce and put the second side of the bread on. Smother the top of the sandwich with sauce, I used close to two tablespoons for each of my little sandwiches. Then sprinkle the gruyère on top.

Bake five minutes in the oven. Then, turn on the broiler and broil three to five minutes until bubbly and golden brown.

Amazing Turkey Sandwiches and Cauliflower

I nabbed this recipe from Parenting magazine and made my own adjustments, as you could expect. I love grilled cheese sandwiches. My mother was a horrible cook, but she had worked in a diner for many years so she can make two things well: omelettes and grilled cheese.

I learned some of her secrets and can also make a mean grilled cheese, but my mother's remains a comfort food to this day. All she has to say is, "Ange, you want a grilled cheese?" and I'm at the table, whether I'm hungry or not.

 I also love hot turkey sandwiches with apples and had a craving for one several weeks ago that I never got the chance to indulge. As you may have noticed, we rarely use deli meats in this house. I try to choose foods that are as nutritional dense as possible and lunch meats, in my opinion, are too processed.

So I decided to buy some turkey breast and adapt Parenting's Honey Ham and Cheese...

The original Honey Ham and Cheese

2 TBS grated cheese

2 slices bread 

1 thin slice deli ham

2 tsp unsalted butter

1 TBS honey

1. Sprinkle grated cheese on one slice of bread and top with ham. Top with second slice of bread.

2. In small skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat. Add the sandwich and cook about three minutes, pressing down with a spatula. Flip and add remaining butter to skillet. Cook another two minutes.

3. Drizzle with half the honey and let cook another minute. Flip once more, coat with the rest of the honey. Cut into quarters.

Now my version: 

Angel's Amazing Turkey Sandwiches 

For one sandwich: 

2 slices Flax and Fiber bread 

margarine 

about 1/4 cup grated extra sharp Wisconsin cheddar 

2 hearty slices turkey breast 

1 teaspoon olive oil

Several thin slices apple 

1 TBS honey

1. Slice each piece of bread in half. And apply thin layer of margarine to one side of each portion.

2. In skillet, warm very thin layer of oil. Place two of the halves in the pan. (Butter side down.) But not the 'lids.'

3. Sprinkle on some cheese, then apple, more cheese, then one slice of turkey folded, the remainder of the cheese and put lid on.

4. Cook, pressing with spatula. Don't let it get too brown. When almost done, add a slight amount of honey on top of each and flip. As that side cooks, add honey to other side (not too much) and flip again. The honey will burn very quickly so be careful.

Now, to prepare the cauliflower,  I removed the sandwiches and kept them in the oven so they wouldn't get cold. I microwaved a small bag of cauliflower and drained. I wiped the skillet clean, but didn't wash it. I added some margarine and olive oil and put the heat on medium high. I tossed in the cauliflower, salted it slightly, added a few drops of honey, and cooked until it got a tad yellowy with some brown spots. Then I sprinkled with the remaining dregs of cheese. Probably two tablespoons for the whole bag.