Procrastination is the Key to a Good Grilled Cheese

Where: Home Sweet Home

With: My shadow

Rating: 8.5/10

Details: Dubliner cheese on thinly sliced ciabatta bread

Count: 5/5000

I am out of the dorms for good! I finished moving home yesterday and figured today would be the perfect day for a celebratory Grilled Cheese! I set out to make my Grilled Cheese and realized the only bread we really had in the house was the ciabatta my dad had bought for our spaghetti dinner last night. It wasn't really ciabatta, since it was bought from the local grocery store, rather it was more like a cross between italian and ciabatta bread, no where near the holiness you get when you make it yourself, which made it perfect bread for Grilled Cheese! I figured I would use my Dubliner cheese, which I treated myself to during finals, since ciabatta does have a flavor of it's own and I wanted a strong cheese flavor to counter that and it worked out very well actually. The bread browned beautifully and was incredibly crispy. I used thin slices of cheese, because it is so strong, which was definitely the right choice. It was a bit odd, because ciabatta and Dubliner didn't go perfectly together, but with the addition of my homemade tomato "soup," it was absolutely perfect!

I really wanted tomato soup to go with my Grilled Cheese once I had thought up what I was going to do, but I didn't want that processed Campbell's crap we keep on hand. This was going to be a baller sandwich, it deserved a baller soup. That and my 12 page paper I still have to finish was getting very tiresome and I wanted to prolong my time in the kitchen. My dad had just come back from the store with a thing of tomatoes, so I quartered four of them, threw some evoo in a pot, tossed in the tomatoes in on medium heat, added salt, pepper and basil to taste and voila! Fresh tomato "soup!" I say "soup" because I was too lazy, in spite of my looming paper, to pull out the blender and puree it, but the chunky worked out fine. The freshness of all the flavors worked out really really well, and if I were to rate the meal it would be a 10/10, but the sandwich alone was sadly only worth the 8.5, I guess I am still hunting for perfection.

Rachel's Quick and Easy Tomato and Basil "Soup"

Serves one bowl

Prep Time: 50 seconds

Cook Time: As long as the Grilled Cheese takes

4 medium tomatoes

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Basil

Pepper

Salt

After quartering the tomatoes, cover the bottom of a medium sauce pan with EVOO and turn on medium heat. Add the tomatoes and season with basil, pepper and salt to taste. (If I weren't so lazy today, I would have seasoned more and thrown in some garlic and a little bit of onion). Cover and let simmer until the tomatoes are soft and the skins fall off. Crush the tomatoes and continue to simmer for another few minutes. Remove from heat and either serve as is, which will be more like a sauce (in fact you could easily use doctor this recipe for a quick and easy marinara), or puree the soup until desired consistency. If you don't want to puree at the end like me and you want yours less chunky, you could dice the tomatoes or remove the skins when the tomatoes soften.

EQ Fail! Rachel Win!

Where: EQ Caf

With: Johnald and Meredith

Rating: 2/10

Details: Poorly and partially grilled white bread with rubbery American cheese

Count: 3.5/5000

Rating: 9/10

Details: A piece of white bread folded in half with cream cheese, cheddar, blue cheese and mozzarella in between.

Count: 4/5000

After a disappointing first attempt at Grilled Cheese day in the caf, I decided to make myself a grilled cheese. Making a grilled cheese for yourself in the caf is always interesting, because you never know what kind of cheese there will be lying around. Today, I found cream cheese, cheddar, blue cheese and mozzarella and figured why not combine them all?! Risks make life more fun. It actually turned out really really well, I think mostly because of the weird addition of cream cheese, which was surprisingly good. A little bit overpowering, I think the proportions could have been better, but overall a good decision!

4 Cheese Grilled Cheese

Where: Mi casa

With: Mi familia

Rating: 8/10

Details: 2 provolone slices filled with parmesan, mozzarella, and a touch of cheddar on whole wheat bread

Count: 2.5/5000

Gotta love an Easter Sunday Grilled Cheese! Since mi madre y hermana are out of town on Spring Break, we are having a pretty low key Easter celebration. Without our the typical big family meal, I had to fend for myself and of course the first thing I saw upon opening the fridge was the vast supply of cheese! So, I figured today would be the perfect day to make my own Grilled Cheese - especially since I just started this whole endeavor and it is on my mind.

The cheese combo in this was incredible, the only downside was the bread, which was too flavorful so the cheeses weren't the highlight. Since provolone was the basis of this cheese combo, it provided a stark contrast to Fridays all American Grilled Cheese. The subtle provolone was accented perfectly by the small sprinkles of parmesan and cheddar, and the mozzarella simply gave the whole mix a creamier texture and flavor. Overall, bravo self! I simply just need different bread.

Grilled Cheese Aspiration

On the first day, Rachel ate 1 and a half Grilled Cheeses. And it was good.

Where: EQ Cafe

With: My roommate, Meredith

Rating: 4.5/10

Details: American Cheese on Wheat Bread, undercooked

Count: 1.5/5000

My Grilled Cheese life aspiration began at a meal like any other; a meal in the East Quad cafeteria with good friends, lively conversation, and bland food. After a long discussion of the current food failure, the topic turned to the next day's exciting meal option: Grilled Cheese. Grilled Cheese day in the caf is a holy day for those with meal plans. This week the build up began about a week in advance when Grilled Cheese appeared on the menu, Meredith and I wasted no time making plans for the glorious meal. As the day approached , Meredith and I texted back and forth, I casually brought up Grilled Cheese in the Bell Tower elevator, and at that fateful lunch before, it was decided: I would begin counting my Grilled Cheeses until I reach 5000. So begins my epic journey. Please, enjoy.