grilled cheese

This post begins and ends with muhammara. Muhammara is a Middle Eastern dip that’s rich, sweet, spicy, and tangy. I’m always looking for unusual dips, preferably one whose ingredients come from the pantry, and muhammara fits the bill.

Looking to other cultures is one of my tried-and-true ways of branching out in the kitchen. For dips, one of the most fertile culinary traditions has got to come from the Middle East.

Like: picture a mezze table, loaded with hummus, baba ganoush, oils, cheeses, herbs and try not to salivate.

Most of the ingredients in muhammara are everyday items: nuts, chile flakes, tomato paste, olive oil. But one – pomegranate molasses – is a little harder to find. I’ve seen it at some Whole Foods, but I traversed Atlantic Avenue and made a stop at Sahadi’s, a quintessential Brooklyn shopping experience. The pomegranate molasses lends the dip its signature sweetness as well as its tang. I can imagine using the rest of my bottle of pomegranate molasses in dressings and marinades.

Sometimes food inspiration just strikes, and sometimes you have to go searching for it. If you’re going to go searching, there’s no better place to go than San Francisco.

Specifically, Tartine.

Grilled cheese sandwiches are my kryptonite, but goodness I’ve been boring about them lately. Every day, the same. Two slices of whole-grain Bread Alone bread. Some Cabot sharp cheddar. On one forgetful day, I was out of butter and fried my grilled cheese in olive oil. That was the most excitement my sandwiches have seen this summer.

At Tartine, the baked goods beckon, but I needed lunch. I ordered a toasted sandwich, and Alex’s step-sister, Lissa Ivy, ordered one too. I liked hers better, but I’ll get to that.

The grilled cheese sandwich is not some idle obsession or Pinterest fantasy. It plays a valuable role in my life.

The grilled cheese sandwich always delivers. There are foods, like soup or yogurt, that automatically lead to a craving for more: dessert, steak, whatever. Technically, the yogurt and the soup provide plenty of calories to satiate a sedentary blogger, but in reality, they’re somehow not enough.

My mom once gave me a piece of advice: only eat what you like. (I’ve written more about staying healthy as a food lover in this post.) That applies both to unhealthful food and healthful food: I avoid yogurt and donuts with the same passion. When I eat food I really like, I feel great, whether it’s ice cream or quinoa.

It’s funny how in the last month, Pinterest has captured the attention of reporters, who have analyzed and unpacked it from all different angles. Funny in part because the people I know went through the angst and the confusion about the visual social media network (or whatever you want to call it) many moons ago, back when we joined in August.

It’s not that I’m a super techie early adopter types. It’s just that Pinterest and I had a bunch of mutual friends. Sarah, one of my best friends from high school, blogs over at the beautiful Chevrons and Stripes…

Check out my beloved Grilled Cheese Pinboard!

My apologies: it’s the second to last day of January, and I’ve yet to post about grilled cheese. It doesn’t mean that 2012 isn’t a year of eating and writing about my favorite sandwich, er, meal.

Fortunately, it’s a good one, a classic inspired by the rich French soup, and perfect for winter. It’s also incredibly simple. Just two ingredients make this sandwich, a red onion jam created by Merrill over at Food52 and first seen on BGSK in another simple dish, a fried egg sandwich.

When I re-made this …

BGSK’s Other Prize-Winning Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: Grilled Cheddar Sandwich with Pears and Pecans; Perfect Grilled Cheese; Grilled Mushroom-Cheddar Melts; Prosciutto & Fontina Panini with Arugula Pesto and Pickled Shallots.

We believe there’s a pretty fine art to grilled cheese sandwiches, one that you too can achieve mastery at by watching this video.

Look, they may seem simple: some bread, some butter, some cheese. But there are finer points. And then there are tweaks.

Once you move beyond the three necessary ingredients, you move into a kind of wonderland. You get to take your wildest dreams …

Favorite Grilled Cheese Cobos: Grilled Cheddar Sandwich with Roasted Pears & Pecans; Perfect Grilled Cheese; Prosciutto & Fontina Panini with Arugula Pesto and Pickled Shallots; Radicchio & Mozzarella Toasts; Pesto Grilled Cheese; Grilled Mushroom-Cheddar Melts

You know we love grilled cheese (for evidence, see above). In early January, I posted about this Grilled Cheddar Sandwich with Roasted Pears & Pecans. We reposted it on Huffington Post later on and were awed by the cheese sandwich suggestions that readers came up with. So we figured it was time to get back in the kitchen and …