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.