DAY 1- Carrot potato soup and stuffed grilled cheese sandwich

Day one -“The Week Of Eating In Challenge”

This is the challenge offered by Huffington Post to make a pledge to eat in for a whole week. No restaurants, but lots of fun. It starts Monday February 22 and goes to Sunday February 28. I hope you can join me in taking this challenge.You can sign up to do the pledge by just following the link above.

To help you out with this, I will be posting short blogs with a delicious and simple recipe everyday of this weeklong challenge.

So for my first recipe, I have one of my favorite comfort foods, soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Growing up my mom always made this wonderful carrot potato soup. It was simple, tasty, and very comforting. Along with that I would have a grilled cheese sandwich. 

As a young child, I had a bit of confusion in the word grilled cheese sandwich. Thinking that since it was my favorite sandwich and I was a ‘girl”, for the longest time I called it a “girled” cheese sandwich. And to this day, I still slip up once in a while and out pops a request for a “girled” cheese please.

So for today’s recipes, I offer you the carrot potato soup and a stuffed grilled cheese sandwich (a bit more of a gourmet and grown up grilled cheese). Hope you enjoy them.

Carrot potato soup with a stuffed grilled cheese sandwich

SOUP

Ingredients

• 2 T butter or olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 c peeled and thinly sliced potatoes
• 3 c grated carrots
• 5 c vegetable or chicken broth
• 1 bay leaf
• salt and pepper
• ¼ c finely chopped parsley or tarragon (optional)

           

Directions

1. Sauté onions in butter or oil until tender over medium heat in pot.

2. Add carrots, potatoes, and bay leaf. Sauté for 2-3 minutes.

3. Add in broth, just enough to cover the vegetables in the pot.

4. Bring to a boil. Then turn heat down to simmer.

5. Simmer, uncovered, until vegetables are tender, about 20-25 minutes.

6. Discard bay leaf and puree soup.

7. Season with salt& pepper.

8. Stir in chopped parsley or tarragon just before serving (optional).

THE SANDWICH

Basically for a grilled cheese sandwich you will need your favorite bread.  I used a rustic Italian loaf for mine. 

Then the most important part is the cheese. Any variety of melting cheese that is sliced will work. For mine I used a sharp cheddar and Gouda cheese.

Then you need ingredients to “stuff” your grilled cheese with.  I used sliced tomatoes and spinach in mine. Some other ideas to put into your sandwich are: pesto, bacon, roasted peppers, sautéed mushrooms, chopped herbs, caramelized onions, you name it.

You can get very creative with your stuffed grilled cheese sandwich.

Then you butter the outside pieces of your bread. Put one buttered slice down in a pan or Panini grill. Layer with cheeses and “stuffing ingredients. Cook on a medium flame till brown and crispy on both sides. Or put the Panini press down and cook till lovely grill marks emerge and the cheese is all gooey and delicious.

Slice the sandwich and serve with a nice hot bowl of the carrot potato soup and lots of love.

Tomorrow look for another blog post and recipe for Day Two of “The Week Of Eating In Challenge”.

Till then live, love and eat some fantastic food.