Grilled Cheese Sandwich Madness!

Ok. I saw a Top Chef Masters episode a couple weeks ago, where the quick fire was based on grilled cheese sandwiches. Last week, I got an email from Thrillist telling me about a Grilled Cheese Invitational in LA. I think some one was trying to tell me to make grilled cheese.

I really wanted to try the one that won the quick fire from Top Chef Masters. I remembered it was some kind of North African goodness, so I went from there and developed my own (delicious) grilled cheese. I wasn't going to post this initially, but Dan ended up taking some iPhone pictures and I just couldn't help myself.

Sandwich 1: Moroccan Delight

2 pieces of Potato bread

3 dates (chopped)

3 figs (chopped)

less than 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Goat Cheese

less than 1/4 cup of fennel

Directions:

In small saucepan, heat oil. Put fennel in the oil and allow to cook for 1 minutes. Put chopped dates and figs in with the fennel and add a tid bit (about 1-2 tablespoons) of water.

Butter outside of bread.

Spread Goat Cheese on BOTH sides of the bread. Sprinkle chopped walnuts on one side of the bread. When the water has pretty much been absorbed into the dried fruits, take off heat and place on bread.

Grill in pan til golden brown on both sides.

Sandwich 2: Curry Wonder

2 slices Potato bread

1/8 cup yellow squash cut into small pieces

1/8 cup green pepper cut into small pieces

curry powder

Cheese (we used a flagship cheese- I think I'd want to try something a bit creamier for this next time)

Directions:

Place julienned veggies into a heated pan with oil. Allow to get hot. Add curry (approx. 1-2 teaspoon) and water. Allow to heat through and coat the veggies. There was will a nice thicker consistency when done.

Butter outside of bread.

Layer Flagship cheese on both sides. Place in the pan and add the veggies to one side only. Let both piece of bread grill open face. When the side of bread that has no veggies on it starts to melt then place it on the other piece of bread.

Cook til golden brown on both sides. Enjoy.

Sandwich 3: Hola Cheese

2 slices of potato bread

1/4 cup shredded or chopped spicy chicken (bought from Whole Foods)

1/8 cup green enchilada sauce

1/8 cup shredded zucchini

Directions are similar to sandwich 2.

DELICIOUS!! I think my absolute favorite was sandwich 1.

Flagship cheese

Bobby Bobby Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Corn Muffins

I was invited to a shindig that required some veggie or non-red meat friendly food. I also recently bought Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook. What a perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe and hopefully impress some new people?! I decided to make a his famous Mesa Grill Blue and Yellow Corn Muffins (sans the blue because I didn't want to put in the effort to find the blue cornmeal).It's a great recipe to make the day before and then bake the day of. I modified the recipe because I don't eat a lot of red onions. I thin muffins are best served warm with butter...and probably honey, although, I didn't try it with honey since I kind of forgot.

Recipe adapted from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook:

Nonstick spray
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped1 and 1/3 cup whole milk (usually I use a milk alternative but I felt that the cow's milk would work better with the corn muffins)
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup finely diced red bell pepper
2 jalapeno chiles, finely diced and de-seeded
1/2 cup frozen corn kernals
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1 cup blue cornmeal1 cup yellow cornmeal (I just used 2 cups yellow cornmeal and did not include the blue cornmeal)
1 and 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda4 teaspoons kosher salt

If you decide to use the 1 cup blue cornmeal and 1 cup yellow cornmeal then you must split all the different steps evenly in order to make two batters and then mix the batters together (marbling).
Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400F. Place the rack in the middle of the oven. Grease a 12-muffin pan with non stick spray.

2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Add the garlic and cook for 30-40 seconds. Take off the heat and allow to cool slightly. (at this point, you'd want to split the butter and garlic into 2 bowls for the 1/2 and 1/2 mixture).
3. In another bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, honey, red pepper, jalapenos, corn and cilantro. (split in 1/2 for 50-50 mixture)

4. Put the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in to a bowl and mix. Add the dry mixture to the liquid and mixture.

5. Pour the batter into the 12-muffin pan. The recipe says it makes 12 but I definitely could have made 18 or so. Place in the oven for 16 minutes (for me it took more like 21 minutes). To check the muffin batter, put a toothpick or chopstick into the muffin, when it comes out with a couple of crumbs then they are done. Let rest out of the oven, in the pan for 5 minutes.These were eaten with rave reviews. I also made Bobby's Tamarind Chicken, since I don't eat red meat. The combination was fabulous. When warm, the muffins were given a 5 out of 5 by my designated food taster. The jalapenos offered a nice bit of heat to the muffin. Honey and heat and salty are a great combination!

Ginger Cinnamon Banana Bread

Banana bread of any sort is always delicious and warms a house with the most amazing aromas!!

I only spent 4 days in SF and 2 of those days were spent cooking or baking. My sister has a great view with huge windows, which is perfect for baking. Bake a little, enjoy the sunshine a little, and enjoy life a lot!
My sister had 1 really ripe banana and it inspired me to make banana bread. I adapted the recipe from Lovin' From the Oven.The adapted recipe is as follows:

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

For the bread:

• 3 over-ripe bananas, smashed up
  
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
  
• 1 egg, beaten
• dash of heavy cream
  
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• dash of salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour

For the swirl:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 Tbs cinnamon
• 1/2 Tbs nutmeg
• 1/2 Tbs ginger
  

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and four a loaf pan.
   
2. Beat egg and heavy cream together
3. Mix bananas, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. sprinkle baking soda and salt around on top of the banana mixture. Then gently stir in flour. Be careful not to over-mix!
4. In a small dish, mix together the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.
5. Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle half, or a little more than half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
6. Bake for 50-60 minutes. I used a 9x5 and it took 50 minutes.
7. Cut away sides and flip onto a wire rack.

On another note, while I was in SF, Danika, Adam and I went to Cups and Cakes on 9th and Harrison. The place has only been open for 4 months. It was really cute. I decided to get the mini cupcakes so I could bring them back to Seattle to share and try.

The flavors of the day were: 1. vanilla vanilla, 2. chocolate chocolate, 3. pb & j, 4. lost in paradise (banana cake and strawberry frosting), 5. red velvet (a staple in any cupcake place!), 6. mudslide (chocolate cake with Bailey's frosting), 7. ginger pearberry (pear cake with ginger raspberry frosting), 8. cotton candy (vanilla cake and cotton candy frosting).


I was also fortune enough to taste the salty oatmeal cookie with chocolate ganache filling. The owner (who wasn't there) was at a baking competition with that tasty concoction. I hope she won!!

Baklava Ice Cream

I had a fabulous and sunny weekend in San Francisco. It was only appropriate to celebrate the weather by making ice cream with my sister's new ice cream maker. This is a cinnamon ice cream with a honey, walnut, cinnamon swirl.

The recipe was adapted from desert candy.
Unfortunately, I didn't read the filo dough defrosting instructions carefully, so didn't defrost the 4 sheets completely. Instead, I took the thawed outer pieces (so about 10 sheets) and just cut through a smaller area for the same effect. I think the filo dough, walnut, honey mixture was the most popular. My sister and her bf were eating it before I could put it into the ice cream.

The ice cream was great but I added ground cinnamon in the quick chill process for a more cinnamon taste in the ice cream. Save some of the filo dough mixture as a topping. Let the ice cream set for a little while before serving...although, that was quick difficult since all 3 of us dove right in after it looked thicken enough (which wasn't very thick, but we really wanted this tasty goodness).

This got rave reviews from my family and friends! Good thing we ran 5 miles the next day!

Kiss Me I'm Irish!

It's St. Patty's Day. It is only appropriate to have something green and delicious to post and talk about.
This is a Matcha Green Tea and Chocolate Marble cake adapted from bakerella.com. I used soy milk instead of milk, simply because I stopped buying regular milk and soy or coconut milk has been the beverage of choice.

Chocolate Matcha Bundt Cake

Chocolate Mixture
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Matcha mixture
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp matcha powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients
3 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3 eggs, room temperature
1 1/4 cup soy milk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Grease and flour (or cocoa) a 10 or 12 cup Bundt pan (I used a 13"x9" rectangular pan)
• With a wire whisk, mix the dry ingredients for the chocolate mixture in a small bowl and set aside.
• In another small bowl, do the same for the matcha mixture.
• Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs, milk and vanilla and mix until thoroughly combined.
• Divide the creamed mixture evenly in two separate bowls.
• Slowly add the chocolate mixture to one half of the creamed mixture and mix thoroughly.
• Then, add the matcha mixture to the other half of the creamed mixture and mix thoroughly.
• Drop alternating spoonfuls of each mixture into the bundt pan until it’s about 3/4 full.
• For a marbled effect, gently run a knife through the two batters in a swirling motion. (Once or twice will do the trick.)
• Bake for about 1 hour.

Some quick notes: Matcha can be found at WholeFoods in the tea section. It's kind of pricey so use sparingly. This particular recipe came out really moist, so the flour could be increased. The Matcha flavor was great, but next time I'd increase from 2 tablespoons to 3 tablespoons.


This delectable baking experience was accompanied by a hot movie date with Stephanie. We watched "He's Just Not That Into You". It was a perfectly lovely evening...and tonight! Trivia + Green Beer!