Classic Grilled Cheese with Marinated Onions and Whole-Grain Mustard

This "classic" grilled cheese recipe comes from Nancy Silverton's sandwich book.  I know her name from mentions in Kim Boyce's book, Good to the Grain, which has not made an appearance here in a while but is a huge inspiration to me.  I asked for this book for my birthday because I like sandwiches.  I like going to a cafe and having some delicious panini-pressed goodness oozing with flavor.  I wanted to try some at home, but it's always easier when you have a bit of guidance.

This wasn't the first recipe I intended to make, but it was actually kind of spontaneous.  I had everything on hand except the bread.  I stopped at Panera for something crusty, since it was on the way, and took home a "country loaf."  This was not only delicious but ended up being perfect for what we were making.

I didn't actually make this myself, which always makes things taste better.  The sandwich has four main elements: the thick, crusty bread is smeared with whole-grain mustard and layered with slices of Gruyere and marinated onions.  Then you spread some butter on the outside and clamp down your grill press for some tasty crunchy brown grill marks, which also melts all the cheese and softens the onions up a bit.

My one criticism of this sandwich is the salt factor - I would at least halve the salt in the marinated onions.  I suppose they were sort of quick-pickled, but it's worth a shot as I was super thirsty eating this sandwich and the salt was just at that point where it starts to detract from the flavor.

We had this soup with a tiny bit of Smoked Tomato Bisque, a perfect accompaniment to grilled cheese.  The soup seemed to have lost a bit of its salt content in the freezer, but with the saltiness of the sandwich, it was good.  This also helped me to discover something interesting/important about frozen soup.  I had read that you can refreeze something you defrost in the refrigerator, so I put the soup in the fridge this morning to thaw with the intention of serving some and re-freezing the rest.  When I took it out of the fridge, I was disappointed to find that it was still frozen.  However, I decided to try to scrape a bit out with a spoon, at which point I discovered that although still frozen, I could scoop large flaky chunks out.  So I did that and put the rest of the soup back in the freezer.  Now I know I can have small portions of my soups with just a bit of advance planning.

Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Toasts

My friend Hilary came over last Saturday afternoon to make Winter Squash Soup with Gruyere Toasts.  We love winter squash and a discussion with her is what somehow made me start making soup all of a sudden.  The Gruyere "croutons" (we decided that they are really toasts) made this soup extra special.

This soup stood out to me a bit over some of the others I've been making.  One reason was the use of both butternut AND acorn squash - the acorn seemed to mute the excessive sweetness that butternut can have.  I thought the combination created an outstanding flavor.  This soup was also a bit thinner than the other soups I've made with squash - just a tiny bit thinner, but noticeably so, and somehow this made a big textural difference to me.  I finished the bowl pretty easily (with thicker soups I sometimes have to force myself through the texture, even if I'm still hungry).  The sage and thyme were perfect flavors for the soup and for the season, and carrying them over into the amazing little toasts tied it all together.  I LOVE Gruyere, so this might have been my favorite part, even more than the soup, but just a little.

This is a soup that I hope to come back to again!  Luckily I was able to stash a bit in the freezer, labeled with specific instructions to serve with Gruyere toasts.

Baked Spaghetti Squash with Gruyere and Parsley

Deborah Madison's book Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is one of my more neglected cookbooks.  I guess I just usually go for a different type of recipe - but this book has lots of hidden gems, like the Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce which my mom's freezer is now literally full of.

I have always wanted to try spaghetti squash, but since I have never been a huge fan of pasta with plain old tomato sauce, I wanted to try something different with it.  I just received a great deal of squash from my CSA and I'm so excited to use it.  I was going through a few of my books (this is how I stumbled upon the Apple Squash Soup as well) and the Baked Spaghetti Squash with Gruyere and Parsley caught my eye, particularly the Gruyere, possibly my all time favorite cheese.  I couldn't resist!

This took so long to make, but practically NO effort whatsoever.  The spaghetti squash has to bake for quite a while, about an hour, but be careful not to overdo it or you won't get the stringiness, more like a fibrous mash.  You may want to turn it over halfway through so you don't end up with a soft dark spot on the bottom.  The rest of the work is a snap: grate Gruyere, press garlic, chop parsley.  Done!  We started that last bit of prep work when the timer read 8 minutes left, and were done by the time it went off.  While the squash was in the oven I did some reading for my Employment Law class.  This is just one of those recipes that proves eating healthy is possible for even the busiest people.

A few notes: the 2-4 tablespoons of butter that this recipe calls for is just way too much.  A small pat will do just fine (and save you calories).  You don't even need so much Gruyere.  Next time I might add a bit of everything at a time and taste as I go to make sure I don't overdo it.  Also, this is definitely a side dish.  We thought it would be nice with a piece of tilapia or some garlic shrimp - we ended up having the leftovers with a piece of salmon and some leftover roasted vegetables.