Survival Sunday 8

After the glorious pierogi of last week, we're going back to basics. This week I'd like to talk to you about sandwiches. They're fast, they're easy, and pretty much anyone can make one. You take something you want to eat and you put it between two slices of bread. Or you just put it on one and fold it in half like my mother does with butter sometimes. I prefer to do that with peanut butter, myself, but we all have our own tastes.

This week's quick & easy food is a little harder to do for vegans & gluten free people than for people who can/choose omnivorous lifestyles.

We're going for grilled cheese, my friends.

Now, obviously, there are cheese & butter substitutes and even gluten-free bread, but they're all more expensive than and rarer than plain old cheese, butter, and bread. I feel for you, friends. I feel for you. It's not exactly fair.

I don't have any experience cooking with butter substitutes beyond margarine, and my experiences with vegan cheeses have been... iffy at best, to be honest. I live in an area that does not seem to understand lactose intolerance or veganism, though people have really latched onto the gluten free thing. They're just... most of them aren't suffering from gluten intolerance. I think of the dozen people I know who buy gluten-free everything, only two have a legitimate reason. One has Hashimoto's, the other may have Celiac. The rest of them just watch Doctor Oz.

Don't get me started on that bullshit. We'll be here all day and I'll absolutely hurt feelings.

Anyway, that divergence aside, let's talk about making grilled cheese.

Remember how I made the garlic toast in a previous blog in the toaster oven? You can absolutely do that and do away with the butter or butter substitute entirely. It's the easiest way. You just have to watch for it and it ends up a bit dry. You toast the sandwich halves separately (as in, one on the left, one on the right, or do it one at a time, depending on toaster oven size) with the cheese side UP. Do not melt the cheese facing DOWN or you will cause a fire. Trust me.

I may or may not speak from personal experience. It was a long time ago. My memory sucks.

Today, however, we'll be preparing the grilled cheese the way my family has for generations - in a frying pan, on the stovetop, with mustard.

You don't have to have mustard, guys, I just love it.

Ingredients (such as they are):

• Butter
• Bread
• Cheese (any kind will do, believe me. Pick your favorite[s])
• Mustard (optional)
• Cooking Spray (especially if you're paranoid about sticking like I am)

We only had one slice of cheddar, so I used American as well.

I strongly recommend assembling your ingredients ahead of time when cooking. I never used to do it before I started this part of the blog, but now that everything's right there, it's about a million times easier to cook fast. I'm not having to run across the kitchen or get Z to reach things on the top shelf for me while I'm trying to fry eggs or something. Yeah, we'll fry eggs on here at some point, I think. Good stuff.

INSTRUCTIONS

1) Spray down that pan. You don't really have to do this if you've got butter & a nonstick pan, but I like to, just in case I miss a spot with the butter or it all soaks into the bread. That's a real problem when it's 88℉ with 88% humidity. The bread soaks it up and just... burns instead of toasts. Blech.

I literally could not get the phone to focus...

2) Butter one side of one piece of bread. If your butter is too hard, just put the cheese back in the fridge and let the butter soften. I should note that if it's really hot and muggy, like it is here, now, leaving your butter out will stain your cupboards unless you leave it on a plate or a very thick paper towel or napkin. Then your cupboard will smell like rancid butter forever. Not pleasant.

It's hard to tell right now, but I promise you, it's slathered in buttery goodness.

3) Set the bread, butter side down, in the pan. Do not turn on the pan. Now get that mustard on the naked side of the bread and spread it out.

My mustard kind of exploded on the bread on slice two, so I was busy trying to clean that up instead of taking photos. Sorry.

4) Add your cheese on top of that mustard.

It really does help to overlap the cheese. The darker one is cheddar, the lighter one American.

I'm going to take a moment here to discuss the differences among cheeses. American melts in that delightfully plasticky way that coats everything thoroughly, and it does it quickly. Cheddar takes much longer to get to the semiliquid stage, so the American will mostly act as a glue here while the Cheddar kind of mellows along. Mozzarella has its own way of melting, also plasticky, with a great pull. That's why pizza is so good. Swiss melts slowly and gets more pungent but less bitter as it does so. Softer cheeses melt faster, harder ones slower.

I really like cheese guys. I really, really like cheese.

Right.

Recipe.

What number are we on again?

5) Reverse the process with your other slice of bread: Mustard first, set on the cheesy slice you've already got in the pan, butter the top.

We're about to make the magic, folks.

6) Turn your heat on LOW. You don't wanna burn these babies, and they'll burn fast. I usually cook things higher than I tell you to. That's because I don't mind burned toast. I like it, even, because I'm probably a psychopath. Who knows.

Huh. I guess I did keep it fairly low. Bear in mind it's been a couple weeks.

7) Keep an eye on your grilled cheese. I'll admit, this is more of a Toasted Cheese than a Grilled one, but I don't like to mess around with my mom's griddle and I don't have one of my own. Her griddle goes over two burners and is solid cast iron. Intimidation city. Yikes. But seriously, keep an eye on them. I'll show you the stages of delicious here:

That's nice and lightly toasted on that side, but some of the butter is still liquid. It'll need another couple seconds.

Flipped it a second time. That's a good amount of toastiness!

I like to squish mine. Not everyone does. You don't have to.

Ah, perfect. Just this side of too crispy!

8) When the color is right where you think it looks good, turn off your pan and plate your sandwich. This may take several tries. I don't recommend trying to slide it out of the pan with gravity. Bread bounces. The floor is hungry. Again: personal experience. Just try to nudge it or lift it out gently with a spatula or something.

The steam really messes with the camera, man.

Now you can eat your delicious sandwich! I strongly recommend having a grilled cheese with whatever you've got that's fruity in the fridge. For optimal sick-day recreation, enjoy with orange juice in front of the Price is Right.

That's how you make a stove top grilled cheese!

And now for the Spice of the Week:

Behold the nutmeg

Nutmeg is kind of a dangerous spice. Too much of it can, in fact, make you very sick or even kill you. Mostly, it's used in things like Pumpkin Pie, where you use a very tiny amount of it. It pairs very well with Cinnamon and Cloves (we'll talk about cloves another time, guys, I'll only say this: don't smoke clove cigarettes, that is no bueno).

There's not much more I can say about Nutmeg beyond the caution to only use what a recipe calls for, because I am a freak who doesn't like pumpkin pie.

I think that'll be all this week, class.

I leave you with a picture of the cat, who was annoyed that I was pestering her while she napped.

Go Enjoy Make Something!

FC