Grilled Cheese Croutons: a better solution for sandwich crusts

"I'm done!" says the daughter, and takes her dishes into the kitchen.

I look at the counter and see a quarter-cup full of milk, and a plate with grilled cheese sandwich crusts. This is not what I would call "done," but I did grow up encouraged to be part of the Clean Plate Club. My children have no interest in membership in that group.

My usual choices are:

1) Toss the scorned crusts (with regret) instead of eating them as my second lunch.

2) Eat the rejected crusts (with regret) so I don't feel guilty about wasting them.

Also up for consideration:

3) Insist that the child eat the crusts before leaving the table. However, neither one of us has the patience or stomach for that.

4) Put the crusts out for the birds. But then I worry that the birds shouldn't eat cheese.

5) Save a week's worth of crusts to make a savory bread pudding. I'd probably be the only one to eat that, so why bother?

Today I see something I have not seen before, despite the uncounted sandwich crusts left on previous plates. I see ... croutons. Grilled cheese croutons! (Someone should market this.) 

(Looking again...does the word crust come from crouton? Croûton, perhaps? I had to look it up, the French for crust is croûte.)

Leftover lunch for lunch, made slightly appetizing

I throw together a salad dressing of (store-bought) hummus, olive oil, and vinegar. Make a lazy salad of baby carrots, grape tomatoes, pepperoni, and greens. Top it with the grilled cheese croutons. Eat. Feel slightly virtuous for having had a salad for lunch and not letting those crusts go to waste.

Grilled Cheese Croutons

2 slices of sesame seed Ezekiel Bread (or your favorite, crusty bread)

2 slices of Kraft American cheese (no comments, please, I already know)

1 tablespoon butter (you can use less, of course, but we like butter)

1 child (This is an important, if unconventional, element of this recipe)

1. Over medium heat, melt butter in skillet.
2. Place on slice of bread in melted butter, rotate to distribute butter over the surface of the bread, then place it (butter side up) on plate. 
3. Place second slice of bread in the remaining butter in the skillet, rotate to coat.
4. Put cheese on bread in skillet.
5. Place first slice of bread (still butter side up) on cheese on bread in skillet.
6. Press sandwich together with spatula or utensil of your choice.
7. After cheese begins to melt, flip the sandwich over. Continue cooking, flipping again if necessary, until golden brown on both sides.
8. Cut into quarters and serve sandwich to child to eat the best part of the sandwich.
9. When child is done, roughly cut remaining crusts into squares. These are your croutons. 
10. Use croutons to top a salad, throw them in the garbage, or feed them to the birds. 

Homemade pizza improvements: HOT oven and cornmeal for rolling out dough

The girls' pizza: half cheese and pepperoni, half pepperoni and olives

We've been having fun with homemade pizza. As much as we love our local chain's pies, it is more economical (and sometimes even yummier) to eat in. Responsibility for pizza night has switched from Zed ordering online and picking it up, to me making pizza from scratch.

As with just about everything, the key to pizza success is in the preparation. Before making the dough, preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. In our house, we have a cast iron pizza "stone" which I give at least an hour to get to temperature. During that time, make the dough and let it rest and rise.

(Go watch the Olympics, or do something fun while you wait.)

After the oven is hot, and the dough has doubled in size, spread out a square of parchment paper and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Flour will work if you don't have it, but Kathy wants you to know that it tastes better with cornmeal.

Roll out the dough, brush it with olive oil, and finish with your favorite toppings. Kathy likes to help with this step. Her favorite part is spreading olive oil and tomato sauce to the edges.

When ready to cook, transfer the pizza (on parchment paper still) to the hot stone. In our oven, it bakes to crusty perfection in 12 minutes.

The grown-ups' pizza includes spinach (and sometimes blue cheese)

My dough recipe:
2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour
2 Cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons yeast
1 3/4 Cups warm water

1. Set up stand mixer with dough hook. (You can do this all by hand, but I prefer not to.)
2. Combine dry ingredients and olive oil in the mixer's bowl. 
3. Add the warm water.
4. Turn the mixer on low to combine the water and flour mixture.
5. After all the water has been absorbed, turn the mixer's speed to medium and let the machine knead the dough for five minutes.
6. Remove the bowl (with dough in it) from the mixer. With oiled hands, form the dough into a ball, replace it back in the bowl, and cover the bowl with a kitchen towel.
7. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size, about one hour. Could be less, could be more. 
8. Finish your pizza as above. If it isn't to your taste the first time around, make some tweaks to the process next time. Let me know what works for you!

*****

I do take a shortcut with the pizza sauce, but only because we found a great tasting one in a jar. That's why I could take that hour to relax while the dough was resting. This is the one we like:

Most-fun-ever chicken noodle soup

It's been cold and snowy, and Kathy has been asking for chicken soup. While she's a big fan of Panera's chicken noodle soup, she hasn't been enthusiastic about my weak and basically flavorless broth. 

Last year when a friend's kitchen was scented with a most heavenly soup, I asked for tips. "Time. Let it simmer until all the goodness is in the broth." The next time I had a chicken carcass, I plopped it in my largest pot with an onion, carrots, celery, and bay leaves and covered it with water. It started in the morning and cooked all day. Hours and hours of simmering led to the best chicken broth I had ever made. Success! 

I hesitated to use this method again because I would need to be home to babysit the stove. I wanted a method with which I could leave the house. Another friend had success with making the stock in a crock pot. Brilliant! 

During our recent big snow storm, we had a roast chicken. After dinner, I set up the slow cooker, turned it on low for fourteen hours, went to bed, and woke up to a most comforting aroma.

Chicken carcass, carrots, onions, sage, peppercorns, bay leaves, water

This same friend with the crockpot idea mentioned making homemade noodles, and what a fun project it was with her daughter. The conversation reminded me that I have a pasta maker in my pantry -- the same one my parents used to make noodles with me when I was little -- that I haven't used for a few years. 

"Taryn, would you like to make pasta with me?" 

Is that a question? 

2 cups of flour, four eggs. Probably more fun to just do this on the counter by hand.

The recipe couldn't be easier with only two ingredients...plus some time and effort.

After an hour, divide up the dough. Clamp the pasta machine to the counter, and get started.

The crank turns a pair of rollers that start out about 1/4 inch away from each other. Process the dough by feeding it through the rollers a series of times. Move the rollers closer to each other each time, and eventually the dough is a paper-thin sheet.

Cutting the noodles

Now crank the sheet of pasta through the cutter of your choice. Kathy likes fettuccine sized for her chicken soup.

Noodles hanging out before going into soup

This noodley gadget is useful, but not necessary. My parents would lay the noodles out on dish cloths on the dining room table. I prefer not to do this because I have three curious, mischievous, thieving cats.

Taryn as noodle walrus

We had fun making noodles!

Kathy-approved chicken noodle soup

Final steps for most-fun-ever chicken noodle soup include:

1. Strain the broth from the solids.
2. Put the broth in the snow to cool down quickly.
3. Skim the fat that has risen to the top.
4. Saute onions and carrots in a big pot, then add broth and bring to a boil.
5. Let soup simmer until veggies are soft.
6. Break noodles into 2 inch pieces, add them to the soup. 
7. Fresh noodles cook fast! After two to four minutes, this soup is ready to serve.
8. Enjoy!

Better than a pumpkin pie

We have had the most spectacular autumn. Somehow, all the trees coordinated their peak color to happen in sync. There have been riots of red, outcrops of copper, and my favorite, yellow, glows in the sunlight. Taryn, Kathy, and I took a walk in the late afternoon to soak it all in.

The creek that runs behind the house empties out into a lake. We paused at the wooden footbridge to admire the view. A pair of mallards floated nearby. Kathy said she spotted "duck eggs." That would have been exciting! It turned out, they were just golf balls. 

We were chilly, even though we walked briskly, sometimes one running ahead, the better to call the others Slow Pokes. We walked backwards, forwards, sideways, up hills and down, but the late afternoon sun only dappled the path and couldn't warm us. We won't be going out again without layers.

Dinner was Dorie Greenspan's Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good. As she recommends, I riffed on the recipe. We like Italian sausage, provolone, and mozzarella. It makes a filling dinner, and we discussed if we should fit it onto our Thanksgiving table. I suggested the pumpkin instead of a turkey, but was voted down. Perhaps it will show up again in the days after the big meal. I'd better snag another pie pumpkin from the store before they disappear for the season! 

No eggplant love

Naked eggplant

Isn't an eggplant beautiful? I love that aubergine color -- and the word aubergine -- and the smooth skin. At my house, the diners would prefer to look at one rather than eat one. It is only acceptable in a dish that disguises the eggplant, like a good baba ghanoush. I should have predicted the reactions to tonight's dish, which was inspired by a homework assignment from the cooking science class that I've been taking.

It's pretty, isn't it? I had to make substitutions in the recipe, as I didn't have lemon thyme on hand. I do have plenty of za'atar, so this was a most fragrant eggplant when it came out of the oven.

It got prettier with the addition of garlicky buttermilk sauce and the appealing pop of color from the pomegranate seed garnish. A sprinkling of sumac completed the dish.

Dressed eggplant

The problem arose upon serving. The flesh was grayish green, no matter how I looked at it. My solution was to drown it in more sauce.

The girls couldn't stomach it. "I like the pomegranates," Taryn said, generously. Kathy glared at her plate. I know exactly what she's going to look like as a teenager -- she is an eight year old goth, with black lipstick and a great scowl. The only thing throwing off the picture is her missing top tooth. Zed pronounced the eggplant slimy, then made samosas from Trader Joes so the girls would actually eat something.

Braised in Salsa

At least one food critic thinks that "put an egg on it" is a food trend that is so last year. I will be stuck in the food trend past, then, as I continue to slide a fried egg on top of just about any dish. My favorite is a fried egg on a slice of pizza.

Braised egg image from Eating Well

I also see that I've been using the wrong term for my new favorite egg-prep method. This recipe from Eating Well describes my "poached in salsa" as braised eggs. In any case, this makes the best egg ever.

Back to food trends, is molecular gastronomy over too? I don't get out for fine dining experiences that often, but I'd like to try something like these olives. In fact, I purchased the sodium alginate and calcium lactate gluconate so I can experiment at home.

Make that we can experiment at home. My chemist/cook, Taryn, is helping me out with the online class I am taking from edX. It is called Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science. The course is full of math, physics, chemistry, and food. I signed up for it on a whim, but the material has captured me: I want to do my homework!

One of the first assignments was to calibrate my oven, which I now know runs about 35 degrees hot on convection. I always had to set the temperature lower when using the oven's fan. I didn't know by how much, and I burned a lot of cookies. The candy that resulted from doing the calibration test was yummy, too. (See it in the image below? The caramelized splat.)

Sugar melted at "330" degrees F in my oven. The melting point of sugar is 366 degrees F.

Up next, a recipe for eggplant, examining the recipe for Nestle's Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies, and (this makes me happy) "perfect eggs."

Rain, Mud, and Sugar Cookies

Five muddy miles, done!

It's been raining here for five days straight. A tropical storm and a nor'easter met in the skies above us and decided to settle down together. Waves of rain slosh down, dreary skies become the norm, and the kids don't want to leave the house.

The girls say they don't want to go outside and stomp in puddles because they don't have rain boots. When did they start to care about keeping their feet dry? These girls used to stomp in puddles all over town, in the least appropriate footwear.

For entertainment, Taryn has been baking treats. She googled a recipe, and, on her first try, made the best brownies ever to come out of our oven. Next up were "green velvet" cake pops. I took a turn with "apple pie" muffins, which were meant for breakfast but didn't last that long. Today, she and a friend made sugar cookies with orange icing and black sprinkles.

I think I haven't been setting a good example. I didn't run outside in Thursday evening's deluge, choosing the treadmill, a DVRed episode of Top Chef, and dry feet instead. In fact, our only outside time has been the dash from house to car, to library/dentist/friend's house, back to car, back to house.

If a race hadn't been on my calendar, I wouldn't have gone out into the weather this morning, either. I would have missed out. In the woods, I felt like a kid again. I got my feet soaking wet, I was covered in mud, and I loved it. Seriously, [I am addressing you, Taryn and Kathy] you don't need rain boots if you want to get wet.

At home, I hosed down before leaving for the dry sauna at the gym. The cold had a good grip on my toes and fingers, and was hard to shake off, even in 175 degrees. I baked myself in that cedar paneled room and thought about what made this morning's race so fun. Being on home turf was easier than driving an hour to the starting line. The camaraderie on the trail was great, with two friends in the race with me, and another volunteering at an aid station along the way.

But the secret ingredient? The special sauce was the experience of sloppy mud, the shining rocks, the flowing creek, the sound of wind in wet leaves. All thanks to the rain.

On the next rainy day, Taryn and Kathy, let's go on a walk with the intention of getting wet. I will make you hot chocolate when we get home, and you won't miss having rain boots.

Poached in Salsa

You know how routine can be both a security blanket and a crutch? How a day, week, or month all planned out can be both satisfying and stultifying? How traditions provide comfort, yet sometimes you need a break?

This blog is about comfort, routine ... and shaking things up. The name is inspired by radio interview and a jar of salsa.

In brief:

I like to fry an egg in butter, flip it with a flick of the pan before the top of the white has set, count to ten, and slide it onto the plate. A pinch of salt, a grind of black pepper, and I am satisfied, comforted, and full.

On the radio one morning, a Mexican chef described her simply perfect egg: she poaches it in salsa. I'd never thought of doing that, but now I wanted to try it.

Soon after, I picked up a jar of tomatillo salsa at Trader Joe's. For breakfast the next morning, I heated up the spicy, green sauce in my omelet pan, broke the egg on top, and let it poach until the white was set but the yolk still ran.

I won't call it a revelation, but, wow, that egg was good!

It's just a little thing, an egg poached in salsa, but it made me happy and reminded me to try something new. This tweak in routine -- cooking my egg in salsa instead of frying it in butter -- inspired me. Not only to try this cooking method with traditional tomato sauce and olive tapenade, but to start a blog. This is pushing me out of my comfort zone and routine, for sure.

What have you done that's new to you? How did it work out for you? I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks for reading!

Louisa