Grilled Cheese +

Greetings Y'All!

It has been far too long.  I have over 400 photos of foods I've made since my last post over six months ago.  I've been so busy and tired, that even though I took loads of pics, I didn't have the time to write and post stuff.  I'm still busy with school and various other courses, plus gardening--I finally have a proper veg garden, not just a patch any more--and just day-to-day stuff.

Anyway, I should be doing homework, but I decided that today is the day I get back to this blog.  Maybe it was this amazing sandwich I made for a late lunch.

Here it is, so easy, quick, filling, and delicious.  And you know I don't make unhealthy stuff.

Cut up some onion--I used half for this one sandwich--and sauté in butter with s&p, and maple syrup.  You want enough maple syrup to make sure all the onion bits are in it.  

Let it all simmer until it gets thick, like a jam.  BTW, you could use this as a condiment on all kinds of stuff.

In another pan make your grilled cheese sandwich.  I used 2 small buttered sourdough rye slices with old cheddar.  Once it's done, put it on a plate and use the same pan to fry an egg.  

Top the ready grilled cheese sandwich with the onion jam, add a slice of ham or bacon, or sausage (which is what I used), or some other tasty pork meat, and add the egg.  

You could just leave it with the onions, but I had a late lunch, so I was hungry.  I'm not hungry any more, but if I had another one of these sandwiches in front of me, I'd eat it.  The maple syrup with the onions was amazing, and its sweetness was yummy enough that I didn't crave dessert.  If you know me, you know that I always want dessert.  Pair this gem with a tasty beer and you're good to take on the world.  I had a glass of Hacker-Pschorr (German).

Cheers!

Fancy Scrambled Eggs

I like the word fancy.  I tend o use it a lot.  

Eggs are tasty, nutritious, easy and quick to make, with endless flavour combinations.  I bought a bag of spinach for crepes, and had lots left over, so I ended up having some raw, and various scrambled eggs for lunch a few days in a row.  I didn't get tired of them, because I changed the ingredients each day, with the exception of the eggs and the spinach.  Here is one of my lunches.  It includes, cherry tomatoes from my back yard, yellow and red ones, spinach, lachsschinken, parmigiano reggiano, s&p, butter.  First melt butter, then add spinach, and cook until it softens and shrinks a lot, then add the  lachsschinken, let it shrink a bit.  I love using  lachsschinken, because of its smoky flavour, but you can use various meats, or skip it all together.  Cut the cherry tomatoes in half, add to the pan and cook until they soften a bit, you can even squish them with your spatula to speed things up.

Add the cheese, and s&p.

Mix it all.

Depending on how you like your eggs, cook accordingly.

I enjoyed the eggs with a slice of toasted rye and butter.

This idea could just as easily be made into an omelette.

Prosciutto di Parma

I love this photo:

I don't have the link for it, but I found another site with a similar photo:

http://agferrarifoods.wordpress.com/tag/prosciutto-di-parma/

I buy Parma prosciutto at an Italian deli, I like it on a plate with other snack type foods, like rye or pumpernickel bread, pickles, sauerkraut, other meats, various vegetables, sometimes cheese.  It's like a sampler plate, but adds up to a meal.  Takes little time to put together, but is filling, healthy, and most importantly yummy!

Pig lard and lardons

I love pig fat.  If you know me, you know that.  I love pig skin, whether it's cooked or roasted or in jelly.  I buy pig lard with the bits at a Polish deli, but sometimes I make my own.  I made some recently.  My bf got me this grease pot, which is for dumping grease into, it has a sieve, so the solids stay on top, then when it solidifies, you can scrape it out and dispose of it, without clogging your plumbing with hot grease.  Naturally when he gave it to me, and I saw it said GREASE on it, I was super excited, thinking it was a pot for my fat.  Then he explained the above to me.  I said, who does that?  Why would you want to throw out lard?  When I was a kid, my grandma always had a jar of home made lard.  Sometimes she would fry rye bread in it, and it was so good.

So every once in a while, I fry rye in lard, and either eat it with my home made sauerkraut, or with sliced dill pickles.  It's insane how good it is.  Just to clarify, dill pickles by my def, have no vinegar, just natural brine.  If you're buying "dill" pickles at the supermarket, read the ingredients.  Also, if you're buying rye at the supermarket, read the ingredients, wheat flour is usually a huge component, and to give the bread a denser feel and "healthier" look, they add caramel colour.  Food regulations should be much stricter, especially labeling.  Somehow though, the gov't seems to think that infringing on our privacy (SOPA/ACTA) is more important than labels on our food.

Here is my story in pictures  :)

Those lardons, skwarki (Polish) or scruncheons, as they call them in Eastern Canada, especially Newfoundland, are so yummy, they are like little crispy squishy sponges filled with pig fat.

Another option is just lard on rye with sea salt, I used maple smoked rock salt from BC:

Give it a try, let me know what you think.
Bon appetit!