How to Make an Amazing Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Start with the right ingredients, blah blah. You know the deal. Good bread. Good cheese. Butter in a frying pan or spread on the bread (I prefer to have it in the pan). I use Monterrey Jack cheese and I sprinkle some dried red pepper flakes in there. So I guess it's like pepper Jack.

Anyway, the Amazing Part is using a lid while pan-frying at low heat (on my gas stove I set it between 2 and 3 on the dial which goes from lo to 1-6 to hi). I use a glass lid so I can see what's going on in there and because all the lids I have are glass.

Why use a lid? The lid will keep in the heat and moisture, which means the entire under-lid area (i.e. not just the bread-pan interface) will get pretty hot and humid and stay that way while you cook. Why is this good? The cheese will melt faster and more evenly. The bread won't dry out as much, so you'll be more likely to get the fried-on-the-outside, fresh-on-the-inside bread texture that is so good. In other words, it makes both parts of the grilled cheese sandwich (the bread and the cheese) even better. So just do it, unless you like dry, crispy grilled cheese sandwiches with chewy cheese in the middle.

Now that we're both believers in the lid method, here's how to make it work for you. Watch the sandwich and peek at the down-side of the bread every couple minutes. During one of the times you're peeking (before it's done!), smear some butter on that top piece of bread. It's okay if it's in chunks or pats or whatever. Just put some on there and cover the pan with the lid again. Let that butter soften, then lift the lid and smear it around the top piece of bread with a knife or spatula. Make sure it gets near the edges so they don't crisp too quickly.

Once you've got a good golden/golden brown thing going on with the bottom piece of bread, flip it and do the same wait-and-peek thing on the other side. The second side will not take as long to cook. THE SECOND SIDE WILL NOT TAKE AS LONG TO COOK. Really. It won't. Unless you turn the heat down, that is. But don't. Just leave the heat the same. It's low, right? Right. The cheese inside should already be melty and you're just trying to toast the outside of that second piece of bread and push the cheese into gooey territory. So keep an eye on it. I can't tell you how many potentially perfect grilled cheese sandwiches I've screwed up by near-burning the second side because I forgot it'd cook faster than the first side (okay it's probably like four sandwiches), but each failed sandwich attempt was pretty disheartening.

You probably already knew that the second side will not take as long to cook, so let's conclude. The whole point of this post was the use a lid part.  So as long as you got that part down, you're golden. Enjoy!

Tzatziki

Tzatziki is a thick, yogurt-based dip that pairs well with pita bread or vegetables. It's creamy, cool, and hearty, and it's a tasty way to include some yogurt in your diet (protein + probiotics!).

There are a ton of recipes available, and they all have some basic ingredients in common: Greek yogurt, cucumber, garlic, and dill. Then there is a group of folks who add lemon juice to the tzatziki, and a second group of folks who add vinegar instead. Some recipes even call for some of both. I used fresh lemon juice (about half of the lemon) and I liked the flavor. My first batch of tzatziki turned out well, except for one thing: I added too much garlic. I can't remember the last time I added too much garlic to a dish, but I really knocked it out of the park with this stuff. I think it's because I'm used to adding fresh garlic to dishes that will be sauteed/cooked, and I forgot how much kick uncooked garlic has. Kapow! So I'd recommend two small cloves or even just one medium sized clove per one cup of yogurt in your tzatziki recipe.

I didn't use a specific recipe to make tzatziki. I read four or five recipes, drew some conclusions, and filled in the gaps with intuition. All of the recipes I used were for a chunky tzatziki, meaning the cucumbers were chopped/diced by hand, not pureed in a food processor. The volume of yogurt and chopped cucumbers should be about the same. Here's what I used to make my batch:

Just over 1 cup Greek yogurt
Just over 1 cup diced cucumber (peeled, seeded, diced, then measured)
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 small garlic cloves, minced (I used more and regretted it! I recommend mixing in one minced clove; you can always add more!)
3/4 tsp dried dill (from a spice jar; all the recipes call for fresh dill and I don't have any)
Dash of salt

Also, since the yogurt "leaks" water and the cucumbers have a lot of water in them, tzatziki gets a little watery if you don't prepare for it. I poured off all the water in the yogurt container before scooping out the yogurt. After dicing the cucumber, I wrapped the diced pieces in paper towels to let the excess moisture soak out while I prepped other stuff. The next day, the tzatziki had leaked a little water but was still pretty thick. This recipe made 4-6 good-sized servings. It wasn't enough for a huge party bowl but it's plenty for a small gathering, or in my case, snacks for a few days. Enjoy!

Buttery delicious

On Saturday night we went to a potluck / movie night party at a friend's house. That afternoon we were preparing dishes to bring. I made a chocolate chip cookie pie (I'll post the recipe soon, it's a knockout) and Ike made some mashed yams. As he was preparing the yams, he spooned some out of the dish and let me sample it. It was so good, and it tasted like he'd put butter in it.

"How much butter did you put in these?" I asked him. They tasted so buttery.

He looked at me and smiled guiltily.

"Really, how much? I bet my cookie pie has more butter in it than the yams, come on, that recipe calls for six tablespoons," I said.

He just kept staring, shifting his eyes. So I looked in the fridge. When I'd finished prepping the pie, there was a stick of almost six tablespoons (I'd left that one because I needed six) and a stick of two tablespoons (I'd taken six from that stick). Neither of those partial sticks were anywhere to be seen.

I looked over at him. "You added both of them? That's almost eight tablespoons of butter! You put a whole damn stick of butter in there?" A whole stick of butter for four yams in a little glass dish. Dayum.

We both started laughing at this point. "Well, it's delicious!" I said. Buttery delicious.

New Stoneware Set

Image from Target.com.

I swear we walked into Target needing only to buy ginger ale or something, but we walked out with ginger ale, the stoneware set you see pictured to the right, and probably six other things we weren't planning to buy.

We got the set on clearance for $35. I think those are the first retail-purchased dishes we have since moving to California. I bought some "College 08" stoneware dishes (guess what year), and they are pretty plain (white with green accents). All of our other dishware has come from Craigslisting or Goodwilling. I've never owned square plates before. They don't really fit in the dish drainer very well, but they look badass so whatever. The mugs are pretty big and the handles are big enough for my whole hand. I usually feel like I have big lumberjack hands (which I kinda do) when I pick up mugs by their handles, but this set makes me feel very little-lady-like. I think the plates will look fantastic with brownies on them or green salads.

Pest-free pants

I'm not exactly sure how, but a spot or two of cat piss got on a pair of my jeans. It wasn't that bad, so I figured I'd just Febreze them and toss 'em in the wash. A few days later, Ike and I were reorganizing the living room and investigating the spot on our new couch that had gotten cat piss on it. Over the past few days, I'd put some baking soda + water paste on the couch a few times and vacuumed it up, and the smell was pretty much gone.

Ike: "It's pretty good. I think it might just need to air out. You know, when you put the baking soda water on there, it's still wet and maybe some time left open would finish it off."
Marth: "Yeah, I think that's a good idea. But can I Febreze it? That should dry pretty quickly and might help the residual smell."
Ike: "Sure, I think that'd be fine."

I go grab the bottle of Febreze from the bathroom. Brandishing the bottle, I say to Ike...

Marth: "We really don't have much of this left."
Ike: "That's not Febreze."
Marth: "What?"
Ike: "That's soapy garlic water I use on my plants as a pest repellant."

*pause*

Ike: "Well, those jeans of yours probably don't have any spider mites on them."

Following this conversation, he relabeled the bottle. Now I need to find the actual Febreze.

Headaches

Rats
Sometimes I think the things in the attic might be larger than rats. I hear them moving around sometimes and they're louder (heavier) than I expect rats to sound. Other times they make rat-like noises and I'm reassured that our traps will catch the head of something instead of just the arm of something. We went up in the attic on Friday and our traps were empty. Ike moved them so they'd be against walls; perhaps we will be successful next time we check.

Cats
We've come to expect certain behaviors from Ceri. She is a very shy cat and is severely affected by separation anxiety or something when we go on vacations. So when we came home from traveling a week ago, we weren't surprised that she was freaking out. No, what surprised us was her insistence on hiding behind the stove whenever we left the house or went to sleep. Lucky for us, the stove doesn't have rigid gas pipes attached to it, so we can slide it out from the wall. It's still not fun to move a stove, though. We put a big piece of cardboard between the stove and the wall behind it, but we had to take it off when we bake things, and last night we forgot to replace it. She was back there again this morning, ugh. We've had to move it at least four times since coming back. If she gets back there again, I might just leave her and see what happens.

Drips
The CatGenie was dripping before we left; gotta see if that's still happening. It's had a bunch of other issues since then, so I forgot about the drip. The hall bathroom toilet tank has a leak, and the shower in that bathroom does, too. We know what's causing the shower one, though. The hot water knob is stripped, so it's hard/impossible to shut off completely. We have some new knobs for the hot water and for the bath/shower toggle. That knob hasn't worked properly in over a month, and it'll be nice to be able to use the bath function of the tub (even though I haven't taken a bath since I was was...what, 18?). I guess it'd just be useful for foot-soaking or something. Unrelated to leaks: Ike replaced the shower head, and the new one is huge and rain-like. I really like it.

Tasty greenery

How do you make a nature-loving, mostly vegetarian girl happy? Grow her a salad. This was actually a joint project but Ike did most of the work. Spinach and all kinds of lettuce! Nom!