Ingredients

Grilled Cheese

• White Mountain Bread (or other fresh white bread from bakery)
• Sharp Cheddar Cheese block
• Unsalted Butter (softened)

Tomato Soup

• 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, very thinly sliced
• 4 (or more) cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1 28 oz can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes
• 1 14 oz can stewed tomatoes
• 1 cup chicken broth or water
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 1/4 tsp celery seed
• 1/4 tp dried oregano
• 1 cup fresh basil, chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Soup

1. Heat butter and olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.
2. Add tomatoes, water or broth, cream, and spices. Break up tomatoes (or be brave and squeeze them in your fist!), bring to a boil and reduce heat to a moderate simmer. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
   – this is a good time to get your grilled cheese ingredients ready –
3. Transfer 1/3 of the soup to a food processor or blender (careful not to overfill!) and blend until purée. Repeat with remaining soup until all soup is blended. Return to stovetop to keep warm.

Grilled Cheese

1. Preheat cast iron skillet to medium-high heat.
2. Spread both sides of bread slices with softened butter – be generous!
3. Add a single layer of cheddar cheese slices to one side of the bread so the bread is fully covered. Place the other slice on top
4. Place the sandwich in the skillet and leave it alone for at least a couple minutes. You should hear it sizzle when it hits the pan, but be sure it’s not too hot that it will brown too quickly. It should cook for at least 3 minutes on each side without burning. When in doubt, turn the heat lower an give it more time.
5. Sear the sandwich on each side for about 4-5 minutes. The sides should be a golden brown, and the cheese should begin to shine and droop. That’s when you know it’s time!

Slice in half and serve on a plate with a hot bowl of Tomato Soup!

It’s January in Florida, which means the weather has finally taken a break from it’s perpetual heat blasting, just long enough to allow cool temperatures to make way for cold-weather cravings. Enter, homemade soup!

But we’re not after just any soup. We want a rich, creamy, dunkable soup. One that feels nutritious, because well… it’s tomato-based.

Let’s ignore the excessive amounts of butter, cheese and bread that go along with it. These are a required accompaniment. A much needed dunk vessel, if you will.

The Bread

If you don’t have a Publix in your area (first of all, I’m sorry…), I’m sure you have something similar, with a bakery, where you can buy the equivalent of White Mountain Bread. This bread comes as an oblong crusty loaf, about 4-5 inches high (which creates the perfect long and tall but thin sandwich slices). The top is dusted with flour (hence the “White Mountain” name) and it typically comes pre-sliced.

I am not kidding you, I have memories of being at my best friend’s house growing up, and her mom would buy this bread. We would take a plain slice of White Mountain Bread, roll it up end to end like a burrito, and voila, after-school snack!

The Cheese

This is not going to turn into the great cheese debate. I cannot debate cheese. I love all cheese. There are few cheeses I could imagine NOT tasting good melted between bread!

I don’t care about any rules of calling things “classic”. My aim here was to make a grilled cheese as “from scratch” as necessary in order to feel better about eating the (not-so-healthy) ingredients. I get some points for that, right?

Ok so this is a long way of saying, I didn’t want to just use Kraft singles this time – I’m sorry! There is ALWAYS a time and place for the American Kraft single grilled cheese. This just did not feel like the time, nor place. This was an attempt at, let’s say a “partially elevated” version of the classic grilled cheese?

That is, using White Mountain Bread instead of say, Wonder Bread, and Sharp Cheddar Cheese instead of Kraft Singles… now that’s my version of an elevated dish!

Slice fresh pieces of sharp cheddar from the block. This creates a perfectly thick and gooey singe-layer of cheese for your sandwich. The sharpness adds just enough bite to break the thick bread and butter exterior, then you dunk that crusty gooey goodness into fresh creamy tomato soup!

The Soup

Please, use good tomatoes. Canned tomatoes, fine. Good canned tomatoes – please! That really is all I have to say on the matter. San Marzano’s whole peeled tomatoes is where it’s at, ok, we know this.

Also, word of warning.. that “max. fill” line on your blender is there for a very good reason… just sayin. Do yourself a favor and use a full sized blender or food processor. My Ninja worked like a charm.

The “Grill”

Rule #1: Crust to crust is a must! You know it. Please don’t try to put cold butter on bread.. c’mon now. Nuke it a little in the microwave if you have to.. the dainty white mountain bread will thank you. It should slather –  crust all the way to crust – ON BOTH SIDES! Slices of cheddar from the block perfectly cover a slice of mountain bread with enough overhang to just come over the crust. Close the face. Grill! If you have enough butter on the bread, you don’t need to also butter your skillet – but I mean…

I love to make grilled cheese on a cast iron skillet. I love to cook on a cast iron skillet. Although I admit sometimes the clean up gets the better of me. But grilled cheese is basically frying butter, it’s one of few things I will cook on the skillet that I don’t feel needs to be washed afterward. So why not? I once read that butter has enough fat in it to prevent it from growing bacteria if left at room temperature… now I’m one of those “butter on the counter” people.

Keep the heat at a safely low temperature because you can always increase the heat, but no on wants a burnt grilled cheese.

I would start around medium, keep an eye on it. You want to give it time in the pan for the cheese to melt through, and you should be able to do this without covering it, so that you get perfect brownness on each side by the time the cheese is starting to bubble around the edges a bit. But you can choose to dome it if you want to speed it up. I swear mine only came out so good because I had a tomato explosion going on in my kitchen meanwhile, so I immediately turned the heat way down (after it had already browned on both sides), and continued to cook it low and slow.

This is good. I mean… I was proud. I wasn’t anticipating this to be as perfect as it was. The concept, so simple. The taste, so good.

The crunch, the goo, the dunk – it’s grilled cheese season! Get on it!