Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – Yum!

By Chef Diane

My grandfather went to Mississippi State University, as did my father, my brother, and my son.  I was the black sheep of the family I suppose, but they didn’t have a nursing program.  What they do have is studies in Agriculture, and that includes raising cows for dairy, and making cheese.  In fact it was originally known as The Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science.  The sell the cheese they make only once a year by mail order, and being the strong supportive alumni my father is, he orders several boxes each year for Christmas gifts.  I am usually given a round ball of Edam Cheese, a nice mild flavored cheese, my son gets a hot, spicy cheese, and my parents get some Cheddar cheese.  They are all made in molds, and dipped in wax.  They are all delicious, but a little difficult to slice.   This year I decided to take my cheese to the local grocery store and asked them to slice it for me.  I had no longer brought it home from the store, when my father asked me to bring some over to my mother.  Apparently my father had given away all the Edam cheese, and she didn’t even get a taste.  I took her half the ball of sliced cheese, and in return, my father gave me a block of cheddar.  I took it to get sliced, and brought it home and made a grilled cheese sandwich.  Words cannot describe the deliciousness.  How I make them is to melt the butter on a frying pan, then put a piece of white bread to coat with the butter, pull it out and lay another piece in, making sure it is coated too.  Then I laid a slice of the cheddar on top of the piece of bread in the pan, and covered it with the previously coated bread.  I cook it on medium heat, just to melt the cheese and keep the bread from burning.  After a few minutes I flip it to brown the other side until both sides are golden brown.

I was in heaven!  It was so good, that when anyone came over, I offered to fix one for them!  Since the block is really large, I took half of it back to my daddy so he could share in the wonderfulness too.  Normally, a block of cheddar would last him a while, however since this was sliced for him, he went through it rather quickly, and luckily had another last block of cheddar, which he offered to split with me if I took it to get sliced.  The second time the slices were thicker, which worried me, but it actually made them even better!

According to punchbowl.com, the classic American grilled cheese sandwich emerged in the 1920s when inexpensive cheese and affordable sliced bread became available. It is now a staple in cafés, diners, and school cafeterias across the country.  Chefs today try to improve on the grilled cheese sandwich.  Click here for some different takes on their recopies:  http://www.womansday.com/food-recipes/10-greatest-grilled-cheese-sandwiches-71411

For me it’s just a simple white bread and cheddar or American slice of cheese, and maybe a side of tomato soup.

This month is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich month, so you have plenty of time to enjoy this great sandwich any time of the day for a whole month!

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National Soup Month - 2013

Celebrating National Soup Month in Images

By Terry Orr

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Pepper Pot Soup Day

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By Chef Diane

According to holidayinsites.com, During the Revolutionary war, the Continental army was camped at Valley Forge. The winter was cold and harsh. Conditions were deplorable. Food was often scarce. George Washington asked his army's chef to prepare a meal for the army that would both warm them, and boost their moral. The chef found scraps of tripe, small bits of meat and some peppercorn. He mixed this in with some other ingredients, and created Pepper Pot soup, also known as "Philadelphia Pepper Pot soup”. The hot, and somewhat spicy soup, was well received by the troops. It was called "the soup that won the war”.

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Originally tripe was a main ingredient of this soup, but today, you can substitute with chicken or beef. Here is a recipe from allrecipes.com for the traditional soup, try some today to warm you up.  It just might help you win a war too.

PEPPER POT SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1 pound honeycomb tripe or chicken or beef

5 slices bacon, diced

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped celery

3 leeks, chopped

1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped

2 green bell peppers, diced

2 quarts beef stock

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 bay leaf

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 large potato, peeled and diced

2 large carrots, diced

4 tablespoons margarine

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions

1.         Place the tripe or other meat that you have selected to use in a saucepan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and turn off the heat. Allow the meat to cool a bit in the water, and then drain and rinse. Cut into 1/4 inch pieces.

2.         In a large heavy kettle, saute the bacon until clear. Add the onion, celery, leeks, parsley, and green peppers; saute until tender.

3.         Stir in beef stock, thyme, marjoram, cloves, red pepper flakes, bay leaf, and black pepper. Bring the kettle to a boil, and turn down to a simmer. Cook, covered, until meat is very tender, about 2 hours.

4.         Add the diced potato and carrots, and cook for an additional 20 minutes.

5.         Prepare the roux by stirring the flour into the melted butter or margarine, and cooking for a moment on the stove. When the soup is done to your liking, stir in the roux. Simmer, stirring all the while, until the soup thickens a bit. Correct the seasonings.

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National Soup Month

Who wants a bowl?
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By Diane Forrest,

On a cold winter's day nothing will warm you up like a nice hot bowl of soup.  Soup is a warm food made with meat, vegetables, a liquid such as water or milk, and sometimes pasta or rice.  Then it is boiled together to make a delicious meal.   There are two types, thick or thin, an sometimes thick soups are called stews.  I have never been much of a soup eater, I prefer eating with a fork, and it’s even better when it crunches, letting me know I am eating something.  In the past year I have been eating more soup because my dad has been doing more of the cooking, and when they invite me over to eat, if I am hungry, I eat soup.  I have to admit it isn’t that bad.  It warms you and fills you up.  Soups aren't very expensive, and they can last for many meals.

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There are many different soups, hot soups, cold soups, even soups made from fruit.  In the 19th Century a chemist at the Campbell company invented a way to condense soup to make it even less expensive and add more soup by adding your own milk or water.  The bestselling canned soups are Tomato, Cream of Mushroom and Chicken Noodle.

Chicken Soup is also great to have if you are sick or just not feeling well.  When my husband was having dental problems he lived on Subway's chicken noodle soup.  I wish I had my daddy's recipe then, would have saved me alot of trips to subway!

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January is National Soup month, and I was able to pry my daddy's famous Chicken Noodle Soup recipe for you.  In just 30 minutes you will have a hot delicious filling meal.  If you don't have time to fix your own soup, you can always open a can or head to Olive Garden for some endless soup, salad and bread sticks.  Keep warm this winter by trying some of your favorite soups.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons (2 turns around the pan) extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped (Daddy uses the already shredded carrots)
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 2 ribs celery, chopped
• 2 bay leaves, fresh or dried
• Salt and pepper
• 6 cups good quality chicken stock
• 1 pound (the average weight of 1 package) chicken breast tenders, diced
• 1/2 pound wide egg noodles

Directions

1. Place a large pot over moderate heat and add extra-virgin olive oil. Work close to the stove and add vegetables to the pot as you chop, in the order they are listed.
2. Add bay leaves and season vegetables with salt and pepper, to taste.
3. Add stock to the pot and raise flame to bring liquid to a boil. Add diced chicken tenderloins, return soup to a boil, and reduce heat back to moderate.
4. Cook chicken 2 minutes and add noodles.
5. Cook soup an additional 6 minutes or until noodles are tender and remove soup from the heat. Remove bay leaves and serve.
6. This is a thick soup. Add up to 2 cups of water if you like chicken soup with lots of broth.

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Pepper Pot Soup

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By Diane Forrest,

With the start of winter, something that is sure to warm your insides is a nice bowl or cup of warm soup.   To make things even hotter you can try some pepper pot soup, which is loaded with peppers.   Below is a recipe for some famous pepper pot soup.  It hasn't been around very long.  It has quite an amazing history.  The winter of 1777-1778 was extremely harsh.  This happened to be during the Revolutionary War.  Food was scarce, and soldiers were hungry.  The local farmers were selling their produce to the British, because they were skeptical of the currency being offered by George Washington's troops.

It was up to Christopher Ludwick, the baker general of the Continental Army, to gather whatever food he could find to in order to feed the soldiers. He found some tripe, some pepper corn and a few vegetables and put together this stew.

Tripe, for those of you who don't know, is the stomach lining of the cow.  Of course it is also in other animals, but the one from the cow is the one that is mostly eaten.  For human consumption, tripe must be washed and meticulously cleaned. It is ideal to boil it for two or three hours in water with salt (1 tablespoon per liter of water) to soften it and also clean it in the process.

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This soup served its purpose.  The men were saved from starvation, and warmed them up from the cold.  With their stomachs full and their moral boosted, they went on to battle and won the war, in fact it was said that this soup is the soup that won the war.

These days, you can use chicken or beef in place of the tripe, but today, on Pepper Pot Day, try warming up your insides with a hot spicy bowl of soup, you may even win a war of your own.

Philadelphia Pepper Pot Soup

Ingredients

• 1 pound honeycomb tripe
• 5 slices bacon, diced
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 3 leeks, chopped
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, diced
• 2 quarts beef stock
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 large potato, peeled and diced
• 2 large carrots, diced
• 4 tablespoons margarine
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Place the tripe or other meat that you have selected to use in a saucepan, and cover with water. Bring to a boil, and turn off the heat. Allow the meat to cool a bit in the water, and then drain and rinse. Cut into 1/4 inch pieces.
2. In a large heavy kettle, sauté the bacon until clear. Add the onion, celery, leeks, parsley, and green peppers; sauté until tender.
3. Stir in beef stock, thyme, marjoram, cloves, red pepper flakes, bay leaf, and black pepper. Bring the kettle to a boil, and turn down to a simmer. Cook, covered, until meat is very tender, about 2 hours.
4. Add the diced potato and carrots, and cook for an additional 20 minutes.
5. Prepare the roux by stirring the flour into the melted butter or margarine, and cooking for a moment on the stove. When the soup is done to your liking, stir in the roux. Simmer, stirring all the while, until the soup thickens a bit. Correct the seasonings.

National Seafood Bisque Day

By Diane Forrest,

In the Spring of 1985 I began working at the Eola Hotel in town.  It is a beautiful hotel with a flair for detail.  The elevators had operators in them to take you to the floor of your choice, the waitress all wore green dresses with white aprons, and hot tea was served in a teacup on a saucer with a doily on top.  The movie, The North and South was being filmed in town, and all the stars were staying at The Eola.  Patrick Swazye, Genie Frances, David Carradine, Jaquline Bisset to name a few.  I had just started as a waitress, and had never heard of some of the foods they ordered, but I quickly got educated.

Someone had ordered the shrimp bisque, and when I went to claim my order I saw a wonderful looking dish.  It was a bowl, covered with a type of pie crust with steam rising from the top.  I delivered it to the guest and remained close by to catch a glimpse of what was beneath the pastry.  It was a thick creamy soup with bite sized pieces of shrimp floating around.   It looked heavenly.

Today is National Seafood Bisque day.  Bisque is a smooth, creamy, highly-seasoned soup of French origin, classically based on a strained broth (coulis) of crustaceans.  It can be made from lobster, crab, shrimp or crayfish. Also, creamy soups made from roasted and puréed vegetables are sometimes called bisques.

If you have never tried bisque before, I would like to encourage you to have some today, on National Seafood Bisque day, if you aren't near a restaurant that serves it, here is a quick and easy recipe for you to try.  Enjoy!

ANNA'S SEAFOOD BISQUE

2 lb. shrimp (should be 2 c. after peeling)

1 lb. lump crabmeat (you may use claw meat)

1 can cream of celery soup

1 c. half & half

1 lg. can evaporated milk

1 tsp. lemon pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1/2 lb. processed cheese (optional)

1/2 tsp. Creole seasoning or more to taste

Sauté shrimp with all ingredients except crabmeat and cheese.

Cook 15-20 minutes, then add crabmeat and cheese.

Cook 5 minutes more.

Serve as a soup or over rice with French bread.

Serves 3-6.