Grilled Cheese Rolls

A couple of days ago on my way to work I stopped at Trader Joe's to grab something to eat. While I was checking out, the woman working looked at me and said, "You must be a good journalist!" I looked at her with a little confusion on my face and repeated, "Journalist?" Just on the off chance that I misheard her. She said, "Yeah, do you do any writing?" I thought for a second and answered, "As a matter of fact, I do write a food blog." Then she smiled and said, "You keep writing that, you are very good at it!"

Thanks Trader Joe's lady, for having confidence in my blog-writing abilities.

The end of August is nearing and I can actually feel a certain crispness in the air telling me that fall is here. Our short-lived summer season was nice while it lasted, but  its about time for the cooler weather to return to Oregon. Being the true Northwestern-er that I am, I am not entirely upset about the coming cool weather, and in fact I almost welcome it with open arms (as long as the rain holds off for another month or two). The fall has to be my favorite season out of the year. The weather is perfect as long as it stays dry, its football season, and the food is what puts the nail in the coffin. There is honestly nothing better than a warm meal on a cool night. You will probably notice an increase in posts during the next couple of months.

Today it's not cold out, but just cool enough and just grey enough for me to want to sit inside with a bowl of soup and grilled cheese watching HGTV in my sweat pants all day. These grilled cheese rolls are something I found on Pintrest. They are super easy to make and not fancy or gourmet by any means. They are just a fun spin on regular grilled cheese and good for kids...or 22 year old's who think they are still kids...

First thing is first, cut the crust off of a couple pieces of bread. I just used a soft wheat bread for mine.

Next, use a rolling pin (or a wine bottle if you don't have a rolling pin) to flatten the bread out. Then stick a slice of American cheese on each piece of bread. Yes, this cheese is gross, and it feels like plastic, but we all know it makes the best grilled cheese.

Roll them up tightly and they are ready to go into the pan. I just used a small frying pan with a little melted butter. Hold the roll in place for a few minutes until the edge is sealed and then roll it around to make sure it cooks all the way around.

Meanwhile I was heating a can of Progresso chunky tomato soup on the stove, and just like that I had an entire meal. Like I said, super easy to make, but fun to eat and the sticks are perfect for dipping in the soup! By the time I got around to making these the clouds had burned off and it had warmed up to almost 80 degrees. But thanks to my air conditioning I was still convinced that it was cool enough out to eat soup and sandwiches. I may be rushing into fall a little bit, but Safeway has Halloween candy for sale already, so it looks like I'm not the only one!

Summer Fruit Tart

Now that August is just about over, I'll go ahead and post my first entry of the month. I'd like to say that my posting consistency will improve once the fall comes along, but I can't make any promises. Rather than blogging I've been spending my time doing way more important things, like watching TV. It was the TV however that gave me inspiration for this post, so I guess it was a rather important activity after all. While Kyle and I were watching this week's episode of "Masterchef" we watched the creation of fresh fruit tarts during a head to head elimination challenge between contestants. (Kyle is my boyfriend for any who may be reading and wondering who he might be.) Kyle mentioned that he would like to try one of those fruit tarts some time, so I took that as an opportunity to challenge myself...and maybe earn a few brownie points in the process. Plus, I needed something to blog about again anyway. I wanted to find the most authentic and homemade version of the fruit tart I could. I looked through many recipes, sifting through "shortcut crust" and "vanilla pudding filling" and finally landed on a Fresh Fruit Tart recipe from Oprah's website. The shell is a legitimate pastry crust and the filling is a smooth homemade custard, or pastry cream. I had my work cut out for myself.

I started with the crust because it was going to need to chill for about an hour while I worked on the cream. One of the first instructions told me to use a food processor to cut the butter and cold water into the dry ingredients. Since I don't own a food processor, I listened to my semi-pro baker little sister who told me to use a blender instead. I wasn't sure if that was a great idea at the time, and in retrospect I'm positive that wasn't the best idea but I made it work. After the dough chilled I ended up with a pretty crumbly mess on my hands, in which I had to perform some Texas Chainsaw Massacre-like surgery on it. I pieced it together in the pan and ended up with a semi-descent looking crust by the time it was ready to go in the oven. The first 5 minutes of baking were supposed to include pie weights to ensure that the crust stayed in place. I used poor man's pie weights, which were dry kidney beans on top of parchment paper and that worked just find. After removing the beans, I stuck it back in for 20 minutes until I had a nice golden crust that didn't glorify my patch-work as much as I was afraid of.

Cooling inside the pan

While the crust was cooling, I started to work on my pastry cream. This is the second time now that I've made a pastry cream for the sake of my blog. I think that this time it turned out better, as I experienced more scorching last time. I also used a different recipe that I will probably stick to from here on out (omitting the cognac). I was supposed to strain it through a sieve, but I don't have one of those and there weren't any lumps that I could see so I put it straight in the fridge to cool.

Filled crust, still in the pan

All of the recipes that I read regarding fruit tarts showed the crust removed from the pan before they start filling it and assembling the fruit. While consulting my mom, the expert on most things food, she told me to leave it in the pan during the filling process. Since mom usually always knows best, that's what I did. I was afraid it was going to be too heavy and create a problem for me removing it from the pan after it was complete, but it didn't. Thanks mom.

Fully assembled, still in the pan

Here it is fully assembled. I chose to use strawberries, peaches, kiwis and blueberries because I wanted a good contrast between the colors. And since I was making this for Kyle in the first place, I chose fruits that I knew he liked. Besides blueberries, but that's why I put those in the middle, so he could avoid them if he wanted. Overall, I think that it turned out pretty well. After the crust mishap in the beginning I wasn't sure which direction this fruit tart was headed, but I can say that I was pretty proud of the outcome. For the record, Kyle ate almost the entire thing in one sitting, and brownie points were received. In the words of Gordon Ramsay, this was "the most stunning fruit tart!"