Forty for 40: #3 - Family Dinners...Bread + Cheese + Your Pantry = Easy, Delicious "Gourmet" Grilled Cheese

I know the time is fleeting for us to have sit down family dinners on a regular basis. Heck, (most)Ms, Ts, Ws, THs are already shot right now and it's not even due to the kids' schedules! It's only going to get worse.  But, I do love to cook, so I'm taking advantage of the times we do get to sit down together.  Here's how we threw together a fun night of cooking together...

A Ctown culinary favorite is Melt Bar and Grilled, which married outrageous combinations in grilled cheese sandwiches and great craft brews.  It's packed every lunch and dinner.  Why? Because they take the basic, American favorite and give it spectacular grown-up twists! I DARE you to find someone who doesn't LOVE grilled cheese!

So, I was struggling to find something for dinner last week because it was a "use all the frozen leftovers" week and frankly, we were sick of soup.  (Man, did I make A LOT of soup this winter!!) I bought a really fresh loaf of tuscany bread and some apricot preserves at Whole Foods earlier in the day and it served as the inspiration for GOURMET GRILLED CHEESE night!  So simple and sooooo good!

Here's what we dug out of the cupboards and fridge. Everybody picked their own ingredients!

Mom's Sandwich

Some of the basics from our pantry and fridge.
I love the cheese variety pack from
Costco! It's perfect for any kind of sandwich
and has a wonderful variety.

*inspired by my favorite brie party recipe*
-sliced brie cheese
-apricot preserves
-balsamic vinegar

Slice the brie into bite size slices and place on one of the bread pieces.  Spread apricot preserves on the other slice and drizzle the balsamic vinegar over the apricots.  Put sandwich together and grill.  A pleasant surprise was the caramelization of the vinegar on the outside of the bread. YUMMY!!!!


Dad's Sandwich
*simple yet tasty*
-Sweet Red Pepper Jelly
-Cheddar and Gouda slices




Sweet Pea's Sandwich
*my veggie loving girl*
-mashed avocado
-sliced cherry tomatoes
-bacon
-sliced gouda
My little girl CANNOT get enough avocado! I love it!!!



Monkey's Sandwich
*inspired by the classic*
-bacon
-tomato
-swiss

Clearly not as completely outrageous as "The Parmageddon", but a step up from American cheese and tomato soup.  Open your cupboards, think about your favorite taste combos and fire up the frying pan!

Forty for 40: #2 - My Youth

Hey Ladies of the '80s, a show
of hands who had this poster hanging
on their bedroom wall?! (ME!)

There was a LOT of reminiscing going on a few weeks ago.  #TBT (throw-back Thursday) was a week-long celebration. Why you ask? One simple, gorgeous and rockin' reason - BON JOVI!  I saw them in concert at Quicken Loans Arena on March 9th .  They were my first full-on MANIA band.  I remember having a complete meltdown in seventh grade because my Walkman (um, yeah - remember those things? If not, google it)  broke and my dad took it to work to give to an engineer to fix. He took it without taking my cassette of  "Slippery When Wet" out first.  The Walkman was gone for week, and you would've thought someone performed a lobotomy on me by the way I languished around the house.

Ah. Teenagers...Middle Schoolers...can't wait to experience those years from the parent side.

yeah.
can't wait.

But Jon and the Boys got me thinking about my days growing up and how much I LOVED my adolescence.  I wouldn't have changed anything about those days in my neighborhood and my schools.  I am an only child, but never felt like one. I had 10+ kids living on my block, all within +/- 4 years of my age.

It was amazing.

When we were little, the roaring of the Big Wheels signaled the start of the day; up and down the driveways all morning long. As we got older, summers were spent kicking the can, painting bases on the street and sidewalks for wiffle ball and kickball, waking up and heading straight into the pool until lunch and then back in until dinner - unless we had softball or baseball games that night. We played tennis in the turn-around behind our houses and tackle football in the field next to it.  We rode our bikes anywhere and everywhere. I could easily ride to my grandparents' house on the other side of the city, a good 20 minutes over major streets, and my mom wouldn't give it a second thought. We played in our neighbors' yards without fear of being yelled at, walked up to Southgate on a regular basis to grab an ice cream cone or to shop, or down to Henry's Bi-Rite for some candy or to run a grocery errand for Mom.  The neighborhood memories are endless.

Same can be said for school.  I loved school - obviously enough to become a teacher ;-) If I could go back and do it all again; from elementary all the way through to high school, I wouldn't change a thing. Not that it was all rainbows and unicorns, but knowing how some people are absolutely miserable through junior high and high school, I feel pretty lucky.

Now, if you ask me about college and my early 20s, it would be a different story. I guess I had my "angst" a little later in life.

I am hoping Sweet Pea and Monkey can look back as fondly on their youth some day. I will do everything in my power to provide the opportunities for them. But I think the most important thing I learned while thinking about this post, is some of the best things just happen....all by themselves.