Tag Archives: cheese

The Summer Sandwich // Simple Dining, Al Fresco

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This post is one part ode to one of my favor summer meals and one part cautionary tale.  I figure that this blog is about my life, including some of the great meals in it, so I will start with a brief account the day when I spent inadvertently spent $17.72 on 0.57 lbs of cheese.  [Oopsie.]  

It was a typical Saturday morning.  We started our day at the Saint Paul Farmer’s Market.  I determined my mission that day was to purchase the components of a summer sandwich for our lunch.  At the time, our garden still had a few weeks to go before it would have much to offer us.  I bought vegetables, bread, and then we left the market and looped our way up Grand Avenue to the Saint Paul Cheese Shop. That place is pretty neat. Sampling is encouraged, so we tasted several paper-thin wisps of cheese the cheesemonger shaved neatly off of several wheels of cheese and dropped into our extended hands from the forked tip of the blade of his cheese knife.  I let my guard down.  It is atypical for me to make a mindless splurge without glancing at the price per half pound.  I was in a cheese-induced stupor when I asked for a small wedge of Marcel Petite Comte raw cow’s milk cheese from France, and a wedge of Terchelling Sheep’s milk cheese from Holland.  I’m sure there are people who routinely spend far more than this on cheese in any given week.  I’m not knocking it and I might do it again at some point. The difference will be that I do it intentionally.  As a consolation, at least the cheese was very, very good.

Whew. Now that I’ve made that confession to my friends and readers, let’s make a sandwich!   A Summer Sandwich is quite simply a sandwich with any combination of meat or vegetarian meat substitute, seasonal vegetables, cheese and sandwich spreads piled on top of nice bread.  

I sliced a grainy loaf of bread and served the bread and cheese with our own cheese knives on wooden cutting boards.  We eat most of our meals al fresco on our patio.  It has been 90+ degrees farenheit there lately, but it is still very pleasant in the shade of a Maple Tree canopy.

I filled a platter with sliced cucumber and tomato, garden lettuces, piles of deli turkey and tofurky, along with bowls of mayonnaise and grainy dijon mustard, and placed salt and pepper shakers on the table.  The secret to the perfect summer sandwich is bringing out whatever looks good and fresh, and let each person assemble the sandwich they desire.  

If Freud were here, he’d say, “a sandwich is never just a sandwich.”  It is the meal I ate on pebble beaches out of a cooler with my parents camping in Door County, Wisconsin in grade four.  It is the BLT’s that beckoned numerous cousins, Uncles and Aunts to my Grandma’s farm house every July when the tomatoes were all ripe at once.  It is the meal of lettuce, ham, turkey, tomato and cheese sandwiches on good sandwich bread that we shared with friends from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saint Paul and Minneapolis on a lakeshore in Northern Minnesota after a long, hot day on the lake last year over the 4th of July long weekend.  It is the halved baguettes piled with cheese, sliced tomato and a pile of pršut [for the meat eaters] that we ate on a secluded pebble beach a few months ago in Croatia.  

What is one to serve on the side?  Well, nothing—any decent summer sandwich is in itself, a square meal.  Or, if the mood strikes, some salty-crunchy potato chips, leftover potato salad out of the fridge, deviled eggs or summer fruit would all be the perfect compliment.  On this particular day we rounded out our plates with bright, rainbow radishes that were too pretty to slice or even to remove the stem.  Sure, they could have been thinly sliced and piled on the sandwich, but they were refreshing, spicy perfection and a visual treat perched on the side our plates.  

A Summer Sandwich is simple perfection.  No matter what fresh fixings are available, where you are, or what time it is, a sandwich satisfies hunger.  A sandwich feeds a crowd with varied tastes, comes together easily and is a perfect meal to eat outdoors on a hot July day. 

And the cheese?

We’re still working our way through it, and savoring every little morsel–we figure it cost us about 8 cents per crumb.

Tostadas – A Satisfying Meal in 5 Minutes

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Pop quiz, hotshot.  You are starving.  Your interest in cooking is nil, but you want something tasty, now.  You, or someone who is depending on you to cook for them, are well on their way to a hunger-induced meltdown.  What do you do? What do you do?  In my imagination, when you are in culinary school there is a day that the teacher singles out a student and poses this question in a maniacal tone reminiscent of the lunatic bus-bomber in the movie Speed.  Like Keanu Reeves in the third-best film in his acting career,* I have a cool head under pressure, and the perfect response that you aren’t expecting:  Tostadas!**

I think every home cook needs to have a few quick, tasty ideas up her sleeve for hunger that’s gone too far.  There are many correct answers, but the key is to have the idea and the ingredients at the ready when there is either a hostage situation and your response will save the city, or for when you and yours just need to eat now. 

There are a few fairly obvious guidelines to succeeding at the preparation of a good meal in 5 minutes.  The first key is simplicity.  Tostadas are extremely simple.

My favorite Tostadas in the world come from Red Pepper in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and they are nothing more than a tostada with melted cheese and hot sauce.  In fact, Tostadas began appearing at our house as an homage to Red Pepper Tostadas, and are frequently eaten on evenings when we’re tuned in to University of North Dakota Hockey on T.V.

We have Tostadas with just cheese and hot sauce as a snack or side dish, but when Tostadas are the meal, I rifle through the pantry and the fridge for a few extra ingredients to round them out.  This is the second key to 5 minute dinner prep:  it must be flexible.

I’ve made tostadas with sliced black olives, canned black beans that have been rinsed, jalapenos or with vegetarian refried beans, which is one of my favorites.  You could use chopped tomatoes, frozen corn, onions, or leftover taco-seasoned beef or chicken.  The assembly simply involves topping a Tostada shell with your Mexican-inspired ingredient of choice, and melting the cheese.  Often, I just zap the tostada in the microwave until the cheese melts.  Occasionally I have used the grill, or placed the tostadas in the oven at 350 degrees.  It only takes a few minutes for the cheese to melt, and the beans to be warmed through. 

An added bonus of using the grill or the oven is it lets the cheese get a bit brown, and the Tostada shell toasty.  If you are truly can’t wait for the oven to heat, by all means, microwave the Tostada.  It will be great.

The third key to 5 minute dinner prep is that it must be something you can make easily for one person, or for a crowd.  If you heat your Tostadas in the oven or on the grill, you can make anywhere from 1 to 10 at a time.  The microwave cooking method would get a little bit tedious if you were making more than 4 Tostadas at a time.  We’ve made cheese Tostadas as a side dish for the meal we prepare and deliver every other week to an Emergency Safe House for homeless youth in our neighborhood.  We wrapped the Tostadas individually on a paper plate, which is the same way they are served at the Red Pepper.

While the Tostadas are heating in the oven or in the microwave, there is just enough time to throw together a quick salad to make Tostadas into a proper meal.  Shredded or torn leaves of lettuce, slices of tomato or olive, jalapenos, onions, and slices of avocado with a squeeze of lime juice, a little sour cream, and of course hot sauce are all perfect for a salad, and are tasty when piled on top of the Tostada.

Now, all that is left is to dig in.  Give me 5 minutes and a few pantry staples and I can take you from a little too hungry to human again.

*In my opinion, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey are the best flicks starring Keanu Reeves in a leading role.  In order to make a fair comparison, I should probably have seen that movie that forever changed effects in movie fight scenes to include slow motion flight through the air with flailing legs…what was it called?  The Matrix?  But, I give myself enough credit to review the key performances in  the height of Keanu Reeves’ acting career because I saw him live as Hamlet in grade 8.  I have now said everything I will ever say about Keanu Reeves on this blog.  I am somewhat in disbelief that I managed to say even this much about him.

**I know you were expecting a slick, action-movie –like response to the question “What do you do? What do you DO?” line of questioning, but I can’t think of any way to make a parallel between Keanu’s response that he’d “shoot the hostage” and solving a garden variety household hunger emergency.  Ok, now I’m really done discussing Keanu Reeves, forvermore.

Cooking for the Kids

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At some point this year, we turned a corner.  Without any warning or fanfare, we found ourselves rested enough, organized enough, with enough time, and with our home and our finances in enough order to allow us to commit more than the most minimal effort to trying to do something good.  It comes naturally to some at a younger age, and I truly admire those people.  I have found that I am a one-thing-at a-time type who needs to have their own ducks in a row before signing on for an ongoing commitment.  Better late than never, I hope.   We found the first volunteer experience that suited our combined abilities in an email circulated around Bjorn’s office.  The option that jumped out at us was the opportunity to prepare a dinner for 8 in our own kitchen at home and deliver it to an emergency safe house for homeless youth, ages 16-21 in our neighbourhood operated by Lutheran Social Services.  The guidelines are minimal.  Arrive at 7.  Bring a main dish (no pork) and a few sides; no mysterious looking casseroles, please.  Including a gallon of 2% milk and a bottle of juice is suggested.  Dessert is appreciated but not required.  We signed up for a few dates to give it a try.  I had to ask right away about accommodating special diets:  vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, etc.  We were told they didn’t currently have anyone with those needs.  We still tried to come up with enough variety and flexibility in the menu so that a person who doesn’t eat meat, or a person who doesn’t tolerate gluten could still eat a decent plate of food.

1.  This is the array of groceries and supplies we used for the first meal we prepared.  We spent about $40 on groceries at Target.  At my request, Lunds Grocery Store donated 3 disposable aluminum containers with lids for delivering the food.  We didn’t shop for this meal at Lunds, but we do almost all of our grocery shopping there.

2.  We packed a salad of iceberg and romaine lettuce with sliced cucumbers and julienned carrots.  We bought a package of parmesan croutons and a bottle of Ranch Dressing for the salad.

3.  This fall, Bjorn’s parents stocked our freezer with a generous supply of ground beef, steaks and a few roasts from cows raised on the family farm by Bjorn’s Uncle Stan.  I cannot begin to emphasize how wonderful it is to have a supply of beef raised by a farmer we know and trust.  We absolutely love to cook with this beef.

4.  I taped the typed-out dinner menu on paper grocery bags we used to deliver the food.  Our first meal consisted of Beef Meatballs in Spaghetti Sauce to be served on Hoagie Buns with Provolone Cheese, Roasted Potatoes seasoned with Hidden Valley Ranch Southwest Seasoning and ketchup, A Salad of Iceberg and Romaine Lettuce, Carrots and Cukes, Juice, Milk and Chocolate Chip Cookies.

5.  I tried to think like a caterer when I packed up the meal.  Disposable containers aren’t ideal for food presentation visually, but I think when food is packed neatly, containers are spatter-free and the contents and serving suggestions thoughtfully labeled, it helps a lot.  If this is the best meal or the only meal some of these kids are eating today, I want it to be a great meal.

6.  Bjorn’s meatballs, ready to bake.

7.  Bjorn’s meatballs out of the oven.  They smelled good.

We prepared and delivered our second meal on November 29.  This time when we arrived, we were offered a tour of the house.  It was fun and rewarding to see the safe house and some of the people who will eat our meal.  The house is large and very clean.  We enter through the backyard and after being cleared as “friendly visitors” on the security camera, we enter into the kitchen.  After setting up the meal on the large counter, we were led through the dining room which has a large dining table and shelves stacked with board games.  The next room is a is a livingroom with a huge, flat screen TV.  Upstairs was warm.  There were brightly lit bedrooms  that were already full of people having a boisterous conversation. The safe house has the atmosphere you would hope:  positive, clean, safe and welcoming.  We were told that the house is filled to capacity every night.  The staff also told us that they appreciate having a meal delivered because they don’t have to cook or go out and buy anything.  It saves the program money too, obviously.  Judging by our ease in finding workable dates, they are not at capacity for volunteers.  They report having a meal provided 4-5 nights a week.  They expressed relief that we did not prepare a Thanksgiving meal.  Apparently, they had quite a few of those in the past month and were getting a little tired of Turkey and Stuffing.

We hope our second meal was tasty and satisfying.  Here goes nothing:

1.  We shopped for most of the ingredients for meal number 2 at Trader Joe’s.  Again, we spent around $40.  This wasn’t planned, apparently, it is the price-point of the hearty meals we conceive of for 8.  The cost would be higher if we had to purchase meat.

2.  These are the ingredients to prepare tonight’s meal of Baked Potatoes, Sour Cream, Chili, Mac & Cheese, Roasted Broccoli, Baguette and Butter.

3.  I thought the well-labeled meal looked good the first time we delivered it, so I printed a menu and labels with serving suggestions for the second meal as well.  This time when we walked in the door with our labeled bags and containers we got a “wow!” from one of the staff.  I’m taking that as feedback to indicate that we’re doing okay.

4.  We thought Baked Potatoes would be a hearty side, so we scrubbed some russets to bake in the oven.  I love russets for baking because their peels gets meaty,chewy and crunchy, and their interior stays fluffy and light.   I like to oil the peels and salt them lightly with Kosher salt.

5.  When we have Macaroni and Cheese ourselves, which we do often, it is usually Kraft Dinner.  We decided to bump the Mac & Cheese up a few notches and followed Martha Stewart’s recipe for Perfect Macaroni and Cheese.  Here, Bjorn is stirring a roux that will become the cheese sauce.

6.  We baked the potatoes wrapped in foil which worked well for keeping them warm for delivery in a small paper bag.

7.  We stirred the cheese sauce into Al Dente pasta, it looked like it was creamy and delicious.

9.  Disposable food containers were easy to come by for this meal on the cheap at Walgreens because it was just after Thanksgiving.  We had to fashion a make-shift divider out of aluminum foil to separate the Macaroni and Cheese from the Roasted Broccoli.

10.  My parents gave us a container of frozen Oatmeal Raisin cookie dough, so we made cookies again this week.  My parents also purchase the milk and juice that we bring for each meal.

11.  Tonight’s meal is packed, labeled and ready to go.

12.  This week, we had the sense to save ourselves a serving a macaroni and cheese.  We had it with a salad topped with hard-boiled eggs.  Home made macaroni & cheese is so yummy.  We have set “we’d prepare it for guests in our home” as the standard for the meals we prepare for the safe house, and so far, I think we’ve been consistently able to pull it off.

Meal Number 3, December 21, 2011.

1.  For our third meal we had most of the ingredients and supplies on hand.  What we didn’t have, we bought at Target.

2.  Bjorn made beef meatballs again.  It helps make a substantial meal and keep our costs at a reasonable level when we use our beef.  Bjorn has perfected his meatball recipe.  He seasons the meat with Trader Joe’s 21 Seasoning Salut and mixes in Egg, Breadcrumbs and grated parmesan, and as I said, they smell great when he bakes them.

3.  Meatballs are also convenient because  they can be baked a day ahead.  After baking the meatballs, Bjorn put them into the crock pot with spaghetti sauce.  I take the crock of meatballs out of the fridge and turn it on when I got home from work the night that we deliver the food.

4.  We cut up and steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower and made a creamy-cheesy sauce with grated cheese, sour cream and mushroom soup, a little pepper and a crunchy panko bread crumb topping.  It is creamy and delicious, but really, quite light.  After my Mom made the same dish at Christmas with frozen vegetables, I think I would go that route in the future.  It was just as tasty, it was probably cheaper and was definitely less work.

5.  For dessert I made chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and Christmas M&M’s.  They were yummy.

6.  Again, we made a make-shift divider in the aluminum container between the cheesy vegetables and slices of ciabatta bread.

7.  We boiled farfalle pasta to go along with the meatballs this week.  I made a last-minute call to Kowalski’s on Grand Avenue in Saint Paul to see if they would be willing to donate some disposable containers for us to deliver the meal in this week.  I barely had to finish my sentence explaining what we were doing and what we needed before the manager agreed to set out several nice, durable aluminum containers for me to pick up.  Those really aren’t cheap, so it helps us a lot.  It has been amazing to discover how generous store managers in our neighbourhood are when we just ask.

Not pictured with this meal are the Christmas cards that we brought along with our meal this week for the kids and the staff, each containing a $5 Subway gift card that we bought and a free 6 inch sub donated by the owners of Subway on Grand and Fairview Avenues and Selby Avenue and Victoria Street in Saint Paul.  This was another example of how people are ready to help and be generous when all we do is ask.  We thought our first 3 meals were a success, so we signed up to prepare and deliver 2 more in January.  We are enjoying the new experience of giving a little time, and at the same time getting to be creative and engaged in a favorite hobby:  cooking!

Existential Crisis and Caprese

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Eggs and toast are a common weekend breakfast at our house.  During the work week we both end up eating a granola bar in the car or when we arrive to our desks most days.  A hot breakfast at home welcomes the weekend.  Eggs and toast is still a quick meal, and the very slight effort it takes to make it yields the satisfying nourishment to remind you it is Saturday and give you the energy to have great day.  Making eggs and toast for breakfast is about as simple as it gets, except if you are me.  I am going through the process of re-learning how to scramble an egg.  I have been scrambling eggs since I was 5 years old, and I thought I had it mastered.   I cracked eggs into a bowl, and mixed them up with chunks of cheese, and cooked them in a frying pan with oil or butter, stirring them occasionally until solid.  I lived under the illusion that cheesy eggs was the only way to eat scrambled eggs until I ate the Simply Scrambled breakfast at the Birchwood Cafe.  In Birchwoods’ Simply Scrambled breakfast, there is no cheese in the eggs!  The eggs are super fresh and a lot creamier and less solid than the eggs I’ve been scrambling for over 25 years.  And they are so good!  I could tell that this is partly due to using extremely fresh eggs which is something I’ve already been using for several years.  These delicious, creamy, plain eggs were a mysterious new experience for me.   I asked a foodie friend for his thoughts about the Birchwood’s egg scrambling technique over a year ago, and he suggested something about only having the eggs on heat for a while, then taking the pan off of the heat letting them cook themselves.  I tried it, and the result was plain, unevenly cooked, verging-on-runny eggs.   Next, I watched Gordon Ramsey do a demo.  When Gordon Ramsey says “every time we get a new cook in the kitchen, we always asked them to make scrambled egg.  If they know how to make perfect scrambled egg, you know they know how to cook properly”  I am sure he is right.  I don’t know how to cook properly.  Since watching this demo, I’ve been undercooking eggs left and right, but using butter and a little milk or sour cream* and finishing them with fresh chives to make them “sexy.”  It might be a patience issue.  I’m not sure.  The good news for us is, Bjorn has not had an existential crisis about scrambled egg preparation.  As in most areas requiring confidence and skill, if I can do it well, Bjorn can do it better; and with a lot less effort.  So we are still eating delicious eggs, scrambled by Bjorn, while I limp along re-learning out how to Properly cook something I’ve been cooking and happily eating since I was a very little kid. 

There are parts of the egg and toast breakfast that I prepare that have not been called on to the carpet for re-evaluation.  I have discovered that eggs and toast is another meal that a slice of tomato makes better.  If you have a decent grocery store tomato, all you have to do is throw a few slices in the frying pan toward the end of cooking the eggs.  The tomato gets a little softer and sweeter and picks up just enough butter or oil from the pan to make it extra luscious.  All it needs is a little pepper and salt.  At the height of tomato and basil season, there is always fresh mozzarella in our fridge, and so fresh, just-sliced garden tomatoes inevitably are paired with fresh mozzarella and basil, a touch of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and the usual salt and pepper.  A caprese is tomato’s perfect foil.  I have mentioned my love of a caprese salad and the fact that I could happily eat them as a part of three meals a day at this time of year.  I wasn’t kidding.   Even for breakfast.  How can I resist with tomatoes like this:

It is our second year with a Square Foot Garden.  Last year we planted 6 tomato plants , and enjoyed tomatoes from our garden into December.  This year we expanded the garden and planted 12 different varieties.  We are luxuriating in an abundance of tomatoes of all shapes, colours and sizes**.  We also have 4 square feet devoted to basil.  I am serious when I say I love this flavour/texture combination.  It is truly a luxury to be able to walk out the back door and pick a medley of herbs to season our breakfast.  This morning I picked Italian Flat Leaf Parsley, Chives, and a little dill in addition to basil.

As a nod to Gordon Ramsey and the Birchwood’s perfect eggs, today our eggs are plain, but ready to be dressed up to taste with a little grated manchego cheese and garden herbs waiting on the side of the plate***.  Having both manchego and fresh mozzarella on the same plate tips the scales towards indulgence, but after a pious week of granola bar breakfasts, perfect scrambled eggs, toast, fresh herbs and a caprese with basil and tomatoes from the garden is an indulgence we can afford.

Then, there is of course, the toast.  The bread today is a dense Italian loaf from the bakery at Cosetta’s Italian Market in Saint Paul.

*Sorry Gordon; we don’t stock crème fraiche in our kitchen.

**Grey squirrels have also been picking our tomatoes and eating just a few bites, much to our frustration and disgust.  We’ve resorted to garden warfare.  Each of the raised beds is surrounded by chicken wire.  We’re using smelly garlic and peppermint squirrel deterrent sprays, and we’re both pretty good aim when we throw a shoe, but we don’t seem to be able to get the squirrels under control.  If there is some kind of a secret weapon against these greedy creatures, I’d love to know about it.

***Maybe I’m not so convinced about the perfection of cheese-less scrambled eggs?!?