Grilled Cheese

I don't remember what sparked the idea, but I decided I should make some fun grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner last night. Then I found out that April is National Grilled Cheese Month (who knew?) so I definitely had to do it. I grew up on grilled cheese sandwiches. And Eggo waffles. But really, my mom has probably made thousands of grilled cheeses. It's pretty much all I would eat. Instead of the classic American cheese on Pepperidge Farm bread that I loved when I was a kid, I went for some more sophisticated versions last night.

Most importantly, start with good bread. I chose a French country loaf.



First sandwich: Camembert, thin slices of a Granny Smith apple, and whole grain mustard.




Second sandwich: fontina, prosciutto, and arugula.




Third sandwich: Cana de Cabra goat cheese (semi-soft), strawberry jam, chopped macadamia nuts




Yummm. I think my favorite was the fontina one, probably because it had prosciutto in it. But they were all good. Everyone does grilled cheese their own way, but I like to melt butter in the pan and then butter the top piece of bread (instead of buttering both pieces of bread). But with butter, cheese, bread, and prosciutto or apples or jam or whatever you decide to add, you can't go wrong.

Cheese Plate

There's nothing I love more than a cheese plate. In our household, when Saturday 4pm or 5pm rolls around, that means time for some wine and a cheese plate...perfection.

I thought I should share what my mom put together last Saturday before we went to dinner. I don't think the words "cheese plate" are enough to describe all the wonderful goodies in this spread.



Let's see, for cheese we have: d'Affinois, Petit Basque, and a Canadian cheddar. D'Affinois is my absolute favorite...it's similar to brie because it's a double-cream cow's milk cheese, but it's creamier and has a little bit smoother taste. Behind the cheese is a salami. I didn't even realize, but yesterday Peter said, "you know, I like how your mom does the salami...she peels the casing off." Interesting...I hadn't even noticed, but I guess that's the secret.

Cashews are in the little bowl on the right. Then in the bowl there's flax seed flatbread crackers, and some other little kind of salty cracker, not sure what they are. Lastly, a dish of cornichons. And of course the red and white wine. Ahh, happiness on a plate.

That's my last post about my weekend in Columbus. Time to get back to writing about cooking!

Risotto, Cheese, and Fish. Oh my!

It was 40 degrees here today...how glorious! 40 degrees really feels warm after 2 months straight of 25 degree weather. So I have 3 fun things to write about today, hence the title of the post.

Last night for dinner I made risotto with shrimp, and sauteed spinach on the side. I left the shrimp off the risotto so you could see everything clearly in the picture. Risotto is something that seems intimidating, but is very easy to make, and you can add pretty much anything you want to it. Last night I put yellow peppers, mushrooms, and onions in it.



For 2 people, with enough for some leftovers

Risotto:
1 cup arborio rice
2-3 cups chicken stock
salt & pepper
olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 yellow bell peppers, chopped
1/2 cup mushrooms, sliced

Saute the rice in enough olive oil to coat in a saute pan (a big skillet-like pan with higher sides) over medium-low heat. I couldn't exactly explain what the benefit of doing this is, but somehow it makes the rice cook better. After about 3-5 minutes add roughly 1/2 cup of chicken stock. The basic idea here is to keep at a very low simmer and to add chicken stock little by little for about 30 minutes, or until the rice is cooked through. Keep a close eye on it, stir it often, and keep adding the stock so it doesn't get dry and pasty. Add the vegetables after about 10 minutes, or you can saute them separately and add them closer to the end. Salt and pepper to taste.

Shrimp:
1 lb shrimp (I used 31/40 count, but you can use bigger if you like)
salt & pepper
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
juice from 1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper the shrimp. Heat oil and smashed garlic cloves in a large skillet over medium heat. Add shrimp to pan, and squeeze lemon juice over top. Flip the shrimp over after about 2-3 minutes and cook through on the other side. The shrimp will cook pretty quickly, so don't start them until the risotto is just about done.

Spinach:
1 bag baby spinach
olive oil
butter
about 1 Tbl sliced shallots

Heat olive oil, butter, and shallots in a medium skillet over medium heat. When hot, add the whole bag of spinach and keep bringing the leaves on the bottom of the pile to the top so they cook evenly. All the spinach should be cooked in just a few minutes.

Now for the cheese...



Cheese is hands down my favorite food. I love it all - hard, soft, creamy, stinky, blue, cow, sheep, or goat. A few years ago I got a promotion at CBS and my sister sent me a congratulatory cheese board from Dean & Deluca. There are several pictures of cheese in our honeymoon album. And as a wedding gift, some of my dearest friends got Peter and I cheese (and wine) of the month club. Is there anything better than to get a surprise package of cheese and wine delivered to your door? We got a cheese delivery today, pictured above: Saint Andre, Port Salut, and an English cheddar. I'm eating it right now.


And lastly, the fish.

Peter went, without me I might add, to Calumet Fisheries today for lunch. It's a seafood shack on the south side, very unassuming looking, but it just won a James Beard award. Anthony Bourdain has visited this place in his show on the Travel Channel (watch this show, it's amazing. And read his book Kitchen Confidential. You can thank me later.). So I'm turning the rest of this post over to Peter:



Hey blogosphere. Thanks for keeping my unemployed wife occupied. Anyway, the Calumet Fisheries has been on my to-do list for a while, so given the fact it was in the 40s today and work was quiet...my work colleagues and I decided to venture to the far South Side of Chicago. This place is so far South that it's on the border of Indiana -- literally right below the Chicago Skyway. Calumet has been on my mind for a few weeks now. They recently won a James Beard America's Classic Award. The manager, Carlos Rosas, had to google James Beard when he found out. True story.

Anyway, after the 25 minute ride from the Loop...we arrived at Calumet and soon realized we would be eating in our laps in the car. The place is the size of a tollbooth with no dining areas. They serve the working class of Chicago and most of the patrons are locals who get the smoked fish, shrimp, and fine fried seafood to go. My dining partners and I jumped head first into the fried goodness of fried shrimp, clams, fish chips, and scallops. The best thing I tasted was probably the clams. They don't serve tartar sauce or cocktail sauce, but instead a nice sweet sauce that was something between a bbq sauce and horsey sauce from Arby's. It was wonderful. I got a half order of fried clams and fried shrimp, a side of cole slaw (amazing) and no drink. The drink would have been good in retrospect.

What is truly amazing about Calumet and what they are really known for is their smoked fish. It looked amazing with hooks still in the fish and a beautiful smoky texture. That is the real star of the show here (they smoke the fish on the premises...AWESOME). I am purposely saving the smoked salmon for my next trip. The manager, Carlos, showed us the smoke house and the buckets of freshly smoked shrimp they just pulled out. It was an amazing field trip that is right up there with the giant whale at the Museum of Natural History. I am already salivating for my next visit.

Little piece of knowledge...the Calumet fish house is perched on the 95th Street bridge...the very same bridge that Jake and Elwood jump over in the stolen police car. The famous photo of Aykroyd and Belushi standing in front of the police car with industrial mess in the backdrop is right behind Calumet. It was a very Chicago moment for me. Ok, that's my virgin blog post. Enjoy!!!


Note the frog legs on the menu


Smoke house


Smoked salmon with the hooks still in


Fried clams with the magical sauce

The French Market

I ventured out to a new market today, not super convenient to my apartment, but not that far away - the Chicago French Market, within the MetraMarket in the West Loop. It's an indoor farmers market of sorts, or if you're from Columbus it's like a mini North Market. I am having my friend Jacquilyn over for dinner tonight so I went to pick up some ingredients, and just to explore. There are a few produce booths, several bakeries/patisseries, meat and seafood, cheese, sandwiches, flowers, gelato, coffee...lots of good stuff.

Produce from CityFresh Market


Purple, green, and orange cauliflower! I bought a purple one, can't wait to try it.


Cheese from Pastoral


Amazing bread from Necessity Baking


Treats from Delightful Pastries

Say Cheese!

We got a good amount of snow yesterday here in Chicago, not as much as the 12 inches they were forecasting, but still a lot. So what better way to spend a snowed-in day than to make cheese? No, really.

Last week when my mom was here we had lunch at Terzo Piano, the restaurant in the Art Institute. The restaurant was beautiful, very white and modern looking, and the food was amazing. I had a salad consisting of arugula, prosciutto, persimmons, and house made lemon ricotta. The ricotta was my favorite part, it was so soft and had some freshly ground black pepper on it. I wish I had taken a picture...

I figured ricotta must not be that hard to make, so I did a little research...and it's not! Here's the recipe I used, which was a combination of a few different ones I found online.

4 cups whole milk
1 cup half and half
generous pinch of salt
a little under 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice
**you'll also need cheesecloth

Heat the milk, half and half, and salt in a sauce pan on high heat. While you wait for it to boil, line a colander with a double layer of damp cheesecloth. Put the colander in a large bowl. Bring the milk mixture to a boil, and remove from heat. Add the lemon juice while slowly stirring, and after a minute or 2 you will see it start to separate into curds and a clear liquid (whey). Pour the contents of the saucepan into the colander and let drain for about 10 minutes. You're done! (Discard the whey, unless you want to save it for something else. If you don't, you don't even really need to put the colander in a bowl, just over the sink drain would be fine.)

You can refrigerate the cheese for a couple days, I would imagine. I just made it yesterday and used in on a pizza and it was great. It was drier and more firm that I envisioned it, but it was really good. I'm not sure what the outcome would be if I let it curdle for less time so the curds hold more liquid, or if I use less lemon juice, or slightly different ingredients, but I'll try a different way next time just to see. You can use heavy cream or buttermilk instead of half and half, and you can also use distilled white vinegar instead of lemon juice. And you can of course double this recipe. The measurements I used resulted in about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of ricotta.

Curds and whey (gross looking!)


The finished product!