By Jason Karnosky •
October 20, 2009
For my edition of the learning to cook Blog, I am going to start with something super simple: Grilled cheese sandwiches, one the key staple foods of a child growing up in the Midwest.
But these culinary treats should not just be for moms and kids. Playing around with the recipe some can turn this classic into a work of art, and I would like to show you how.
(Photo taken by Dan Tentler)
Now this is not the first time the guilty pleasures of grilled cheese have been toted on this site. Kelly Best-Oliver spells out her enjoyment of grilled cheese and tomatoe shallot soup. Robin Shreeves also encourages grilled cheese and tomato soup in her Thrifty Thursday Blog from September 2008.
However, both these Blogs do not improve the process of making grilled cheese to improve taste. I like to think that Grilled Cheese sandwiches can be a real meal, an almost delicacy if you will. That is where I, Jason Karnosky–the working food journalist come in.
By Divine Caroline •
March 14, 2009
Editor’s Note: This is a contribution from one our content partners, Divine Caroline.
By Allison Fishman of MainStreet for DivineCaroline.com
One of my favorite dinners as a kid was “leftover night,” when my parents would resurrect the greatest hits from the previous week.
Only now do I realize they were not only serving me delicious encores, they were also saving money on grocery bills.
By high school I was a leftover epicure. I knew which leftover dishes were better cold (lo mein and pizza), which improved when microwaved (stews and chili’s), and how to morph certain leftovers into a totally different dish, even better than the first.
Here are six of my favorite recyclable meals:
When we had company unexpectedly this week, I had to think quickly of a dish to serve. Earlier that day, I made some of the raw beet salad that I wrote about last month. I had about two cups of leftover shredded beets + carrots. So I decided to pickle them in a combination of rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and honey for the rest of the day.
As a quick snack for my pop-over friends, I made a modified Bahn Mi sandwich (you know, those incredibly complex Vietnamese sandwiches of liver pate, chicken and pork pieces, and pickled veggies between crusty slices of baguette).
To take the place of the liver pate, I used homemade hummus. The beat salad stood in for the usual daikon-and-carrot mixture. Instead of meat, I used some extra-firm, marinated tofu (a.k.a. the best tofu ever). The crusty baguette, veggies and tofu are all locally grown/made and picked up at the farmer’s market. Recipe after the jump:
