Comfort Food Party

Yesterday I was battling a case of the Monday blues due to an excessively raucous weekend. The cure could be found in my favorite comfort food of this winter season, grilled cheese and tomato soup. I've been working on my recipes so I can come up with one that I'm really proud of and I'm pretty sure I found it last night.

Gruyere Grilled Cheese
Ingredients:
Sourdough bread
Cremini Mushrooms
Gruyere cheese
Fontina Cheese
Fresh spinach
Butter
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

What you might notice about my ingredients list is that I haven't shown any quantities for any of the ingredients. The fun of making a grilled cheese is that you can make it as cheesy or buttery or (in this case) mushroom-ey as you want. There aren't any rules so don't be so anal.

First off, slice the mushrooms. Heat a pan until it's really hot and add a teaspoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter to the pan. Add mushrooms with salt and pepper and cover. Stir regularly. If the pan is really hot, the mushrooms will brown on the outside and have a really nice texture on the inside. You'll see that the mushrooms "drink" up most of the fat. It's ok, don't add more fat or you'll have greasy mushrooms. The mushrooms will release some of their delicious, earthy moisture after they've cooked for a few minutes.

I used a vegetable peeler to cut very thin slices of the gruyere. I think this helps the cheese to melt better. I basically tore the fontina into chunks. This cheese doesn't have any problem melting (which is part of why it's so great for grilled cheese).

Put the cheese, mushrooms, and spinach onto the sandwich and close. Add butter to the outside of the bread and cook in a saute pan or a sandwich press. (or, if you're like my awesome friend Lindsey, you'll use a waffle iron!)

After eating this sandwich, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat another grilled cheese unless it has gruyere and mushrooms. This grilled cheese will change the way feel about life.

Tomato Soup
Ingredients:
1.5 TBL butter or olive oil
2 Medium Onions
3 Stalks Celery
3 Carrots
5 Cloves Garlic
2-3 TBL Tomato Paste
1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 - 28 oz. can san marzano tomatoes
1/4 cup heavy cream
15-20 fresh basil leaves

Heat the butter or oil in a dutch oven on medium-high heat. Add diced carrots, celery, and onion (also known as a mirepoix) to the fat along with salt and let it sweat for 8-10 minutes. Add garlic and cook for a minute. Add tomato paste and cook for another 5-7 minutes. This is the base for your soup.

Add the chicken broth and the can of tomatoes. Stir to break up the tomatoes then cover and cook for about 15-25 minutes depending on how much texture you want the vegetables to have.

This is the base that I like to use for all tomato soups. From here you can add chipotles, curry, fennel seeds, or many other flavors to make the soup take on whatever characteristic you would like.

For this soup (which I would call a standard tomato soup) you add the cream and basil. Use a stick blender to blend the soup until smooth (you could use a regular blender or a food processor).

Tomato soup is really easy to make, delicious to eat, and pretty good for you if you can go easy on the oil and cream. I'd recommend never buying it again.

Last time I made tomato soup and grilled cheese I was discussing the nature of comfort food. I think the point is to make your friends and family feel comfortable and comforted (a pretty noble cause when you enter the kitchen). I hope that sometime soon you can get in the kitchen to make something delicious and comforting for your friends and family.

xo,
Levi