Best Grilled Cheese EVER

Yesterday Dan and I auditioned for a tv show. It's basically a competition about who can throw the best dinner party. My friend works for the production company and emailed the application saying "You have to  apply for this". Le sigh. Fine. I didn't actually think they would call. They did. The upside of it was that my friend and her boss came for lunch, the downside of it was that we had to clean all the piles of paper and crap off our counters (why does stuff always accumulate on kitchen counters?!) and then cook lunch on camera. However this also meant I got to make one of my favourite meals ever. Enjoy!

Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

 












- 1 loaf multi-grain type bread
- 1 log goat cheese, room temperature
- 2 portobello mushrooms, sliced
- 1 onion (I used vidalia), sliced
- fresh basil leaves
- butter or margarine, room temperature



1. Throw your onion slices in a pan to caramelize with a bit of EVOO or butter. Keep the heat fairly low, you don't want to fry them. I occasionally add some water to help soften them, stir every few minutes. You want them to turn a lovely golden brown colour as the sugars in the onions caramelize. It should take about 10 minutes or so. 
2. Throw in the sliced portobellos towards the end of the onions and let them soften up as well. 
3. Slice up your bread, butter one side of each slice.
4. Add goat cheese (don't be stingy!) and some of your onion/mushroom mixture. Top this off with a few basil leaves. 
5. Fry that puppy up in a hot pan! Be careful when flipping, it has a propensity to want to fall apart since it's not like traditional cheddar grilled cheese that sticks together naturally. 
6. Take a bite and repeat after me: "Oh.... my..... god....."


We served this with sweet potato fries and garlic aioli. Sorry I don't have pictures of this, we ate it all.......................................................... *insert my embarrassed face here!*


Sweet Potato Fries
- 1 sweet potato/person
- EVOO
- cumin
- dried oregano
- paprika


1. Preheat your oven to 425*.
2. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil. You can get about 2 sweet potatoes onto a sheet. They have a tendency to caramelize a bit and will ruin your cookie sheets if you don't line them. Trust me. 
3. Cut your sweet potatoes into wedges, traditional "fries", rounds, whatever you prefer. 
4. Toss in a bowl with a healthy drizzle of EVOO. You want to coat each fry, but not have it dripping. Add you cumin (I probably do a 1/2 tbsp per sweet potato), a few shakes of dried oregano, and about 1tsp/sweet potato of paprika. (Sorry I've made these so many times I don't use the recipe any more. Just put stuff on till it looks good). Toss again to coat.
5. Spread out in a single layer on your cookie sheet.
6. Bake at 425* for 25 minutes, flipping once half way in between. 


While those are in the oven make your:

Garlic Aioli
- mayonnaise (the shock! I don't make my own!)
- 1 lemon
- freshly ground black pepper
- fresh garlic, not minced out of a jar

1. Throw some mayo in a bowl. Enough for everyone and some extra so you can have an excuse to make more sweet potato fries tomorrow. 
2. Squeeze in the juice of 1 lemon, or relative to the amount of mayo. I think when I made it yesterday I did 1 lemon and 1 cup or cup and a half of mayo. 
3. Grind in some fresh pepper. More than you think you should. 
4. Use your handy dandy garlic press and squash in some fresh garlic. I did about 3 cloves. The more the better as far as I'm concerned!
5. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed!

Enjoy everyone!