Posted by parker
11 months ago
This grilled cheese sandwich has flavor beyond that of the cheese.
- 2 slices bread (rye is great)
- 2 slices swiss cheese
- Ham
- Peppers (optional)
- Grated mozzarella cheese (optional)
- Oregano
- Olive oil (optional)
Construct the sandwich bottom-up, as usual, in this order: one slice of bread, one slice of swiss, ham. Now sprinkle oregano over the ham. If you wish, slice some strips from a bell pepper and place them over the ham; you may also sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese in here. Because the mozzarella melts faster than the swiss, it's a good glue in the middle of the sandwich, but you won't suffer from leaving it out if you don't have any handy. Now top it off with the other slice of swiss and the final slice of bread.
If you grill this on a skillet, you can brush the outsides of the bread slices with olive oil (butter or margarine is an acceptable substitute,) but if you have a sandwich grill of some sort you can skip it.
What else can you stuff in here?
Posted by parker
11 months ago
I confess to being mystified at why oregano comes in such large canisters relative to almost every other spice in the rack. When cumin comes in tiny little thimbles barely big enough to hold six quarters, oregano comes in tubs you could use to carry water up Mt. Washington. Maybe it's frightfully easy to grow, and supply so out-strips demand that suppliers try to keep costs down by minimizing the packaging-to-oregano ratio.
I've started actively looking for places to use my oregano overstock, and I've found that nearly anything that tastes plain to start with is improved with a light sprinkling of oregano. The trick is to add the oregano at a point where it won't get burned in the cooking.
For example, I'll sprinkle it over pizza sauce before adding toppings and cheese. I've tried adding it to ground meat for burgers, but this needs to happen before the burger is shaped. I've even added it to boiling water while cooking pasta, with relatively unnoticeable effect. (Bullion cubes, or just a teaspoon of Mrs. Dash, another spice I'm trying to get rid of, it much more effective with pasta boiling.)
The best oregano destination, though, is a grilled-cheese sandwich. The oregano, for the record, goes inside the sandwich, as I'll explain next...
Posted by parker
about 1 year ago
I am always looking for minimal-work dishes, so this easy way of making tasty sweet potato "fries" appealed to me immediately.
No point in listing ingredients, because nothing needs measuring. You need at least one yam; two would work, depending on your hunger. Preheat the oven to something over 400° F.
Peeling is optional, but you should wash the yam if you're not peeling it. Slice off the north and south poles, then take off slabs cutting north to south, so you have a stack of yam-slices the full height of the spud. Slice across those to make your sticks.
Now, lightly grease a cookie sheet, and array the slices on the sheet. If you have a means of spraying, say, olive oil on the sticks (a Misto would do the trick), you can oil them as well. Then use a shaker to lightly salt the whole sheet. (You can season them other ways--seasoning salt leaps to mind, but anything you can invent out of your spice rack is fair game. Tell me if you come up with something nifty.)
Now put the sheet in the oven for eight or nine minutes. After that time, pull it out and use a spatula to flip the fries. (Don't do this one-by-one and don't worry too much if one or two wind up on the same side they started on.) You can re-season at this point as well, if you want. Another eight to ten minutes should have the fries in good shape!
Let 'em cool a bit before eating.
