Caramelized Onions and Grilled Cheese

Is there a food you go to when your sick? Comfort food as they call it. For some, it's mac 'n cheese others mom's homemade chicken noodle soup. For me, it's mom's grilled cheese sandwiches.

While we are in the middle of the holidays I have found myself down & out which calls for comfort food. So I went straight for the ooey gooey goodness of grilled cheese, but instead of a simple American cheese, bread & butter sandwich like I was used to growing up I opted to "adultized" this sandwich.

I caramelized some onions and threw it in the middle of two different cheeses for this amazingly delicious sandwich. 

Recipe

Pre-time: 15 minutes

Servings: 1

Ingredients

2 slices of Swiss cheese

1 slice of Provolone cheese

2 slices of bread

1/4 cups of chopped sweet onions

1/4 cups of red onions

2 Tbsp of butter

Instructions

Chop your onions and throw them into the skillet on Medium-High with 1 Tbsp of butter. Let them cook until slightly brown. Remove from skillet and set to the side.

Butter bread and place in skillet on medium heat. Place one slice of Swiss cheese on both ends of bread. Add the Provolone cheese to one side and the caramelized onions on the other. When cheese starts to melt combine both sides of the sandwich together and continue to cook on both sides until cheese is fully melted and bread is to desired tenderness. 

Remove from heat, let cool slightly and enjoy!

Do you have a favorite way of making a grilled cheese sandwich? Leave it in the comments below!

Apple Pie

Apples are a staple in my family. Mostly my dad loves them, but I'm finding if cooked right my taste for them is changing.

So over the Thanksgiving holiday I knew that I needed to please the masses with dessert options. Yes, there was the traditional pumpkin pie, but I decided to go for an apple pie as well. I had hopes that this would be as good as a dutch apple pie you can find at any local store, but it was found to be even better.

I'm not sure if the main reason is because it was made with all natural ingredients or from hard work, but none the less everyone loved it over the pumpkin pie which in my house has never happened.

You can find the recipe for the dog biscuits also shown Here!

Recipe

Pre-time: 30 minutes

Servings: 6-8

Ingredients for Crust

You can either buy the pre-made crust of follow the instructions for homemade crust here!

Ingredients For Filling

3-4 medium Granny Smith apples peeled, cored & sliced
3/4 cups of sugar
2 TBSP of flour
3/4 Tsp of cinnamon
1/4 Tsp of ground nutmeg
1/4 Tsp of salt
1 TBSP of lemon juice

Instructions

Pre- heat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and lemon just in a large bowl assuring that the apples are covered well.

Place crust in pie pan, add apple mixture and begin adding a top layer of dough however you would like. I chose to make a basket weave. 

Place in oven for 40-45 minutes. I added a butter wash to the top 10 minutes before removing from the oven. 

Let cool and enjoy!

Homemade Pie Crust

This is a simple pie crust that I found very easy to make & brought back many memories as a kid baking with my mom.

You can reference this anytime you want to make some kind of pie that requires a dough crust just as I do!

Ingredients

2 sticks of cold butter (some may use shortening, but I prefer butter)
3 cups of flour
1 TBSP of salt
1 TBSP of sugar
1/2 cup of water

Instructions

Place all the dry ingredients into a bowl and mix well. 

Cut up butter and add it to the flour mixture. You can mix this in a food processor or kitchen aid mixer, however I don't have the luxury of either so I went old school by using my hands to mix. Slowly add the water until you get a ball of dough.

Cut dough in half, place one-half on floured surface and begin to roll out with rolling pin. Remember to add flour to your rolling pin as well.

Take the first rolled out piece of dough and place it in your pie pan, there should be extra overlaying the edges to assure that you are able to cover the whole bottom of the pan. You can cut the extra off and add it to your second ball of dough.

Take the second ball of dough and roll it out just as you did the first. This will become your top layer of crust for pies such as apple or cherry. Once rolled out you can cut into strips to make a basket weave top layer or you can cut a hole in the center depending on your preference. 

For apple pie I added 1 TBSP of Cinnamon as well. 

Crab Mac N' Cheese

Lobster Mac N' Cheese is a big thing in New England. When I visited Maine last year, I figured it was a must try, since we don't really have them here in the Philadelphia area.

Honestly I don't love lobster, I'm a crab kind of girl. So when I bought a container of pre-shelled crab I couldn't decide what to make until someone asked for Mac N' Cheese.

This isn't anything like what you will find in New England and was probably one of the hardest and easiest experiments so far. My biggest task was learning how to make the cheese sauce, the worst part was not have many different cheese's within the house to really go all out on this. But in the end it worked out & my family loved it!

Recipe

Pre-time: 30 mins

Servings: 4-6

Ingredients

1/2 container of crab meat (about 4oz)
Box of pasta
2 - 3 cups of cheese (I used cheeder, swiss, mozzarella and feta)
4 tsp of flour
1 cup milk

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Bring noodles to a boil, drain and add butter or olive oil to prevent sticking. 

Add 1/2 a cup of milk to a sauce pan, add flour and stir in rest of milk on medium heat. Once milk is boiling add cheeses and continue to stir.Add crab meat to cheese sauce once cheese is melted.

Pour cheese over noodles and place into a casserole dish, add a layer of cheese on top and place in oven for 20 minutes.

Let cool and enjoy!

Let me know how this turned out for you in the comments below!