Grownup Grilled Cheese with Carmelized Onions

Bonjour! Honestly, the French do grilled cheese better than just about everybody, and I did not quite wear a beret when I made this, but I was thinking as if I were wearing a Beret shaped thinking cap. I personally am not so enamored of the French but my inner self likes hosiery, red lipstick and mystique so perhaps I am more of a Francophile-who-has-not-ever-been-to-France than I think. My specific nutritional requirements mean that sometimes I forgo eating carbs over things my body needs. This being said, despite French Toast and eating bread with my meal the night before, I was left with a good sized loaf left of my “Soft Italian Bread” I baked in the previously posted recipe.

When scrolling the internet I had seen a recipe for grilled cheese with carmelized onions and I combined my favorite grilled cheese recipe to include these onions, and some Je ne c’est quoi. Honestly, I hesitate using this phrase because I do know- I added my some self love, G rated self love. Carmelizing the onions takes very little butter, a little bit of time, some positive thought aimed directly at the skillet and it makes the sandwich taste EXPENSIVE. Toasting the bread on both sides does not mean the cheese melted, especially if it came from the fridge and the apples are cold. Let it cook until the cheese to melts because nobody but nobody gets to see the wizard with an underdone grilled cheese. You could use honey mustard or deli mustard (what we call brown mustard in NY)), but use something! I should have sliced the apples more thinly and I might in the future put them in the pan for a minute (or 2) with the onions, but I love the crunchiness and sweetness they add, regardless.

Growing up, last night’s Sunday dinner London broil was tonight’s beef and broccoli stir fry, so I have become a frugal person who dislikes wasting, well, pretty much everything. At my boarding school we had, every week, something called “Cookie Surprise” which was named after the chef Cookie and served with an ice cream scoop; it was always edible, usually good, and had a revolving recipe because it included the leftovers from the previous week’s meals. Before I started using reusable bags, I reused baggies and today I only use them for freezing chicken breasts individually. Yeah, I still baggies infrequently and it hurts mys soul; I am on the hunt for compostable baggies with very little success. My grandparents had money to buy Tupperware but their leftovers were always stored in an array of cottage cheese containers and empty ice cream plastic gallon cartons from the storied local dairy. Tin foil, when I use it, I wipe off and save. There is no embarrassment felt by me when I save a gift bag, even when it is recognized by the original giver. This thinking started with my parents, whose behavior started with theirs and I realize which might have started in this chain with frugality, has truly impacted my commitment to sustainability.

This current situation has been a call for many of us to look to people who came before us and how they survived and managed to thrive in uncertainty and scarcity. I am not in the city I have loved my whole life, but even in the sm city I live in up the Hudson River, a place I also deeply love, people are walking around scared and sad; sometimes you can read their expressions, even through their face masks. We had become a society of people who were unlimited in purchasing power and bought whatever we wanted given we had money and it was carried on Amazon. Suddenly our favorite yogurt has not been stocked for weeks, we can’t buy as much water as we want, and the only people with guaranteed eggs are people with established food shares or chickens. I have in my life had spectacular reversals of finances, so I know what it is to have to look at food and finances in a way you hadn’t, pretty much over night. Not ever before have I tried to buy beans with money in my pocket and there were no beans to buy. We can learn now we can make it through with what we have and learn lessons about how in the future we can make purchasing more mindful and more respectful of both the environment and each other. In so many places rationing and scarcity are daily realities and perhaps we will be more compassionate of people in these places as we move forward with a communal understanding of what it is to need, and not be certain your needs will be met. Needing, the act of being hungry or cold or thirsty or sad with no immediate resolution, makes, speaking as somebody who has had unmet needs unexpectedly, a person truly know what you physically do need. It gives you greater understanding of this: having your needs go unacknowledged is harder than having them go unmet, and this realization unavoidably leads to more compassion for the people in this world whose pain and yearning are so inconvenient they are punished with silence.

This being said I am stretching my loaf, as an exercise in discipline and a way of honoring food in the ways I was raised to. I have hot dog buns and tortillas in my kitchen, but I tried while I had this bread in my house, to think as if it truly mattered to use all of it. This recipe proves you can see the worth in your food, use it mindfully and not scrimp on satisfaction or enjoyment.

Add a tbls (or so) of butter to your medium skillet and then add your tHinly sliced onions. Add a sprinkling of salt and a smidge of granulated sugar, and cook on medium low until carMelizEd and aromatic.

Off a crusty loaf (I used the day old loaf previously featured in this blog) cut two healthy slices, not thick but substantial. Dress the bread with mustard (I used Dijon). Layer thinly sliced apples, carmelized onions. and then place over the onions Thin slices of jarlseburg, brie, Swiss or cheddar cheese. Place the top on and lightly butter the top.

With the lAyer of cheese, try and thinly slice.

Place the sandwich, unbuttered bottom side down, in the same pan and cook on medium low. When it has browned, turn the sandwich over and keep it browning until the cheese has melted.