Three-Cheese Gourmet Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Sometimes it's difficult to come up with a different dinner idea every night of the week. Especially as I have been working harder than usual at work lately, and the bf has been working late almost every night. And just because I'm feeling tired doesn't mean I want to eat boring food.

All I can say is thank the baby Jesus for my grill pan and food processor! These two kitchen items have really made making quick, tasty dinners a lot easier this year. I present to you, an out-of-this-world-tasty grilled cheese sandwich that is wonderful grilled with a grill pan, but can also be cooked in a regular frypan. The mushroom gives it a smoky, meaty flavour and texture, and the three cheeses' powers combine to make this probably the best grilled cheese sandwich I have ever made! Serve with a lazy can of condensed tomato soup.

Ingredients to make two sandwiches:

• 4 slices of bread
• 1 large portobello mushroom, thinly sliced
• 1/2 a red onion, sliced
• 1 tomato, sliced
• handful of spinach
• 2 tbsp pinenuts
• wholegrain mustard
• dijon mustard
• horseradish (the kind from a jar)
• salt
• pepper
• Nuttelex

Cheeses:

• Tofutti mozzarella slices
• Cheezly blue cheese 
• Sheese smoked cheddar

First, slice your portobello mushroom as thinly as you can. Spread your grill pan with melted Nuttelex and cook the mushrooms until they look cooked - basically when they have a darker colour and are no longer dry - grill marks are not necessary. Whilst your mushrooms are cooking, toast your pinenuts in the same pan.

Layer your sandwich like this:

slice of bread
dijon mustard
horseradish
Tofutti slice, cut into four sections
bleu cheese spread out in between the pieces of Tofutti
spinach
tomato
portobello mushroom slices
red onion
pine nuts
thinly sliced smoked cheddar
other slice of bread spread with wholegrain mustard

Spread the top of the top slice of bread with Nuttelex and melt some more Nuttelex in the grill pan. Grill the sandwich on low until the bottom layer of cheese is melty. Salt and pepper the top then flip your sandwich and continue to grill until all the cheese is melty. Salt and pepper again and serve hot! You'll win over vegans and omnis alike.

Easy Pita Pizza

Today was such a nice day I couldn't be bothered spending heaps of time making dinner. I was even going to be so lazy as not to post anything when I'd planned to, but I decided that I have time, in between cocktail-drinking and karaoke-practicing, to do a quick post. (For my next karaoke outing I'm trying to decide between four Heart songs. If you have a suggestion as to the best Heart song for a karaoke setting, I'd love to hear it...)

Anyway, this is the easiest pizza ever. The recipe goes: Pita bread + sauce from a bottle + toppings + oven. Nom! For my toppings, I went with roasted pumpkin (okay, so I'm not that lazy, I did roast the pumpkin myself...but I chose it from the supermarket based on it being the easiest piece to cut!), mushroom, semi-dried tomatoes, pine nuts, Sheese (blue and mozzarella) and some chopped rosemary from the garden. Oh, and some cracked pepper and sea salt on top.

Before and after shots:

Addictive Breaded Mushrooms with Horseradish Sauce

A couple of weeks ago, at around seven in the morning, I received a text message from my auntie (who lives in the US) that went something like this: "OMG I just made vegan fried portobellos! Fattening but incredible, SOO GOOD! Call me for the recipe!" And call her I did. Now I am addicted! The good thing about this recipe is that it is oh-so-simple, customisable and SOO SOO GOOD!

       Ingredients for the mushrooms:

• Your choice of mushrooms, as many as you can eat in one sitting (you should eat them straight after cooking)
• Oil for frying
• Plain flour
• Breadcrumbs (I get mine for $1.80 a bag from La Panella)
• Egg Replacer (I use Orgran's No Egg)
• Salt / pepper / onion powder / nutritional yeast / garlic salt to taste

       Ingredients for the sauce:

• 1/2 cup mayo (I use Kingland brand)
• 1 1/2 tbsp of prepared horseradish
• 3/4 tbsp of dijon mustard
• salt and white pepper

First, make the sauce by mixing all the ingredients together and adjust to suit your taste. Set aside in the fridge.

Next, set up three bowls - one with about a cup of flour, or enough to coat your mushrooms, and the second with about double the amount of breadcrumbs. (Salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, onion or garlic powder can be added to the breadcrumbs to give the breading extra flavour.) Mix up a few eggs' worth of egg replacer and put that in a small bowl or cup, deep enough to fully submerge the mushrooms.

For the mushrooms - if you used the cheapo white mushrooms, they can be kept whole or quartered, depending on how big they are. Portobellos or Swiss Browns should be sliced about 1/2" thick.

To bread the mushrooms:

1.) Fully submerge mushroom in egg replacer
2.) Transfer to flour bowl and coat in flour
3.) Submerge mushroom again in egg replacer
4.) Transfer mushrooms to breadcrumbs, cover in breadcrumbs and press them into the mushroom.
5.) Move breaded mushroom to a plate, ready for frying

Bread all of your mushrooms, then heat up your oil. You can deep fry, or, if you're short on oil, shallow-fry. (I shallow-fry 'cos I'm cheap!) Fry the mushrooms until they are a crisp
golden-brown and fish them out with a fork or slotted spoon. The mushrooms should then be transferred to a plate lined with paper towel, to mop up excess oil. Sprinkle with garlic salt if you have some, otherwise just some salt flakes.)

Serve with the sauce and eat straight away!