Wednesday, April 11, 2012

It's Grilled Cheese Month!

It's national grilled cheese month!  Wheee!!!!!

I almost forgot until my good pal, Spaulding the Feline Foodie and his mistress, the Marcella the Cheesemonger reminded me. How silly of moi!


Marcella, the wizard, shares the perfect way to make a grilled cheese. I cannot do this better than she! Here's a link.  After visiting her link, come back and see which cheese combo I make...or go to her link after and print out the instructions. So much fun!


 If I never told you, here's the way I met Marcella and Spaulding. In THE LONG QUICHE GOODBYE, the author (a.k.a. me, myself, and I) made a tiny error. Spaulding the Feline Foodie contacted me to point out the itsy bitsy error...which had to do with Humboldt Fog (a delicious Cypress Grove goat cheese).  So Rags...Charlotte's rescued Ragdoll cat in A Cheese Shop Mystery...wrote back to Spaulding. They had a delightful conversation. Spaulding's mistress forgave me the faux pas and we have become fast friends. Marcella has given me a wealth of great information about cheese. I couldn't be nearly as knowledgeable without her help. She now travels the world in the name of cheese! Lucky her.  [Poor Spaulding misses her...but he has "the man" - Marcella's sweet other half- to keep him loved.]

Devil's Gulch
I digress...back to grilled cheese. One of my all-time favorite foods. Talk about comfort food? I've never had a grilled cheese I didn't like...until I tried a combo this week that didn't work. The cheese was fabulous on its own--creamy and coated in tiny pepper flakes, but in the experiment I tried--adding olives--blech! That doesn't mean a grilled cheese with Devil's Gulch on its own wouldn't be great. It was my experiment that didn't work.


First layer of grilled cheese
On the other hand, try this sandwich that melted in my mouth. I adore the flavors of rosemary, olives, and cheese! And with simple yet delicious cheese, yummy! [Remember, the more cheese, the more it's a grilled "cheese" and not grilled "bread."]

THREE CHEESE GRILLED CHEESE


Ingredients:
(serves 2)

2 ounces Fromage d’Affiinois cheese
2 ounces mascarpone cheese
2 ounces Gouda cheese, shredded
1 teaspoon crushed rosemary
8 kalamata olives, sliced in half
4 slices bread  (gluten-free if necessary)
2 tablespoons butter


  Directions:

second layer
Butter the bread on one side.  Heat a griddle on medium to LOW.  Lay two pieces of bread on the griddle, butter-side down.  Layer with Fromage d’Affinois (RIND CUT OFF) and mascarpone cheese. Then add rosemary and olives. Top with shredded Gouda. Place other slide of bread on top of each sandwich “half.”

See it ooze out
Cook the sandwich about 2 minutes. Gently flip so no cheese or olives fall out. Cook another 2 minutes. Flip again. Cook 2-4 more minutes, until the cheese is oozing out the sides. [If necessary, cover with foil or another pan to make the heat really stay inside the sandwiches.]  Remember, we don’t want a burned grilled cheese, so make sure the heat stays low.

Slice in half andsserve warm.


Remember to "like" Spaulding on Facebook. 


And remember to check out our recipe box on the right for more grilled cheese sandwiches! We have a lot of them!

* * * * * 

You can learn more about me, Avery, by clicking this link.
Chat with me on Facebook and Twitter.

And if you haven't done so, sign up for my mailing list
 so you can learn about upcoming events, releases, and contests!

ALSO...DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MY ALTER EGO
DARYL WOOD GERBER?

"Like" Daryl's page on Facebook and "follow" Daryl on Twitter.
She doesn't say all the same things I do.
And pretty soon she'll have some fun news to share!

You'll hear that first in Avery's newsletter!

Say cheese!

***********




9 comments:

  1. I love me some grilled cheese sandwiches! In fact, I recently found a bunch of grilled cheese combinations on Pinterest...which I, of course, repinned. I must confess though, my favorite way to cook them is in my George Foreman!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Katreader, you have pin pictures? I haven't gotten into that, though a bunch of MLK'ers have. That would probably make me hungry. I keep hearing about the George Foreman. Guess I should invest, huh? Makes it easier and faster.

    ~Avery

    ReplyDelete
  3. How could anything be bad with Fromage d’Affinois? My favorite soft cheese! Though I do prefer the version with black pepper. Yum! Soooo good.

    ~ Krista

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For some reason, I find it hard to find the 'au poivre' version in my area. I'll keep looking. One could always "add" pepper to this recipe, of course.

      ~Avery

      Delete
  4. ooh, I love grilled cheese and I think I'll have that for lunch today.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dru, enjoy! It's raining hear, supposed to have an inch today, so grilled cheese might make it again on my menu, too! With soup.

      ~Avery

      Delete
  5. Oh, my!! I'll just drooling...and lunch is a long time away. No grilled cheese for me at the office, but I will be having cheese for lunch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. H - isn't it nice how easy cheese is for traveling? I take it with me everywhere. A bit of protein that tides over the hungry tummy!

      ~Avery

      Delete
  6. Yes, I am addicted to Pinterest! I have so many recipes, I have to start categorizing them into subgenres. At first I just had Recipes. Then Recipes, Sweets, and Drink Up. Soon I divided Sweets into Sweets and Frozen Sweets. Now I have all of that plus Cakes & Cupcakes, Cookies, Slow Cooker/Crockpot, One Skillet Recipes, and Casseroles! Plus all my non food boards. At the moment my grilled cheese recipes are under recipes...but I may make a sandwich board! lol. Feel free to out my boards: http://pinterest.com/katreader/ Now if I'll ever actually make any of these recipes...On a sad note, my George Foreman stopped heating!!! Aughhh. Not sure what's wrong. Before I upgraded my small one lasted over a decade (and still works) I may have to suck it up and buy a new one.

    ReplyDelete