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.

Parmesan Tuna Sandwiches

So, I did make tuna sandwiches for lunch on the store bought wheat bread from Wegmans. (I bought it because I had a coupon.) We only have one can of tuna, so that means a half-sandwich for each of us (Mommy, Daddy and Baby).

My tuna today was:

• one can solid white tuna packed in water
• 2 tablespoons safflower mayonnaise*
• 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
• 3 slices Wegmans whole wheat sandwich bread sliced in half.

*What shocked me is that my mayonnaise is really mayonnaise. For years, I've been using vegan/soy mayonnaise for health reasons and because I hate mayonnaise in the traditional sense. But when I was scraping the last of the mayo out of the jar, I noticed that the ingredients listed eggs. I had purchased safflower mayonnaise instead of soy!

What made that even more compelling was the high vitamin E content in the mayonnaise. 1 tablespoon of that safflower mayonnaise has 2o% of the RDA of Vitamin E. Interesting.

To accompany these meager sandwiches, I also served tortilla chips and mango salsa (vitamins A & C thanks to the salsa) and applesauce. We also had a snack a few minutes ago of dried Italian meat stick so I'm sure that will also help compensate for the half-sandwich.

Frantic!

When did it get to be after 11? I got off the phone with my daughter's potential girl scout leader and looked at the clock and let's just say lunch should have been on the table... and it's not.

So I whipped up a fried egg on storebought seven grain bread with ketchup, served with pretzels and fresh strawberries and white grape juice diluted with seltzer.

Frozen baked goods and picnic

For breakfast, we pulled some sticky buns out of the freezer. The link below for sticky buns should take you to the recipe.

For lunch I packed a picnic and we took it to Monocacy Park where we inadvertently ended up watching fishermen trying to catch the final smart fish from the stocked creek.

The lunch consisted of a big bottle of ice water, two turkey sandwiches with butter lettuce and soy mayo on store-bought wheat bread from my father-in-law (cut into fingers so everyone didn't notice I only had enough meat for each person to have 2/3 of a traditional sandwich), baby carrots, pretzels, and fresh pears.

Weekend laziness

Yesterday was my last official day at the YWCA and, as such, I ended up in the office for about 10 hours. It's scary when you have one day to finish everything unresolved. Unlike when you quit a job, my "seasonal" position will resume in August and I will have to finish what I started then. So, if I make a mess, I'll be the one cleaning it.

So I called my husband at 5 p.m. to tell him I hadn't left the office yet and he asked if he should start dinner and I said sure. He made fried egg sandwiches on bagels.

Then after our daughter went to bed, we each had a glass of Veuve Clicquot (from a small $25 bottle I bought for my birthday) to celebrate my summer vacation. We spiked it with Chambord (kir royale, anyone?) because oddly, these last two bottles of champagne had tasted more like sweet beer. Blasphemy, I know.

This morning, my husband made us each "magic toast." (See the last grocery entry involving the Giant...) And for lunch we'll have the leftover bag of Dole salad, with something to make it an entrée. (I so wish we had sunflower seeds.) For dinner, we have friends coming over that offered to buy pizza while we watch the first season of LOST...

Tuna Sandwiches and store bought bagged salad

Shannon, my daughter and I went shoe shopping this morning so we stopped at Giant for a few odds and ends... ($40) We decided to throw together tuna sandwiches and a store-bought bagged salad (Dole). We got Nature's Promise "sweet crunch" bread for convenience, Dole's Perfect Harvest salad (Apple Cider Dijon Vinaigrette, dried cranberries, diced almonds, shredded carrots and several lettuces: radicchio, romaine and endive).