Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Recipe: Rebecca's Grilled Cheese Sandwich

This is the dish that prefaced the Annenberg Cookbook - my dormmate Rebecca's grilled cheese.

A few facts about Rebecca: She is one of the most flexible cooks I know, adding a pinch of this or that to her tray for another go. A fellow Minnesotan, Rebecca brought back German recipes - including a sweet almond bread - to try the first month of school. Every Sunday, she insists on a Veritaffle, actually mixes the Belgian waffle and plain mix in the iron for a swirled pattern, and brings her own legit maple syrup, to boot.

And about the grilled cheese - my roommate came back earlier this week to tell me about this "must-have." The next night, I snagged a third of Rebecca's sandwich, and since then, all of us have been making sandwiches on our own. It's fairly simple, as it should be:

  • 2 pieces bread
  • 1 slice cheese
Put in panini grill until ready.

But here's the kicker:

Add oregano, dill and red pepper as needed on top of the sandwich.

Yes'm, the red pepper dust basically makes the sandwich magical. In the few days since, a few variations have come up. For example:
  • putting red pepper, oregano and dill inside the sandwich instead of the outside of the bread,
  • inserting ham/cheese/sliced tomato
  • using healthier whole-wheat bread
  • putting salsa inside the sandwich (but between two slices of cheese, so that the bread doesn't get soaked)
Thanks to Rebecca, today was the first day that I used the panini grill for something other than toasting my bagel. Although my grilled cheese came out undercooked (apparently I should watch the cheese melt), yours probably won't.
Enjoy.

3 comments:

Hank R. said...

whole-wheat bread?

laaammmmeeee


Also, I totally want one.

Anonymous said...

the mixture of plain plus whole wheat waffle mix is amazing when rebecca does it, generally half and half, but she's working on perfecting the swirl :)

my favorite grilled cheese: cheese and tomato, LOTS of oregeno, not too much brown pepper, and of course a sprinkling of red. leave off the dill. occaisonally try a little onion salt if you tone down the pepper. i want to try it with salami (just to make it completely unhealthy delicious) next time they have it.

Heidi said...

Hank - I love whole wheat bread, as long as it's crusty. It's great, anyhoo.

Julia - I'm actually going to agree with you. Haven't tried the brown pepper yet, and I dislike the dill. Garlic powder is great but it hurts my tongue...

They had swiss today; I'm sad I missed it. Salami sounds fantastic.